La Nueva Gestión Pública (NGP)

May 2008

“you vacuumed!” exclaimed donna mckechnie with an admonishing laugh. She had told me not to clean for her, but in all the years I’ve been conducting interviews, never had a subject come to my home before. Of course, I vacuumed. I had to do something and I couldn’t buy her any food since McKechnie’s diet is a careful one. In the early ’80s, she suff ered agoniz-ing, debilitating rheumatoid arthritis. She was told she would never walk again, let alone dance. McKechnie rejected the prognosis and through a combination of diet and therapy (both physical and psycho-), slowly restored her health. But I wasn’t about to buy food for a woman whose very mobility is infl uenced by her diet. So the least I could do was clean. I needn’t have worried about taking care of her. McKechnie sailed in to my home looking self-assured and radiant with a black iced coff ee and a sandwich. Although she arrived directly from dance class (something she attends fi ve times a week), McKechnie was freshly made up and stylishly springy, conveying warmth, confi dence and an easy grace. “I used to live right there!” she said, pointing out my window to a building directly across the way. “In a ground fl oor sublet.” Not surprising, as McKechnie has lived everywhere in the fi fty years since she came to New York to dance at the advanced age of fi fteen. In the grand tradition of the Broadway gypsy, McKech-nie has had a new apartment almost every time she had a new show. And there were lots of them. She saves everything, which doesn’t make moving easy. But at the time of our meeting, she and her sister were preparing for a massive garage sale, just to purge. “I have too much,”

she confessed. “I got rid of a hundred books and my shelves still looked completely full!” This, too, was no surprise. Because even though McKechnie makes much of never having graduated from high school, she is clearly quite well read, intelligent, and very intuitive.

Donna McKechnie was born in Pontiac, Michigan, in 1942. Like the character of Sheila in A Chorus Line , as a child she saw The Red Shoes and knew instantly that she had to dance. Like A Chorus Line ’s Maggie, her parents were not particularly well matched and her father wasn’t particularly supportive of her performing. Her mother was, though, making sacrifi ces so that McKechnie could attend ballet class starting from the age of fi ve. Her move to New York paid off almost instantaneously when McKechnie was cast in the original company of the smash hit musical How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying , where she encountered lifelong idols Bob Fosse and Gwen Verdon. Subsequent shows included tours of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and Call Me Madam , the short-lived The Education of H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N , and then her breakout in Promises, Promises in which her Act 1 closer, “Turkey Lurkey Time,” stopped the show cold. After taking Promises to London, she came back to Broadway in another smash, Company .

Promises and Company were both choreographed by Michael Bennett, who had danced with McKechnie on the television series Hullabaloo during the mid-’60s. It was he who con-ceived of one of Broadway’s greatest masterpieces, A Chorus Line . The legendary workshop-ping sessions, of which McKechnie was a part, had him gathering dancers to tell the stories that ultimately became the basis for the show. McKechnie’s portrayal of Cassie won her a Tony Award and made her a star. At the height of A Chorus Line ’s popularity, McKechnie and Bennett were married. The marriage ended quickly and with it, their collaboration. But McKechnie continued playing Cassie around the world for years, including a triumphant return to the

As the title character in the national tour of Sweet Charity , Bob Fosse’s fi nal production. (Photofest)

donna mckechnie 59 Broadway production in 1986. Immediately

after, she headlined the national tour of Sweet Charity , directed by Bob Fosse and coached by Gwen Verdon in what would be Fosse’s fi nal production. Her subsequent shows have played Broadway ( State Fair ), the West End ( Can-Can ), off -Broadway ( Cut the Ribbons , Annie Warbucks ), regional theatre ( Gypsy , Ten Cents a Dance, The Glass Menag-erie , and two separate, acclaimed produc-tions of Follies ), and most notably, tours of her autobiographical shows, Inside the Music and My Musical Comedy Life .

In 2007, McKechnie published her auto-biography, Time Steps . The book is striking in its honesty. What Time Steps doesn’t capture, however, is the pure, unadulterated joy McK-echnie gets from performing. It has to be seen to be truly understood.

A few weeks after the conversation that follows, I saw McKechnie in a late-night turn to promote Time Steps at New York’s venerable gay bar, Splash. On a stage barely big enough for McKechnie, her keyboardist, and her water bottle, she belted out “Turkey Lurkey Time”

and A Chorus Line’ s “The Music and the Mirror,” among others. Even in such a con-fi ned space, she was unmistakably a dancer. A

pop of the head, a hip undulation, and a reach of her arms were enough to send the crowd into a state of prolonged hysteria, none of it gratuitous. Even with the limitations of space, McKechnie, at sixty-six years old, sold those moves, which were created for her instrument, like no one else.

Afterward, dripping with sweat, she asked me if I thought it was “okay,” but her incandescent smile made it clear that she knew that she was more than okay. She was untouchable.

In your book you were very candid about the life of a gypsy in New York .

