‘Broadway’-Bound Tony Roberts Putting on His Dancin’ Shoes

Tony Roberts is having trouble with his shoes. They’re custom-made dance slippers--”terrific,” Roberts describes them as--except that he hasn’t found his balance in them yet. Maybe that’s why his soft-shoe shuffle is a little rusty.

Or maybe it’s the unfamiliar floor of the Shubert Theater, where Roberts will star in “Jerome Robbins’ Broadway,” fresh from its run in New York, with previews beginning Tuesday. Or maybe, just maybe, it’s that this is the first time Roberts, who has acted in several Woody Allen films and numerous Broadway plays, has ever danced on stage. And even though he’s been in the show for eight months, “I’m not a natural dancer,” he says. “I’m scared of dancing.”

Ironically, “Jerome Robbins Broadway” is nothing less than a celebration of the work of one of theater’s premier choreographers. Spanning the two decades between 1944 and 1964, the show plays like a best-of collection of dance numbers from Robbins musicals like “Fiddler on the Roof” and “West Side Story.” There’s dancing. Lots of it.

“I really couldn’t prepare for it,” Roberts says of his part--he serves as a sort of host, tying the numbers to each other. “I can learn lines easily because I know how to connect them in my head and make sentences. But I wasn’t going to suddenly become a dancer.

“I’m impressed at the commitment of the dancers (in the show),” Roberts continues. “I’ve watched the ‘West Side Story’ numbers in the wings dozens of times, and I still gasp.”

That gasp is what’s so special about “Jerome Robbins Broadway,” worth, for Roberts, all his hours of dance practice. He calls the show a tribute to an era of theater fast becoming extinct.

“Today, most musicals are kind of fantastical,” he says. “But (Robbins’ musicals) are stories about real people, heightened by singing and dancing.”