Margaret Fuhrer:
Hi, dance friends. I’m Margaret Fuhrer, content director for The Dance Edit newsletter and podcast. Welcome to this special episode in partnership with McDonald Selznick Associates, the talent agency run by Julie McDonald and Tony Selznick that represents some of the top dance talent in the entertainment industry.
Since the fall television season is heating up, we thought it’d be interesting to get an insider’s perspective on the very specific challenges and opportunities that come with choreographing for TV. And we have two absolute titans of that scene with us for this episode.
Marguerite Derricks’s choreography resumé includes “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” “Westworld,” “American Horror Story,” and the dearly departed “Bunheads,” to name just a few, as well as a slew of films, Austin Powers and Mr. and Mrs. Smith and 10 Things I Hate About You among them. John Carrafa is a former dancer with Twyla Tharp who’s since choreographed for “The Gilded Age,” “Nashville,” and “Transparent”—again, to name just a few—and many films; he was also the choreographer for Urinetown on Broadway.
So, between them, these two artists have a wealth of knowledge about not just what it takes to be a successful television choreographer, but also what distinguishes TV work from choreography in other contexts. On a television set, choreographers have to wear many different hats; Derricks and Carrafa do that with exceptional style. Here they are.
Margaret Fuhrer:
Hi, Marguerite. Hi, John. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast today.
Marguerite Derricks:
My pleasure.
John Carrafa:
Me too. Great to be here.
Margaret Fuhrer:
So for this episode, the wonderful Julie McDonald at MSA actually played matchmaker. Because both of you of course have deep experience in the TV dance world, so you’re ideal for this conversation in that sense. But Julie also said, “Oh, they’ll give good interview together.” So to get started, I was hoping you could talk a little about how you know each other and where your paths have intersected.
John Carrafa:
I should do this Marguerite, because you probably don’t even remember, we did a panel together a long time ago.
Marguerite Derricks:
At SAG.
John Carrafa:
Yeah. And it’s kind of the only time we’ve ever met in-person.
Marguerite Derricks:
Yes.
John Carrafa:
But I’ve always been a huge fan of hers. Marguerite to me is kind of like the prototype for the great TV choreographer. So I’ve always watched what she’s done and been inspired by it.
Marguerite Derricks:
Well, I too have been a big fan of John’s, so …
John Carrafa:
No. So that’s it. It’s been minimal. But like a lot of us in this field, we don’t get to talk to other people who do what we do. And so I’ve made an effort with Marguerite and other people to try to bridge that gap. We meet a lot of directors, we talk to tons of directors, we know a lot of directors, but we really don’t know each other. And it’s very meaningful and it’s a great thing to talk to somebody who has the same problems that you have and encounters the same difficulties. And so I’ve been making a little bit of an effort on those lines.
Marguerite Derricks:
Which is just lovely, because what I’ve found—I’ve been in the business for such a long time, but what I’m really experiencing now more than ever actually, is our community of choreographers, how supportive we are of one another. There’s not that “I’m against you, you’re against me” feeling at all. I think that we’re all so blessed in being able to do what we love to do and we’ve all carved our niche out and have all of our people that continue to hire us over and over and over. So the love of the community is always so touching to me. Like I really feel like I have a dance family.
No one would ever believe this if they heard me say it, but sometimes I’m a little shy to reach out. So I was really happy when John reached out to me because I just love our community. And so I try now to reach out to the younger generation coming up and give them whatever diamonds and jewels that I can to help them to spearhead their careers. But it’s a beautiful community that we’re a part of.
John Carrafa:
When you’ve been in it long enough, like Marguerite and I have, you start to realize that you’re never really in competition with anybody else because we’re all … I look at stuff that Marguerite does like, oh, yeah, I couldn’t have done that. That’s not my thing. We all can have our thing and we’re all so unique.
Margaret Fuhrer:
I know it’s interesting because so often the dance community is portrayed, usually by people from the outside, as super cutthroat and everybody’s at each other. But the reality is that the vast majority of it, everyone is so generous. There’s a lot of generosity.
