A Meaningful Step Back

Jeff Calhoun has choreographed and directed big Broadway musicals for much of the last decade, even earning a Tony nomination.

So why is his latest production, “Big River,” playing at the 65-seat Deaf West Theatre in North Hollywood?

Calhoun asked himself similar questions--”Has my career come to this? Musicals for the deaf?”--when offered the chance last year to direct Deaf West’s first musical in its 10-year history, “Oliver!”

At the time, he “was getting disillusioned doing work where it was just craft, where it wasn’t material that spoke to me,” he said. “There was so much pressure in being responsible for a $6-million budget that I just wanted to go into a black box somewhere and direct.”

Calhoun’s friends pointed out that Deaf West was offering him that opportunity, so he took on “Oliver!” The musical went on to win three Ovation Awards, L.A.’s top theater honor, last year, including best musical in a small theater and best director of a musical for Calhoun. He followed with this year’s musical, “Big River.”

“These have been by far the most fulfilling experiences of my career,” said Calhoun, sitting in the back row at Deaf West and surveying the “Big River” set. “They make me the most proud of my work.”

The fact is that until now, Calhoun hasn’t taken much personal pride in his accomplishments.

“For the whole first half of my career, my job was to make Tommy Tune look good,” he said, referring to a string of credits on such shows as “The Will Rogers Follies,” “Tommy Tune Tonite!,” “Grease” and “Busker Alley.”

“I learned so much, but I was in his shadow.”

Calhoun, now 41, was a 16-year-old budding tap dancer from Pittsburgh when he met Tune, the 6-foot-6 Texan who is one of American musical theater’s biggest stars. Calhoun’s tap teacher, who was choreographing an Ohio production that Tune and Ann Miller were in, brought Calhoun into the show.

“I learned very early it’s who you know,” Calhoun said.

After high school, Calhoun attended Northwestern University for a year, but then Tune invited him into the cast of a touring production of “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.”

“I’m not sure my grandmother, who had been excited about me being onstage with Ann Miller, ever quite appreciated me being in ‘The Best Little Whorehouse,”’ Calhoun said. The tour introduced him to L.A., where it played at the Pantages and Wilshire theaters.

Calhoun had promised his parents he would return to college after the tour. Instead, after 18 months, he settled in L.A. “to seek fame as a TV actor.”

He got a few jobs in film and television but not much fame. “I was awful,” he recalled. “It was so weird to be auditioning in carpeted offices instead of on wooden stages. I’m much too self-conscious to be an actor. I judge myself every second.”

He didn’t forsake the stage entirely--he played one of the brothers in the stage version of “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers,” which played in L.A. and then closed after only five performances on Broadway in 1982.

Soon Tune called again, arranging for Calhoun--who is almost as tall as Tune--to replace him for two weeks in the leading role of “My One and Only” on Broadway, opposite Twiggy. “I knew I might never get to take the final bow again on a Broadway stage,” Calhoun said. “So I pulled it off, and then I moved on. I know when to close doors. I’m a realist.”

Returning to L.A., he opened a new door--to choreography and directing. His choreography for “Bouncers,” a 1986 production at the Tiffany Theater about young British toughs, won him a Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle award. In retrospect, he notes, his work on “Bouncers”--what he considers his first original choreography--wasn’t for a musical. “I’m an actors’ choreographer, not a dancers’ choreographer,” he said.

He directed one of the first AIDS benefits in L.A., and in 1988 he staged a Hollywood Bowl program that featured a concert version of a new Maury Yeston musical, “Goya,” starring Placido Domingo. It was, Calhoun said, “a travesty, my first failure.” But he now recalls with renewed interest the show’s “big dramatic conflict, which was that Goya went deaf. It was supposed to be so heartbreaking--but it wasn’t as if he were a musician. He was a painter.”

