SEE THOSE DANCING FEET...
...on 42nd STREET!
By Byron Toben
What a wonderful show this is! The Hudson Music Club, which staged the highly regarded The Drowsy Chaperone last year, has topped that with their rendition of this multiple award winning Broadway classic.
42nd Street originally began as a film gamble by Warner Brothers in 1933. Financially troubled despite their success as a film noir producer, they hired away Busby Berkely from MGM to produce some of the most kaleidoscopic over the top dance numbers for this backstage drama of Broadway musical types. Canadian born Ruby Keeler, recently married to Al Jolson, was hired to play Peggy Sawyer, a naïve chorus hopeful, who becomes a star. Ginger Rogers played Anytime Annie, a wisecracking chorine who befriends Peggy and the then newbie tenor, Dick Powell played Billy Lawlor, the male tenor.
