It’s been 42 years since decorated choreographer Lynne Taylor-Corbett graduated from Littleton High School and high-stepped her way into one of the leading careers in American theater and dance.
“But Denver is my heart,” Taylor-Corbett said last week from Raleigh, N.C., where she is putting together a show for the Carolina Ballet based on Monet paintings. “I left Colorado when I was 17 to attend the School of American Ballet in New York, but you are always from where you are from, so I still have a deep relationship with Denver.”
Taylor-Corbett has come home occasionally to work with area companies, such as David Taylor Dance (no relation). But now in her fifth professional decade, her life and work are converging here as never before.
Taylor-Corbett self-effacingly calls herself “The Architect” of the sweaty 1930s jazz and blues musical “Swing,” which is tearing up the Country Dinner Playhouse. The collaborative effort earned her Tony Award nominations in 2000 for direction and choreography.
On Oct. 7, Taylor-Corbett will be back for the opening of the world-premiere musical “Hats,” an homage to the Red Hat Society, at the New Denver Civic Theatre. She’s directing and choreographing a score penned by an ensemble of celebrities including Pam Tillis, Melissa Manchester and Kathie Lee Gifford.
Taylor-Corbett says she has known what she wanted to do “since I was a fat 5-year-old.” She attended South High and transferred to Littleton for her final two years. It was there a teacher finally validated her dreams.
“Walt Godfrey was the first person I said, ‘I want to be a dancer’ to, and he said back, ‘Well, that’s wonderful,”‘ she said. “I’ll never forget that. One person believing in you can mean so much.”
She left the nest at 17 and started building a resume that included collaborations with a chorus line of theater and dance legends such as Hal Prince, Michael Bennett and Alvin Ailey. “I loved Denver but I felt from a young age a very deep need to be connected with a larger city,” she said. “I feel so lucky that I found my path.”
She harbored “a terrible inferiority complex for years” for not going to college, but the credibility of steady employment eventually provided all the identity she would need.
“I felt like, ‘Well, I didn’t go to Princeton or Yale, so how could I possibly direct or choreograph?”‘ she said. “But I was a choreographer before I hardly knew to call myself that.
“I just did it.”
Taylor-Corbett’s Broadway resume begins in 1981 and includes “Chess” and “Titanic,” but it was “Swing” that cemented her flying feet among dance legends. It’s a grueling, strenuous show that sets classic swing songs to acrobatic dance.
“I’m so proud of ‘Swing,’ and I’m happy it’s giving so many people work and joy,” she said. “But it was so collaborative, it felt very much larger than myself.”
Unlike some of the masters, Taylor-Corbett doesn’t create shows just to have those who follow replicate them. “Swing,” she said, “was set up to be a framework through which all of your creativity can come out.”
Country Dinner Playhouse’s effort, the first by a local company, is being headed by Kitty Hilsabeck, Taylor-Corbett’s friend from their days together with Chicago’s famed Hubbard Street dance troupe.
Taylor-Corbett is now assembling four projects, including “Hats.” When she heard about the project, she didn’t know that the Red Hat Society is an organization dedicated to fun and friendship after 50. Or that it’s the fastest-growing women’s movement in the world.
“If there’s a vacuum in our society, that’s it,” she said. “There are many women who are isolated by circumstances and have found rejuvenation through the Red Hat Society. And so I think this show is being made for a very special audience, and an important audience.”
“Swing” plays through Sept. 10 (303-799-1410); “Hats” opens Oct. 7 (303-309-3773).
Red Hat queen arrives
Red Hat Society founder Sue Ellen Cooper was in town from Orange County, Calif., on Tuesday to unveil a purple-painted wall on the south side of the Civic. Over the next two months, area artists will be invited to paint their own red hats there.
Cooper was in New York two weeks ago to see workshop performances of the “Hats” musical that targets the group she founded a decade ago and now sports 42,000 chapters and 1 million members in 38 countries.
“The show has turned out “way better than I dared to hope,” said Cooper.
The idea to create “Hats,” about a 49.999-year-old woman who does not want to turn 50, came from producer Mitchell Maxwell, who noticed the many Red Hat Society members attending the similar musical comedy “Menopause the Musical” at the Civic.
“We really helped make that musical a hit,” said Cooper, who was then approached by Maxwell about creating a Red Hat Society musical. When she saw the list of writers contributing to the project, “my mouth was just hanging,” she said.
Cooper said the musical, like her Red Hat Society, “gives women permission to play again, and to be a kid again. They help them to remember what they want to do, and that they can still do it.”
Briefly …
The Colorado Shakespeare Festival planned a huge retirement party for producing artistic director Dick Devin Saturday night after the final performance of the fest’s 49th season. There, an announcement was to be made that sponsors Ruth and Kenneth Wright have established “The Richard M. Devin Endowed Fund for The Colorado Shakespeare Festival,” with additional contributions from other sponsors, patrons and staff …
Celebrations for the late actor Duane Black will be today in Hutchinson, Kan., and at 7 p.m. Sept. 25 in the Galleria Theatre. For info, call Martha Yordy at 303-455-7208 …
The Victorian Playhouse abruptly canceled its run of “Lysistrata” six days before it was to bow …
And finally, the University of Colorado will be an active collaborator with the Curious Theatre Company for its world premiere new musical, “Mall Mart,” opening in April. The show will be directed by Curious’ Chip Walton and choreographed by CU’s Bud Coleman. The 13-member cast will include CU students, and the production and design duties shared. Most telling, the production will have two weekends of performances on CU’s mainstage theater before transferring to Curious for its official, seven-week run.
Theater critic John Moore can be reached at 303-954-1056 or jmoore@denverpost.com.
This week’s theater openings
FRI-OCT. 28|Boulder’s Dinner Theatre’s “Sweet Charity”|BOULDER
FRI-AUG. 27|Town Hall Arts Center presents Alex Ryer’s “Pure Piaf”|LITTLETON
FRI-SEPT. 23|Rocky Mountain Rep’s “Almost Heaven: The Songs of John Denver”|GRAND LAKE
This week’s theater closings
TODAY|Backstage’s “The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe”|BRECKENRIDGE
TODAY|Lake Dillon’s “Gypsy” (at Dillon Amphitheatre)
THU|Creede Repertory Theatre’s “Sweeney Todd”|CREEDE
FRI|Creede Repertory Theatre’s “The Man Who Shot the Man Who Shot Jesse James”|CREEDE
SAT|Creede Repertory Theatre’s “Crazy For You”|CREEDE
SAT|StageDoor’s “They Came From Mars …”|ASPEN
AUG. 27|Backstage’s “The Foreigner”|BRECKENRIDGE
AUG. 27|Miners Alley Playhouse’s “Last of the Red Hot Lovers”|GOLDEN
AUG. 27|TheatreWorks’ “The Comedy of Errors”|COLORADO SPRINGS