Marguerite Derricks:
I feel like the vibe I get more is we’re inspired by one another. When I see the work I’m always just so in awe of the work that I’m seeing my fellow choreographers doing out there, that I’m just completely inspired. I don’t feel competitive at all. I feel absolutely inspired. And I think there’s just enough to go around.
I can’t imagine, and I don’t know how you feel about this John, but I couldn’t imagine starting out as a choreographer in this day and age. It’s just so different. In my classes with the younger dancers, I talk about the Rolodex and having all of those…the people that you’ve met along the way that continue to hire you over and over. And I wonder, like wow, I remember building that with Julie. I started my career with her and we really built up all of those clients that I still work for. I know it’s just so different now. I guess we would be on YouTube, John? I don’t know. It’s just so different. It’s just really so different now. It’s like we got jobs a different way back in the day.
John Carrafa:
Yeah. I’ve been watching that, like how … I don’t know. You know that that guy Slavik, have you ever seen @itsslavik on Instagram?
Marguerite Derricks:
No.
John Carrafa:
There’s a guy and he’s got a very unique style and he does sort of the same thing every time. But I feel like if I was starting out today, I might try to do some kind of Instagram presence where I was just really putting out something original. Like if nobody knew Ryan Huffington right now, if he was just starting out, and he just started putting out…because he has a real vibe on his Instagram profile. Maybe that would be the way to go about it.
But Marguerite, I mean, I don’t know your beginning. I was a professional dancer for 10 years, so that’s how I started, with Twyla. And I had to start all over again when I started filming TV. I don’t know what you would do.
Marguerite Derricks:
Yeah. I was a “Fame” dancer with Debbie Allen, so that’s how I got my start.
John Carrafa:
Oh, you were? Wow!
Marguerite Derricks:
I started in TV and she was my mentor, so I got to really…I was so inspired as a dancer, but also as a choreographer and a director. Watching her do her thing really guided my path and my passion to want to…I think I started choreographing a year after I left “Fame.” So it was just like, hey, I did the dancing thing. I’m ready to do what my mentor does. You know?
John Carrafa:
Sure.
Marguerite Derricks:
I don’t know, Instagram is cute and fun to me, but I never can wrap my mind around, oh, that’s a way to get a job. It’s just not part of how I grew up so it’s not something that I respond to. I would never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever—and I do this when I do Q&As all the time—I would never hire a dancer from Instagram. There’s no way. That would not be enough for me. I would need to get them in a room, see how they do my stuff as opposed to the stuff they’re putting out there.
So I wonder in the television world, because I work with so many that—we both do—the directors and producers out there, I can’t imagine them looking at Instagram and feeling like that was enough to hire them for a TV show. Because what is it besides choreography that we do on a TV show? It is a lot. So these cute little steps and this really…all of that is wonderful, but that’s just one part of what we do. Maybe I would take an interview with someone that I saw a cool piece on Instagram, but I would never hire them directly from that. I would want to know that they could run a department and they have that TV experience.
Margaret Fuhrer:
Yeah. I know, it is interesting though because Instagram and the other various forms of social media are now totally baked into the way an entire generation thinks about dance. It is inseparable.
Marguerite Derricks:
Yeah.
Margaret Fuhrer:
It’ll be interesting to see how that affects what the creative process looks like going forward. But from what I’ve heard, it sounds like a lot of younger dancers, their Instagram grid is their resumé. It’s not necessarily what gets them the job, but it’s what gets them the audition. It gets them in the door.
John Carrafa:
Well, I’ve used Instagram because I do a lot of Zoom auditions too. And after I’ve met somebody or Zoomed with them I’ve then gone back and looked at their Instagram just to get a feel for who they are.
Marguerite Derricks:
Yeah. That makes sense, John. But you want to see how they handle your choreography first.
John Carrafa:
Yeah.
