Fancy Free

Music

Leonard Bernstein
(1944; Big Stuff recording sung by Dee Dee Bridgewater)

Choreography

Jerome Robbins

Staging

Judith Fugate

Costume Design

Kermit Love

Costume Design Supervisor

Holly Hynes

Original Lighting Design

Ronald Bates

Lighting Design

Randall G. Chiarelli

Scenic Design

Oliver Smith

Duration

20 minutes

Premiere

April 18, 1944
Ballet Theatre (New York)

PNB Premiere

September 21, 2006

The 2006 PNB premiere of Jerome Robbins’ Fancy Free was generously underwritten in part by Glenn Kawasaki.

Imagine New York on a hot summer night in 1944. Three sailors on shore leave pick up two girls and a fight breaks out over which sailor is to be left without a partner. In the bar, they stage a competition, each dancing to win the favor of a girl. When the girls are unable to choose between them, the fight resumes and the girls slip away. The sailors make up, but suddenly a third girl passes their way…Have they learned their lesson?

When Jerome Robbins’ first ballet, Fancy Free, premiered in New York on April 18, 1944, it proved to be one of the most exciting evenings in the history of ballet in America, marking the emergence of three new American talents: choreographer Jerome Robbins, composer Leonard Bernstein, and designer Oliver Smith. That same year, the ballet was transformed into the Broadway musical On the Town and established Robbins and Bernstein as formidable talents in American theater. Robbins danced in the Fancy Free premiere with Janet Reed, one of American ballet’s favorite soubrettes, who went on to join New York City Ballet and later became Founding Director of Pacific Northwest Ballet School.

Artist Biographies

Jerome Robbins

Jerome Robbins (1918-1998) is world-renowned for his work as a choreographer of ballets as well as his work as a director and choreographer in theater, movies, and television. His Broadway shows include On the Town, Billion Dollar Baby, High Button Shoes, West Side Story, The King and I, Gypsy, Peter Pan, Miss Liberty, Call Me Madam, and Fiddler on the Roof. His last Broadway production in 1989, Jerome Robbins’ Broadway, won six Tony Awards, including best musical and best director.

Among the more than 60 ballets he created are Fancy Free, Afternoon of a Faun, The Concert, Dances At a Gathering, In the Night, In G Major, Other Dances, Glass Pieces and Ives, Songs, which are in the repertories of New York City Ballet and other major dance companies throughout the world. His last ballets include A Suite of Dances created for Mikhail Baryshnikov (1994), 2 & 3 Part Inventions (1994), West Side Story Suite (1995) and Brandenburg (1996).

In addition to two Academy Awards for the film West Side Story, Mr. Robbins received four Tony Awards, five Donaldson Awards, two Emmy Awards, the Screen Directors’ Guild Award, and the New York Drama Critics Circle Award. Mr. Robbins was a 1981 Kennedy Center Honors Recipient and was awarded the French Chevalier dans l’Ordre National de la Legion d’Honneur.