Susan Stroman - Career

Career

Stroman's first big break as a choreographer came when director Scott Ellis hired her for his off-Broadway revival of Flora the Red Menace (music by John Kander and Fred Ebb) at the Vineyard Theatre in Greenwich Village in 1987. Her work there was seen by Hal Prince, who hired her to work on the dance sequences for his New York City Opera production of Don Giovanni. Her relationship with Kander and Ebb led to co-creating, with Ellis and David Thompson, the hit off broadway musical And the World Goes 'Round in 1991. She went on to choreograph Liza Stepping Out at Radio City Music Hall in 1992 where she was nominated for an Emmy award. She earned her third Broadway credit for her collaboration with director, and then-future husband, Mike Ockrent on Crazy for You in 1992. The show won the Tony Award for Best Musical and she won her first Tony Award for Best Choreography.

In 1994, Stroman won her second Tony Award when she collaborated with Prince on a revival of Show Boat, where she unleashed some of her most innovative ideas. She added several dance montages to the show, complete with a revolving door, to help guide the audience through the generations that are covered in the show. Stroman heavily researched the period in which the show takes place and learned African-Americans are credited for inventing the Charleston. She used that information in designing the montages, as the popular dance is introduced by and eventually appropriated from the black characters. In 1994, Stroman collaborated again with her husband, Mike Ockrent on the Holiday Spectacular A Christmas Carol at Madison Square Garden, which ran for 10 years, and the Broadway show Big, The Musical (1996). She returned to her collaboration with Kander and Ebb, Ellis and Thompson on the Broadway show Steel Pier (1997). In 1999, her choreography of Oklahoma!, directed by Trevor Nunn at The Royal National Theater, won Stroman her second Olivier Award for her outstanding choreography. Her husband Mike Ockrent lost his battle with leukemia on December 2, 1999.

She immersed herself in her work and directed and choreographed her first Broadway show as director, the 2000 revival of The Music Man. At the same time, Stroman was approached by Lincoln Center Theater's artistic director Andre Bishop, who offered her assistance in developing the project of her choice. She and John Weidman, who had written the book for Big, began working on what would become the three-part "dance play" Contact, which she choreographed as well as directed. The show opened at Lincoln Center's Mitzi Newhouse Theater in the fall of 1999, and later transferred to the larger Vivian Beaumont Theater, where it was reclassified as a musical. It won the 2000 Tony Award for Best Musical. Stroman won her third Tony Award for best choreography. Contact went on to win the 2003 Emmy Award. For Lincoln Center Theater, Stroman went on to direct and choreograph Thou Shalt Not (2001) with music by Harry Connick Jr. and The Frogs (2004) with book by Nathan Lane. Stroman received the American Choreography Award for her work in Columbia Pictures Feature film Center Stage (2000). In 2001, Stroman directed and choreographed Mel Brooks' musical The Producers. Stroman's late husband, Ockrent, had initially been named to direct. It was a commercial success and won a record twelve Tony Awards. Stroman won her fourth and fifth Tony Award for Direction and choreography. She was the first woman to ever win in these two categories at the same time. In 2005, she made her directorial debut as a feature filmmaker with a film adaptation of the show. The movie was nominated for four Golden Globe Awards. In 2007, she collaborated with Brooks again, as director and choreographer of the musical Young Frankenstein. She is both director and choreographer of the musical Happiness, which has a book by John Weidman. The musical opened in 2009 at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater at Lincoln Center.

The musical The Scottsboro Boys opened at the Vineyard Theatre in February 2010. The music is by Kander and Ebb and the book is by David Thompson; Stroman both directed and choreographed. The show later transferred to Broadway at the Lyceum Theatre for a 49-performance run.

She co-directed a new musical Paradise Found with Hal Prince, which premiered at the Menier Chocolate Factory (London) on May 19, 2010. The original plan was to open on Broadway, which has not happened as of June 2012. The cast starred Mandy Patinkin, Judy Kaye and Shuler Hensley.

Stroman is the director and choreographer of a new musical, Big Fish with songs by Andrew Lippa and the book by John August, to be workshopped in March–April 2012. Big Fish is aiming for an opening in 2013. Additionally, she is working on a musical version of the Woody Allen film Bullets Over Broadway, aiming for the 2013-14 Broadway season, and Prince of Broadway, for the Fall of 2013.