Marguerite Derricks:
Because I’ve seen some dancers, even in class back in the day…I remember I was choreographing a Broadway show and I needed some dancers, and I was going up to teach a master class at the Edge and I walked by this room and there was this girl and she was in a class and this girl was…it was blowing my mind. She was so stunning. It was a different style from what I do. And I invited her to come to my audition.
And she was out of the room in five minutes. I couldn’t believe it was the same girl. But she didn’t have a center. She was doing that contemporary stuff where she couldn’t control the work, so there was no way. So I always need to see somebody do what I need them to do for the job and that maybe…like you John, I’ll go back and look at their pretty Instagram page.
John Carrafa:
As a reference afterward.
Marguerite Derricks:
Yeah. I guess I always wanted…as much as I love television, because I do, and I work so much in that area, I always wanted to do everything. And not just in Broadway, film, TV, live, beyond that, every style of dance. I never wanted to have a thumbprint where you knew what my style was.
John Carrafa:
Yeah. Same for me.
Marguerite Derricks:
I wanted people to go, “Oh. It’s Marguerite, it’s John. They could do anything.” I remember Julie back in the day when we first started out, she to tell the producers that would call, “Marguerite can make a rock dance.” I never walk into a job, especially when we’re working with actors…I have things prepared for possibilities, but I never go in with my mind made up, like, this is what it’s going to be. It’s not until you get in the room and see how those people move. So I’m not trying to force my sense of style and the way I move on an actor. That would scare the sh•t out of them if I ever did that.
John Carrafa:
We could try, the two of us could do a whole 10 podcast series about working with actors, because that’s…
Marguerite Derricks:
Absolutely.
John Carrafa:
…that’s a big part of what we both do.
Margaret Fuhrer:
Let’s talk about that. Because I mean, of course many actors are gifted movers, and you’ve both worked with some great dancers, but not all TV actors have extensive dance training. So how do you go about creating choreography that both caters to and then also stretches the abilities of artists who are maybe less dance-inclined?
John Carrafa:
Well, just as an intro to that, I’ll say, along the lines of Marguerite, my idea when I started choreographing was, I also did not want people to look at my style as a specific like, “Oh. He does these 10 steps.” But I thought, well what if my choreographic career was like an actor’s career and I’m trying on different roles as a choreographer. So I’m doing a period thing, and an actor doing a period thing would research it and get into that mode. And so I look at my job like I think an actor would look at their job, trying on the period, the style, the mannerisms of whatever you’re working on.
Marguerite Derricks:
Absolutely. You do the research of…I’m going to talk about Mike Myers for a second because we did so many films together, and TV specials. But Mike, on an interview said, one of the things I loved that he said about me was, “Marguerite walks into a room with 1,000 ideas, attached to none.” So like John said, with Austin Powers, it was set in the ’60s. And “Maisel” is in the ’50s, now going into the ’60s. You do the research of that era so you know the style and then you go in with ideas, but you don’t attach yourself to anything.
And when I see some of these young choreographers, there’s no way that they’re not going to…the way I see the work, there’s no way they’re going to walk in and not be attached to it. They’re going to try to force that on an actor. And the biggest thing for me with working with actors, and when I worked on Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Angie was very—Angelina—was very nervous about dancing. It’s just walking in the room and knowing a way to make your actors comfortable and making them feel like they are the best dancers in the world. And once they drop the fear, then they allow themselves to explore with you and find the movement that works for them.
And that is for me…I love teaching dance, and that’s the thing that I learned along the way. I’m a great teacher, and I joke and say, when I walk into a room with actors, it’s like me going into a children’s class, just trying to make them comfortable and fearless. And I found there’s really no actor that I have not been able to choreograph and get to moving and loving it. I mean, after a little while with Brad and Angie, they were loving it and they were wonderful together. It was just getting past the fear, going in with some ideas, not trying to force something.
I’ll work with an actor and after five minutes, if something’s not working, I’ll be like, “Let’s throw that out. Let’s move on. Let’s try something else.” So you have to have your pockets full, because you might have to try 10, 20 things before the right thing comes. And I don’t know if that’s the same for you John.
