Emmy nominee Dulé Hill, most recently on Broadway in After Midnight, performs “Fabulous Feet” from the 1983 Tony-nominated musical The Tap Dance Kid in the second installment of the Encores! Inside the Revival series above. The choreography was created and rehearsed via Zoom sessions with choreographer Jared Grimes.
The featurette about the forthcoming City Center Encores! production of The Tap Dance Kid also includes interviews with Tony winner Kenny Leon, who will direct, as well as book adapter Lydia Diamond and choreographer Grimes. The artists offer a behind-the-scenes look at the production, which centers around the life of an upper-middle-class Black family and a 10-year-old boy, who dreams of being a professional tap dancer despite the challenges posed by his lawyer father and society.
"The original artists gave us a great foundation," Leon says. "We have an amazing story about 'America can be the place for everybody, and every kid should dream.' And now we get to integrate contemporary Black artists. It has to have the mindset of a Lydia Diamond looking at it through the lense of 2020."
Dates and casting for The Tap Dance Kid will be announced at a later time.
Based on Louise Fitzhugh's novel Nobody's Family is Going to Change, The Tap Dance Kid has a book by Charles Blackwell, music by Henry Krieger, and lyrics by Robert Lorick.
The Encores! Inside the Revival digital series, which launched in October 2020, is produced in partnership with filmmaker Juan L. Espinal. Each episode examines a specific aspect of an artist’s approach to bringing the Encores! production back to life and provides historical context for the original Broadway productions. For more information visit NYCityCenter.org.