Well, I was a dancer growing up in New York, independent and on her own. You don’t have any money. You never have any money. I didn’t. Because even though you’re working on Broadway—I started on Broadway when we were making $165 a week. I loved the fact that I could support myself, but it all went to lessons. Thank goodness I had that wherewithal. Sub-letting was the only way to do it. And you had roommates. I wasn’t alone. We just went from sublet to sublet and survived.

I think that people who aren’t in the business have the perception that that kind of lifestyle exists when you’re twenty or twenty-two. But the reality is that even after you’ve “made it,”

you’re still going from job to job and sublet to sublet .

Well, that’s how I was able to live in New York. It’s what you do. But I really liked that lifestyle. I really enjoyed it. And I still do. But it really makes a diff erence to have your own home, and I’m lucky to have that now.

Donna McKechnie Promises, Promises , Broadway and West

End, 1968

You grew up outside of Detroit and you came to New York at the mature age of fi fteen . Yeah. I do master classes all over the country and I use my story as a cautionary tale. I suff ered many years from tearing myself away from my family that young. I did something really good for myself in a way, but I wasn’t mature enough to take responsibility for it. I took a lot of baggage that I didn’t need. I had a lot of emotional pain and guilt.

I imagine that for students hearing you, it’s hard to really accept your story as a cautionary tale. Because while what you say was true for you, it’s also true that you were working almost immediately after you got here .

That was lucky. I say to them, “Don’t be so quick to come to New York. It will be here. But in the meantime, there are a lot of great teachers all over the country. Make sure that when you do come here, you know how to sing and act.”

In your case, your parents really didn’t want you to go, but you knew you had to be here?

Well, I didn’t so much need to be in New York as much as I had an opportunity. Someone off ered me a job. I don’t think I would’ve done it without that. I had the opportunity to work and get a paycheck, and I thought it would be my way out.

That sounds so much like Sheila in A Chorus Line [who says she started dancing to get out of her childhood home]. It’s been said that Cassie is based on you, but really, all three women who sing “At the Ballet,” Bebe, Sheila, and Maggie, are also all somewhat based on you .

And Judy Turner.

It’s interesting, the boxes people want you to be in .

Cassie is actually the most fi ctionalized of the characters but people don’t want to believe it. It was all manufactured. But I got really tired of trying to explain it that way. So I started saying, “Yeah, it’s the truth, yeah, yeah, yeah.” That musical has so much signifi cance for so many people, I’m not going to take away from something that moves them.

Going back to your earlier years, you ended up in theater sort of by accident. You were trained as a ballet dancer .

I was one of those little ballerina girls. Kind of precious. Musical theater was not consid-ered art. I don’t know where I got that idea. I got my Equity card at the Cass Theater in Detroit.

Betty White came in and did Anna in The King and I . I did Bittersweet with Jeanette MacDon-ald. I thought it was great fun, but it was almost like a guilty pleasure. When I came to New York, musical theater wasn’t as artistic in my mind. But, [in 1961] when I started working on How to Succeed . . . with those giants, I knew right away that it really was great. And I was very lucky. Even as a silly teenager, I knew that I was into something wonderful and I could learn something. That’s when I turned around and went, “I have to really learn how to do this well, because this is great work.”

It’s amazing that you knew that. You were in the presence of Bob Fosse and Gwen Verdon and [producer] Cy Feuer and [composer] Frank Loesser and [director/librettist] Abe Burrows but still, I wonder how many seventeen-year-olds would have the presence of mind to know that they’re at the heart of something incredible .

I knew it. I loved the professionalism. I loved being with people like myself. It was a family that I took to. Although I’m sure I got on everyone’s nerves.

donna mckechnie 61 Why do you say that?

I just know I did. I was silly in some ways, I was so naïve. I had my initiation in the ladies dressing room—the girls dressing room, we called it. That was back when we had eight singing ladies and eight dancing ladies, and we all shared this one great big dressing room. I was really put to the test. I would be Chatty Cathy. I remember Mara Landi saying, “Would you shut the fuck up?” It terrifi ed me. But I was growing up. I was learning from everybody and taking it all in. I was trying to be part of it. Phil Friedman was our great stage manager, and he helped me.

I had to learn discipline. I had it as a dancer. But that was the fi rst show where I truly got it and understood collaboration. I learned that everybody works together. We all have these crazy personalities, but you keep it in check. I loved being part of that world. [ How to Succeed . . . ] turned me around, and I’m glad it was a hit. Because I was able to study acting and voice. With all my silliness, I do respect myself for being able to do the right thing and study.

In what ways were you silly?

I was the girl who couldn’t say “no.” I would make a date with two people and then I would try to get someone to get rid of one of them. One friend who sat next to me [in the dressing room], Silver Saundors, she would say, “What have you done today?” She was a big sister who would sit me down and tell me the ways of the world and how to behave. There was a lot of aff ection there but I think I got on her nerves.

That’s what any seventeen-year-old would have been doing. But you were never silly on-stage?