John Carrafa:
Oh. It’s exactly…This is what’s fun about talking to somebody else who does what you do, because it’s the exact same thing. My angle into it was, when I started dancing as a kid…I started taking tap and jazz when I was 11 or 12, but it was so uncool for a boy. I was Italian American, blue collar family, blue collar neighborhood. So uncool for a boy to be studying dance that I did it in another town. I went to the next town over and nobody really knew that I did it. And so even to this day when I’m like at a wedding or even demonstrating for dancers, there’s a bit of ripping off the skin and showing my secret. And so I feel like because I already feel that, I feel like actors…I can get how vulnerable they feel when they’re having to expose themselves. Because dance is so revealing of a person, you can’t hide behind it.
So I approach it the same way you do Marguerite. And I also talk to the actors, like I approach it from story. Which I know you could do another—we could do a podcast number two on actors and telling stories, because I think the hardest thing to do as a choreographer is to tell a story within the piece that you’re creating. And actors will feel, if they understand the story that they’re telling the character and why they’re doing it, then they can associate it to what they do when they do dialogue scenes and blocking.
Sometimes I try…first of all, the tricks of the trade, you do what they are good at, you use their skills, and you bring out everybody’s inner dancer. Everybody loves to dance, everybody loves to go crazy on some level. And it’s just the freedom to give yourself permission to do that, that you have to find the place in your relationship with that actor to do that so they don’t feel judged. And a lot of the times, like when I work with Connie Britton, she would always kick the directors out and say she just wants to be there with me alone.
And one of the other tricks that I use—here’s a good one, Marguerite, I don’t know if you do this, but I tell actors, if you can say it, you can do it. And I make them say the choreography, like—
Marguerite Derricks:
Oh, never done that.
John Carrafa:
—”right, left, step step, turn.” And because actors work so much on memorizing linear dialogue and stuff like that, I often find that part of their brain will teach it to their feet. And once they can do it verbally, then they can start to do…then they can do it with their body. It’s like, “Oh, yeah, now I can do it.”
Marguerite Derricks:
Yeah. Nice. Cool.
Margaret Fuhrer:
Yeah. So storytelling—the whole second podcast that we could do—but the idea of storytelling for the television screen is a particular challenge, a really specific challenge. And I think a lot of people, even those who are really well versed in the workings of the concert dance world, don’t understand just how different choreographing for television is from working in that world. Can you talk a little about what sets TV dance apart from dance for the stage, and even dance for film, since you’ve both done extensive work in all of the above?
Marguerite Derricks:
I think the biggest difference for me is time. TV is so fast. When you work in the theater, you get weeks to create and then change. Even in films, if you’re working on a big film, there’s a lot more time and preparation. Once you’re on a TV show, it moves like that. So it’s like a machine, you’re just moving so quickly.
So I know on “Maisel” a lot of times, we get to set and I warn the dancers, but I try not to do it with the actors, but I warn them as well, “When we get there…” Because it’s a pas de deux constantly with the camera. When we’re working on “Maisel,” everything’s choreographed with camera. I’m like, “Everything you’re learning today, be prepared to change it.”
So for me, it’s the fast pace of television. And if you’re on a series as a choreographer where every episode has dance in it, you’re shooting one while you’re prepping the other. And so it just moves so fast.
From the concert person to TV, what we have is we have the ability to dance with the camera. Whereas on a stage, lighting and focus helps to do what the camera does on film. So those are my biggest…the two different things that I feel with TV.
John Carrafa:
Such a big part of our job is translating the world of dance to the world of the film crew and the director and the cinematographer and helping those people understand. So I’m guessing that…I’m feeling that you have to be a virtuoso in that communication. You have to be able to help people from both sides. You become the conduit between both sides.
But the big thing for me is the same as for Marguerite. Like when I work on Broadway, I want the audience to look over here, I have to stage it so they look over here. But in film and TV, it’s shot that way. And I don’t know, now I film everything, all rehearsals, and give them to the DP. Sometimes I even edit the rehearsal, I’ll film it and create shots and edit it, because some people like that. Some people don’t like that. But it’s about helping them understand, you want to be on this part of the dance here, you want to be on their feet here, you want be down the line here because this is going to be really cool. And all that’s communication with the people who know the language of film.