Tune “would fly out and see everything I did,” Calhoun said. Finally, Tune said Calhoun was ready for the Big Apple and hired him as associate choreographer on “The Will Rogers Follies.” Tune, who also was directing, let Calhoun do enough of the work that Calhoun now says, “I choreographed that show.”

Repeated attempts to obtain comment from Tune were unsuccessful. But Patti D’Beck, who was the show’s dance captain, agreed that “Jeff really choreographed it.” She credited Tune with “strong, clear ideas” and for serving as an editor after the dances were created, but it was Calhoun who actually worked with the dancers in rehearsals, she said.

Calhoun said Tune told him that if he--Calhoun--was listed as the choreographer, it would take him another five years before he became a director. Looking back, Calhoun questions the logic of that argument, but “at the time, I had blind faith, blind loyalty” to Tune, he said. So he kept the associate choreographer title, while Tune was listed as the choreographer as well as the director--and then won Tony Awards for both.

At first, Calhoun said he regrets not having the choreographer credit for “Will Rogers Follies,” but then he said maybe that’s not true. Certainly the fact that he was even associated with Tony-winning choreography didn’t hurt. In fact, Calhoun said, “Tommy Tune’s choreography Tony for that show launched my career.”

However, Calhoun remained peripheral in the 1992 revue “Tommy Tune Tonite!,” which was Calhoun’s New York directing debut but was clearly dominated by its star.

Two years later, Calhoun was the credited director and choreographer of “Grease,” for which he garnered a Tony nomination. Tune did not appear in the show. Still, the show was billed as Tune’s production, and Tune was credited as production supervisor, even though it actually was produced by Barry and Fran Weissler.

“Not one critic appreciated what I did with that show,” Calhoun said. “People saw his name and didn’t go on reading.”

About the same time, Calhoun and Tune choreographed (and Tune co-directed) a “Whorehouse” sequel, “The Best Little Whorehouse Goes Public,” which closed after only 15 performances on Broadway. “It was ill-fated from the beginning,” Calhoun said.

The era of Tune-Calhoun collaborations finally collapsed a year later, with “Busker Alley,” also known at various times as “Buskers” and “Stage Door Charley” (which was the title when it played the Orange County Performing Arts Center in 1995).

The show was nearing the end of a bumpy pre-Broadway tour, with Calhoun as the director and choreographer, and Tune as the star. “I was nave,” Calhoun said. “I was thinking I was doing the show on my own terms.”

Near the end of a performance in Tampa, Fla., Tune broke his foot. For the rest of the Tampa run, three actors played Tune’s role: Tune did the dialogue, Calhoun danced and Tune’s understudy sang. To prepare the audience for this odd spectacle, and to ward off rumors that the broken foot was just a ruse, Calhoun addressed the audience before the show, showed them Tune’s X-ray, and said, “Welcome to ER, the musical.”

All of the effort was for naught--without Tune, the show went up in smoke and never reopened after Tampa.

The incident was followed by an estrangement between Tune and Calhoun, who hasn’t spoken to his mentor in six years, he said. Why? Calhoun said he doesn’t know the answer to that question.

Calhoun was devastated by the “Busker Alley” fiasco. “The phone didn’t ring for two years,” he said. He credits dancer Ann Reinking for helping him pull through by inviting him to speak at her musical theater school in Florida.

More recently, choreographer and director Graciela Daniele asked Calhoun to co-choreograph the “Annie Get Your Gun” revival on Broadway, “my first Broadway show out from under Tommy.” He received sole direction and choreography credit for the “Annie Get Your Gun” tour and also choreographed the recent Broadway revival of “Bells Are Ringing.” He realized that choreographing without directing was “a step backward, but you do what you have to do.”

In 1997, Calhoun directed a Sacramento production of “The Will Rogers Follies” that featured Bill O’Brien in the title role. That production led Calhoun to his relationship with Deaf West. In 1999, O’Brien--who is not deaf but who had worked with another deaf theater company--became the managing director of Deaf West (earlier this year, he was named producing director). O’Brien suggested Calhoun as a potential director of “Oliver!”

