42ND STREET Guest Artistic Director

From 1928 through 1930 Hollywood’s mantra was “All Talking, All Singing, All Dancing” as musicals dominated the new medium of sound motion pictures. Then, abruptly, “tuners” became a drug on the market, and in 1931-’32 studios stopped green-lighting musicals and rushed to cut song numbers from yet-to-be-released films. Warner Bros. production head Darryl F. Zanuck had a hunch that musicals might be ripe for a comeback, and he combined a street-wise (if not necessarily realistic) backstage plot with outlandish Busby Berkeley musical numbers in a sort of extravagant, schizophrenic concoction that took Depression-era filmgoers by storm and led to a series of semi-clones such as GOLD DIGGERS OF1933, FOOTLIGHT PARADE and DAMES. Although Berkeley would become Hollywood’s best-known choreographer, he had no dance background at all, but honed his talents producing synchronized drill routines for Army shows during and after World War I.