And very often…I work on a lot of shows that I haven’t worked with the people before. That happens often. And they can either be overly reverent and not want to say anything to you about changing the dance, or they can just be so clueless about…and they just need you to help them understand what they can change and how dance is malleable. There’s just a lot of communication that has to happen between the world of dance and the world of filmmaking. You have to know filmmaking as a film choreographer.
Marguerite Derricks:
Absolutely.
Margaret Fuhrer:
Yeah. I mean, this is getting into something that you both brought up earlier, which is just how many roles television choreographers are playing on set and behind the scenes. Can you talk a little about some of the components of your job? In addition to having a knowledge of film editing, what else do you need to do that’s going beyond what’s sort of “traditionally” expected of a choreographer?
Marguerite Derricks:
Well, we’re like a second director on the set, for sure. And we are definitely producers. Some jobs you get the script and it tells you what the dance is. But a lot of times we’re going in and we’re creating what the scene might be. For instance, last year on “Maisel,” when we were in the burlesque club, coming up with ideas of what the different numbers might look like.
So we’re producing, we’re directing, and sometimes if you’re running a department on a TV show…I remember on “Fame LA,” I was doing man days, I was doing budgets. I knew that I had a certain amount of man days, so if I use less dancers on this show, I can roll it over to the next show. So, okay, I did nine man days—which is nine contracts for a dancer or daily contract—I can save those 10 because I know what’s coming up is much larger. And I love numbers, and I never knew it until I did that show how much I was good at it and loved crunching the numbers and saving my man days and coming in under budget.
And I’ll never forget, when I did the remake of the movie Fame, one of my students was a director and hired me. He told the producers that I needed four weeks of rehearsal before we started shooting. And I was like, okay. And then I was walking into a premiere of something and my phone rang and it was one of the producers and the UPM, a line producer in an office freaking out at how much it was going to cost really with that many dancers for four weeks. And I kind of giggled, I sat down, and I said, “Well, I could do the first week with just two assistants in a room. And then the second week I’m going to bring in five dancers as a skeleton crew.”
And so I cut the budget from what they had had in their mind with those four weeks, I cut it in less than half, maybe a fourth of what they thought it was going to be. And I remember on the first day of shooting, one of the producers that I was on the phone with, he goes, “You knew all along.” And I just laughed and I said, “Yeah, I knew.” I know how to do this. The director was giving me a major gift by saying she needs this, give it to her. But I always, as a choreographer, I work with all of the departments, so I always try to make the producers happy too. And there’s our relationships, right John?
John Carrafa:
Yeah.
Marguerite Derricks:
Those things is what creates longevity for us in this business, is that knowledge and knowing how to do that.
John Carrafa:
To do this job, you kind of have to take pleasure in the kind of things Marguerite’s talking about, where you figure out something that helps the production, or you support the director, you go to the costume department and fix something that was going to mess up the whole day and the director doesn’t necessarily even know it. But as a choreographer, I think it’s built in our DNA to be that support person, to want to make everything go well. And there’s something in our DNA that we just get great pleasure from being that right hand person to the director and executing their vision. And to the writer too. Because sometimes, like Marguerite said, there’ll be something in a script that just says, “They dance.” But you come up with an idea that wasn’t necessarily anything that they could have written.
Marguerite Derricks:
John, and I think you and I know all of this through our experience and time, and that’s why we have that Rolodex of people that continue to call us over and over again. Because once they have that, they don’t want to go back to somebody just because they have cool moves on Instagram.
John Carrafa:
Right. And it could be intimidating for some directors to let go of some of that control. And that’s why after the second or third time you’ve worked with somebody, they get more comfortable. It’s like, “Oh. Great, I can just have you do that.”
Marguerite Derricks:
Absolutely.