No no no. But I do remember Phil would come to me and say, “What are you doing to your shoes?” Because I was a really strong dancer and I used to go through shoes faster than any-one. They had to keep replacing the soles.

How did you end up getting the show?

I was picked to do the show by Cy Feuer. I didn’t even go to a dance call. That never hap-pened again. I thought that was the way you got in: you meet a nice producer, and he’d say,

“Why don’t you be in our show?” What did I know? The whole style of the show was an adjust-ment for me, but ballet gave me a great reference. Usually dancers with a classical background can make those transitions . . . . I shouldn’t say that because I can only speak for myself. But I think that classical training teaches you something so solid that you can take on other styles of dance. You have to learn how to turn everything in but the basic fundamental things that keep you strong so you don’t have injuries, you get those from ballet training. I see dancers who don’t have it. They have that great jazzy energy but they don’t have the ballet training so they don’t know that, for example, when they put their arms up their shoulders go up too. They’re not aware of how their muscles work and how everything has to stay open and up. They have their moves but they’re limited. If you have classical basic training you can adapt more easily.

After How to Succeed . . . , you went on tour as Philia in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and then in 1968 you did Call Me Madam with Ethel Merman .

Oh yeah, she was someone I admired. You know, I didn’t know at the time, but Ethel Jr., her daughter, had just committed suicide like three months earlier. Merman was in grief. She never toured, but Merman took this circuit, I think, to work, to escape her grief. It was great.

Every night she had people on their feet. She was really strict, standoffi sh. She’d go from the stage to the dressing room and not socialize. But when I was leaving to go do Promises, Promises ,

on my last night, she paid me this high compliment by trying to break me up onstage, which is something you would never see her do any other night. Someone explained to me that they used to do that in vaudeville; when someone would leave the fold to go onto another show that’s what you would do.

What was she doing?

Making funny sounds in her throat while we were speaking in our scene. Crossing her eyes. I didn’t know what was wrong. I thought she was having a stroke. I got it, eventually. A little late. She was saying to me, “job well done.” The fi rst day I met her, I was rehearsing. The director was so happy that I was a dancer because he could do “The Ocarina” number with the principal dancing instead of what it had been, with the chorus dancing around her. So I was learning that number and another number that I had and that’s when I met her. She came to the pavilion that we had outside of the theater. I see her sit down at the table with the director and I’m up there performing. I’m showing off a little because I’m so excited to be in the show with her. And I fi nish and she says, “Who did she fuck to get two dance numbers?”

Was that terrifying?

I just thought I’d better watch out. [After that] I was having a grand time, springing from show to show, and I thought that it always happens that way. It’s not that I took it for granted.

If I was out of work for a few weeks I would get desperate. I didn’t have a sense that that was the nature of it.

It’s even harder to be a gypsy and go from show to show now .

I think it is. And that’s how we learned. We would go from audition to audition. You’d go from [director/choreographer] Joe Layton to [director/choreographer] Michael Kidd. It was a way to learn diff erent styles. You know, when I fi rst came to New York, I did a show with Peggy Cass and she gave me some good advice. She said, “You’ve got to work with everybody you can, every choreographer. Learn their style, and they will keep hiring you.” She knew how to survive in this business. Thank God for Michael Bennett in my life. He really liked my style and he really liked the way his work looked on my body. Choreographers will fi nd dancers who can take their work and interpret it. They gather their instruments.

How would you defi ne his style?

Michael never had a real style. He worked with character and story. He had a lot of long lines and a lot of reaching as opposed to keeping energy right under you but he didn’t have a specifi c style.

Well, there certainly is a through-line from “Tick-Tock” [in Company ] to “Music and the Mirror,” don’t you think?

Right, but when you see his shows the dancing comes from the story and the characters and the psychology. I like to see that. I see it in new choreographers too, and it’s gratifying. I was talking to Mercedes Ellington [choreographer and granddaughter of Duke Ellington] about how, with AIDS, we lost a whole generation. In our business, you train people to pass it on.

And those people either become dance captains or choreographers or artists. It’s a living, breathing art form. We missed a whole bridging of a generation when we lost our choreogra-phers, directors, and dancers who had come up from show to show to show. You can never know, but I think it really hurt a whole generation. I said to Mercedes that you notice it when you go to the schools. The young dancers don’t know how to fi ll space. They don’t know about

donna mckechnie 63 momentum. They miss fundamentals like using their plié. Everything is up, up, up, not down,

down, down. We learned the ability to fi ll space and to travel, to build strength. I’m not seeing it now. I think it’s because of losing so many people who pass these techniques down.

There were many more auditions back then, weren’t there?

Well, shows didn’t run for years and years. You could run a season and be a hit. A couple of years was a long run. You can’t make the money back now unless you run longer.

Let’s go back to Promises, Promises , your fi rst show with Michael Bennett choreographing

Let’s go back to Promises, Promises , your fi rst show with Michael Bennett choreographing