“I didn’t think anyone was better qualified to figure out the pictures and the visual environment” in this new form of deaf-oriented musicals that was being created, O’Brien said. He talked to Calhoun. “He was intrigued but a little stumped,” O’Brien recalls. “He had no knowledge of deaf theater. He didn’t know sign language. But finally, having that kind of challenge is what excited him.”

“I don’t think I had ever met a deaf person before,” Calhoun said. “But I have always felt theater is a visual art form. And the visual becomes even more important when half the cast is deaf. The common denominator is sight. I have to be so painfully aware of where the deaf audience is looking.”

Calhoun began learning sign language as soon as he took on “Oliver!” He still knows only a little, he said, but he tries to practice it whenever possible. “After ‘Oliver!,’ all of a sudden I started seeing deaf people everywhere. I hope it’s not patronizing, but I just go up to them and sign, ‘Hi, my name is Jeff. I’m learning to sign.’ They usually seem delighted.”

Calhoun’s productions for Deaf West are intricate webs in which some actors only sign, others only speak and sing, and some do it all. Calhoun believes “it’s a greater experience for the hearing audience as well. I’m not sure why--is it feelings of guilt, or just the sight of that visual ballet? I only know that when our Oliver signed the song ‘Where Is Love?,’ no other production could have that impact. It became clear to me how this beautiful art form of signing deepened the show.”

Troy Kotsur, a deaf actor in “Oliver!” and “Big River,” said Calhoun’s signing improved between last year’s “Oliver!” and this year’s “Big River,” a Tony-winning adaptation of “Huckleberry Finn.”

“We have an interpreter who helps during rehearsals, but there were quite a few times when the interpreter stopped signing because of Jeff’s effort in signing,” Kotsur said via e-mail. “He always seemed clear in what he was trying to communicate to me.... It is great to see someone like Jeff who makes every effort to break through the barrier of communication and to develop new art forms too.”

Kotsur said Calhoun “demonstrated the beat during musical pieces. I didn’t know how to deal with music. The timing is critical when [hearing actor] Lyle Kanouse sings with his voice and I sing with my hands. Jeff guided me through this piece with rhythms. With practice, I finally got the rhythms internally, in my heart and not in my ears. I do not feel the music with vibration, but I felt it in my body as Lyle and I dance throughout the scene. It’s an awesome experience.”

Calhoun and Deaf West turned to “Big River” after trying unsuccessfully to get the rights for “Gypsy” or “Sweeney Todd.”

Calhoun had never seen either “Oliver!” or “Big River” before staging them, which contributed to his feeling that he’s starting from scratch on the shows. “I like the small space of this theater, the limitations of it,” he said. Ray Klausen’s set features cut-out enlargements of pages of “Huckleberry Finn” text. “I wanted it to look as if the novel exploded over the stage,” Calhoun said. “The written word is another common denominator between the two cultures.”

In Calhoun’s previous career, “even in my best work, I couldn’t honestly say that you hadn’t seen it before,” he said. “But with this, I’m part of something original.” He wants to make it even more so--he wants to develop an original musical for Deaf West. “It’s time for the two cultures to create a new musical.” He has an idea up his sleeve but declined to discuss it.

In the meantime, Calhoun’s work at Deaf West may soon reach larger audiences. Thanks to a $4-million grant from the U.S. Department of Education, the company hopes to begin touring next year. If all goes as planned, “Oliver!” will tour from San Jose to San Diego to off-Broadway in New York.

That last stop may finally give Calhoun an opportunity to show his friends in New York what he has been up to in L.A. After seeing “Big River,” one of his Hollywood friends told him he had been wondering, before the show, “Why is Jeff doing this?” But after seeing the show, “he said, ‘How can I do it?’ He understood why I’m here.”

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“Big River,” Deaf West Theatre, 5112 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 2 p.m.; Sundays, 3 p.m. Ends Dec. 16. $20-$25. (818) 762-2773.