Margaret Fuhrer:
Yeah. I mean, on TV sets in particular, the relationship between the choreographer and the director seems critical—I mean, that you have symbiosis happening there.
John Carrafa:
Well, interestingly, on TV it’s rotating directors. So you get a relationship with the show runner.
Marguerite Derricks:
That’s right.
John Carrafa:
But then that director comes in and he doesn’t know any of the crew or she doesn’t know any of the crew. They come in and it’s always great to be that person who…I take them aside and say, “Look, I’m here to help you. Let me know if there’s anything I can tell you about this situation, the crew, whatever,” and just help them through this new world that they’re navigating in
Marguerite Derricks:
And really, because the choreographer is there for every episode, we know what the world is and why this person might be doing this in this episode, where the rotating directors that come in, sometimes they don’t know the depth of the show. And I’ve seen a lot of actors get very frustrated by that. And like John, we are there to welcome them and to let them know, “Hey, we’re here for you.”
Margaret Fuhrer:
The choreographer is the glue.
Marguerite Derricks:
Yeah.
Margaret Fuhrer:
I’m revealing my own blind spots here. Yeah. Rotating directors. Right. Of course.
Well, and the fact that television choreographers, that all entertainment industry choreographers, have their hands in so many aspects of the show or of the film makes it even more frustrating, and even more bizarre, that they often don’t receive the credit or the recognition or the compensation that they deserve. And I’m wondering what you think, as people inside of this industry, what do you think is at the root of that issue?
Marguerite Derricks:
I’m going to speak first, John. I almost have to step aside on this one because from the very beginning of my career, and Julie McDonald is such an advocate for compensation and credit, I’ve always gotten that. I’ve always gotten it. And I turned down … I remember I was doing a big movie with Jodie Foster and I wanted not only credit, but I wanted the front title credit, and I wanted my name on the posters, which I’ve gotten on quite a few movies, and I was willing to say no. Because I always felt like I gave my representation the power of no, the power to say “thank you but no thank you,” because it was so important to me. I would negotiate more on money than I would on credit. That’s just too important to me.
I do support the community coming together and wanting to unionize or find a way to make it so there’s never a discussion. But for me, on every job, there’s never a discussion.
I was at a different agency for a second and “Maisel” started, and it’s not a dance show, but as the seasons went on, Amy loves dance so much, more and more dance came. So she called me from the editing bay and she goes, “Lovely, oh my God. I just saw that you don’t have a single title card. I’m fixing it now. Oh, my God. How did that happen?” So she fixed it, the creator of the show made sure that I had a full title card. She saved the day there. We do have relationships, and we do have the power of no. It’ll be nice one day where we don’t have to think about that.
John Carrafa:
Yeah. I’m in the same boat as Marguerite. It’s really about what I want to stand up for and get for myself. And so the effort to unionize or support choreographers to get health insurance and all, that’s really for future generations. It’s for down the line.
Marguerite Derricks:
Yeah. It is. It’s fighting for the future generations.
John Carrafa:
There are some things we can do to help people.
Marguerite Derricks:
Yeah. I think so too, John. I agree with you.
Margaret Fuhrer:
Yeah. I guess what I was wondering about more—because of course the two of you have been very proactive and responsible about advocating for yourselves and finding good representation that will help you do that work. But I’m wondering why the issue exists in the first place. Because if you are working in almost any other corner of the entertainment industry, it’s never a question. It is just automatic. Why is it that for choreographers—
John Carrafa:
You mean credit?
Margaret Fuhrer:
For credit, for base rates, health insurance, all those kinds of things that most people working on a set are guaranteed from the get-go.
John Carrafa:
Honestly, I mean, I could tell you it just didn’t happen early in the industry’s formation, in the ’30s and ’40s when the DGA formed and when…And so since it didn’t happen then, it’s kind of too late now to, the choreographers would have no clout to go to the AMPTP, the television producers, and try to negotiate a contract. They’d be like, “Forget it.” IATSE barely has that power.
Marguerite Derricks:
I was a dancer on “Fame” in the early ’80s, and we were extras. There was no SAG for dancers. It was SEG.
John Carrafa:
I remember that. I remember that.
Marguerite Derricks:
And then I remember the second…maybe the first season I got there, we went on strike, the dancers, because we wanted SAG contracts. And they held an audition the next day and thousands of dancers showed up to take our jobs. So MGM was saying, “Okay.” And it wasn’t until I was choreographing the TV show “Fame LA” in 1997, that became the first show to give dancers SAG contracts.
So from like ’82 or ’83 to ’97 before the dancers got that contract—it was a long fight. I fought that fight. I fought that fight, so I’m leaving this fight…I’m supporting them. I’m saying, okay, here…
John Carrafa:
Go for it.
Marguerite Derricks:
…it’s your time to hold up the big sign. Yeah.
John Carrafa:
Me too. But, Marguerite, would you say that there’s something in the psychology of a dancer, and also as a choreographer because we were dancers, that just wants to work, and, it’s okay, you don’t have to pay me. You know what I mean? Like I said, there’s something in our DNA that just is about support. You know what I mean? Do you think that maybe that was part of it early on?
Marguerite Derricks:
Yeah, maybe John. Because we just were so passionate and just wanted to work so bad.
Margaret Fuhrer:
We’re coming to the end of our scheduled time, but I wanted to bring things back to a happier place, I guess. You’ve both worked with so many huge stars on so many big sets. What are some of your favorite anecdotes? Good stories, bad stories, funny stories, learning experience stories from the set.
John Carrafa:
It’s hard because I’m going to hang up from this Zoom and have 10 stories for you, I know, but …
Marguerite Derricks:
I know. I feel the same way, John. Yeah, I feel the same way. I have one. I find it funny, I don’t know how funny it is. I was working on Spider-Man 3 with Sam Raimi, and I was initially brought in to create a couple of numbers for Tobey Maguire in the film. And the way they were written in the script, they were like B-boy numbers. And Tobey wasn’t feeling it at all. He didn’t even want to dance, because the spinning on the head and all of that stuff, he couldn’t even wrap his mind around it.
And my first day I walked in and Tobey was all negative on the couch and Sam looked at me and he goes, “Well, what are you going to do? You’re just a girl.” So I was like, oh, my God, I have my mountain to climb here. And then it came time to finally go to Tobey Maguire’s house, and I whipped a little Fred Astaire on him. And oh my God, he loved it. Like, Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire moves, that was Tobey’s jam. And so I completely flipped it around. Now that’s like a month, month and a half down the line of creation. And now I flip it on his head. Everybody loves it. Sam’s on board, everybody’s on board.
And the last day, Sam Raimi came riding up on a girl’s bicycle, came up to the sound stage and rode up on the girl’s bicycle. And I said, “Sam, you’re riding a girl’s bicycle.” I just wanted to get him back for that, “What are you going to do? You’re a girl” thing. And he just looked at me…he looked at me at first and then he started to laugh. It was a lot of fun.
John Carrafa:
I can’t follow that. That’s an amazing story!
You gave me time to think of things. Now I thought of three little things. All the stories have the same theme I think, or would have the same theme for us, which is kind of overcoming some sense that we weren’t going to be able to do it or overcoming an actor’s fear or obstacles.
I did Urinetown on Broadway. There were no dancers in that show—or Into the Woods. The shows I won Tony nominations for, not a dancer in them. But the thing I would do is convince them that they were the greatest dance group on Broadway at that time. I’d get them together, be like, “You guys don’t realize, other dancers are talking about you”—
Marguerite Derricks:
Oh! [laughter]
John Carrafa:
—”you’re the amazing dancers they’ve seen.” And I had them doing these crazy leaps and things believing that they were just doing them brilliantly. And the audience was just losing their minds, because it was so funny to watch people so passionately executing things that they weren’t really executing, but they were doing it with so much commitment—
Marguerite Derricks:
Commitment is the key of comedy.
John Carrafa:
Yeah! Right.
Marguerite Derricks:
It really is, getting an actor to be committed and really go for it. I never try to make actors look bad. I want them to do it the best that they can, because that commitment is what is hilarious.
John Carrafa:
They have to believe it themselves. And my film story is, I did Something Borrowed with Kate Hudson and Ginnifer Goodwin. So I hired two dancers who would be there for the shoot. And so we get to the shoot…this is “Push It.” We did “Push It” in Something Borrowed. And I hope Ginnifer doesn’t—I hope they don’t take this personally that I tell this story, but…And I said, “Well, why don’t we do this? Let me have the stand-ins do it first so you guys can just see and you could block it for camera and everything.” And these two dancers just ripped into that dance, just killed it.
And I saw Kate and Ginnifer look at each other and this sense of competition rose up in their eyes, like, we’re going to nail this dance. And they did that thing where they went aside, they went into the corner, and they started working and practicing it and it ended up being great on camera. But it took a little bit of psychology to get them there.
Marguerite Derricks:
Yeah. That’s a normal day on the job for us, John.
John Carrafa:
Exactly. Tricks. Whatever works.
Marguerite Derricks:
That’s right. That’s right.
Margaret Fuhrer:
Maybe I’ll bleep out some names in that story, because I think Ginnifer is a huge fan of this podcast, so …
John Carrafa:
She is?
Margaret Fuhrer:
Just kidding. [laughter]
John Carrafa:
Well, no, no, but it is funny because Ginnifer messaged me recently and she said, “Do you have any rehearsal footage of that dance? Because it’s what everybody asks me about. Everybody wants to talk about that dance all the time, of everything in my career.” And I just think it’s so funny, because the process we went through to get there was so twisty.
Margaret Fuhrer:
That’s so funny. Actually, I lied. That wasn’t quite my last question. My last question is, I’m hoping you can continue to give advice on this—since you already started—advice for dancers and choreographers who are aspiring to careers like yours.
John Carrafa:
Don’t do it. Don’t do it. There’s too many of us already.
Marguerite Derricks:
Yeah. That’s right, John! [laughter]
I have a couple of things that I just think—no aspiring choreographer should do anything until they assist one, if not several, working choreographers. I bring all of my assistants to all the meetings with me. I involve them in the whole process. And they have to teach. Those are two things I’m like, you should not even attempt to become a choreographer without. Those two things are an absolute must, hands down.
John Carrafa:
I encourage people to be amazing dancers too. When I was dancing, I danced with Twyla Tharp for 10 years and I took class six days a week. I wouldn’t take class on Sunday. I would come back on Monday and feel like, oh, I lost everything. That’s how much a class every day meant to me. And so I’m always encouraging people like to just get your technique, just be amazing dancers. Learn different styles and stuff of course, but just be a great dancer. There’s so much focus on, it’s type, or it’s out of your control. I’m like, no, it’s not out of your control. Be so good that they can’t turn you down, and that will naturally lead you into the next phases.
Marguerite Derricks:
Yeah.
Margaret Fuhrer:
Yeah. What’s the Baryshnikov quote about, you miss class for one day, you know it, two days, your teacher knows it, three days, the audience knows it?
Marguerite Derricks:
Yeah.
Margaret Fuhrer:
Marguerite and John, thank you so much for taking the time today and sharing your gems and jewels. Thank you.
John Carrafa:
Thanks. Episode one of 10, because we just got into it.
Margaret Fuhrer:
Absolutely.
[pause]
Another big thanks to John and Marguerite. In the show notes we have links to their websites and their social pages—I know, we just heard they’re not super-duper Instagram-y people, but they do give us fun behind-the-scenes looks at the projects they’re working on. We also have a link to the MSA Agency website, so you can find out more about the great work they’re doing to advocate for dance artists. Finally, I wanted to remind you all that The Dance Edit also has a daily newsletter, a one-minute read that’ll get you up to speed on all the stories moving the dance world. It is free and very handy; I hope you’ll sign up for that at thedanceedit.com.
Thanks to all of you for listening. Keep learning, keep advocating, and keep dancing.