Choreographer Lorin Latarro: Each Show Is A Whole News Universe

Michael Riedel and Christine Nagy chatted with choreographer Lorin Latarro, who has opened three shows since March 2024. She talks about her most recent show, ONCE UPON A MATTRESS, which she calls a "joyfest," and how she loves "losing herself inside each show," which most recently included Tommy and Heart of Rock and Roll. ONCE UPON A MATTRESS opens August 12th at the Hudson Theater.

Episode Transcript

(00:02):
iHeartRadio Broadway presents Inside Broadway, thepodcast about everything theater. It's where you
hear what happens from the ticket windowto the stage door, with the stars
and creative forces that make it allcome alive. Here are your hosts,
wo Rs Michael Riedle and Light FM'sChristine Nagy. All right, Michael,

(00:24):
so maybe we should get our questionsin quickly because our guest is an incredibly
busy person, so in demand thisentire Broadway season. Lauren Letero is an
incredible choreographer and she is working onI believe, Lauren, your third show
that you're choreographing since March of thisseason. Is that correct? Well,

(00:46):
this is yes, that's very nice. If you thank you, well,
it's true. Right. So thisis Once Upon a Mattress is going to
be opening very soon with an incrediblecast, and you've been working hard on
this. Please tell us about thiswhole experience. Oh my gosh, it's
just a joy fest. A SotonFluster is extraordinary, and we started rehearsals
yesterday officially, but of course we'vebeen working on this all month. Preparing

(01:11):
the cast is really wonderful. Wehave Brooks as as manskiss with us now
and Michael URI's back, and wehave on a Gas Dyer who's joining us.
So we're refinding things and finding newthings, and you know, they're
just such funny people that it's justsuch a joy. So this was unexpected
though, right because you opened atCity Center where they do encores and the

(01:34):
shows are supposed to last for justthe weekend, five or six performances,
and this one was so well receivedthat some producers swooped in and they're bringing
it to Broadway. Did you thinkwhen you were working on it that this
could go all the way to Broadway? No? I mean, you know,
you do oncors and the handshake isyou do five days of rehearsal and
five days of shows and then it'sover. It's this ephemeral, beautiful thing

(01:57):
which makes the it makes the stakesof it so interesting because you can make
full choices and you know, justit's supposed to disappear at the end of
the two weeks. And Sutton wasso extraordinary and it everybody was and people
just loved it, and I genuinelythink people just needed to forget about the

(02:19):
crazy world for a minute and laughand belly laugh. So people swooped in
and wanted to take it, sowere on Broadway and then we go to
La. Wow, you guys aretraveling around with it too. That's amazing.
Excellent, Yeah, excellent. Howdo you manage everything in your life?
Because honestly, your accomplishments are incredible, of course, and you've had
a couple of shows running here,You've had Tommy Heart of Rock and Roll,

(02:42):
and then also your home life.I understand that you have a little
one at home and trying to justjuggle everything. Yeah, I do,
but I feel like I've never workeda day in my life. I love
being in the studio preparing a showand rehearsing a show, and I loved
heck and I get sad when ashow opened. It's sort of like a
child going off to college. Idon't know. I love what I do,

(03:04):
and I just feel very grateful,like have the opportunities to keep working
on new shows. They sort ofmove myself in a show and characters,
and you know, I love it, so it's all good. I don't
get much sleep. But did youset out to be a choreographer or did
you want to be a performer andyou somehow found your way into into choreographing.

(03:24):
I yeah, I was. Iwent to Juilliard, and at Juilliard
you're always choreographing, and I wasalways getting in trouble choreographing operas at the
JOC and Twelfth Night by the actors, and you know. And then after
Juilliard, I performed with the Momics, which is an offshoot of Ploubilists,
and we choreographed everything ourselves, right, We devised theater and against with Twila

(03:49):
for a little bit. You know, a lot of that is very you
know, you're devising, you're workingtogether. And then I danced in fourteen
Broadway shows as a performer, andwhile I was performing, I was always
assisting choreographer. So it's always inthe room during the day, whether it
was for free or officially or whatever. So I was always I always knew

(04:11):
I wanted to be choreographing, andslowly but surely I had much more artistic
satisfaction being in the rehearsal room thanon stage. At a certain point,
putting those eyelashes on at seven thirtygot to be like, oh, I'm
not sure I should be doing thisanymore. You know. It's funny you
mentioned Twila. Twila Tharp, thegreat choreographer and an old friend of mine.
Because I was a big supporter MovingOut, I ran into her.

(04:32):
I went to the opening of LittleIsland where she choreographed the the opening show
there, and it was stunning.Yes, oh you were there, Yeah,
yeah, yeah. So and youknow Twila, she's you know,
there's nobody more serious on it.There's nobody more serious on the planet on
Twila. So she said we shouldget together. I said, great,
you want to have lunch and shesaid, I don't have lunch, okay,

(04:56):
breakfast. I don't eat breakfast.I said dinner. I eat dinner
at four o'clock in the afternoon.I said, how about a pickle?
She said, you're on so atclosing and moving Out. We compiled I
did Moving Out for two and ahalf years. I love it, And

(05:16):
we compiled Yeah, me too.It was the most extraordinary after that,
I really was. That was reallythe turning point, because it was like,
what can you do on stage afterdoing that that would feel anywhere as
close to compelling as that did?Right, We each of us wrote down
our most famous Twila quotes that shesaid to us, and we compiled a

(05:36):
book, and this was our closingnight gift to each other. And I
mean, we have some doozies.Mine was Lauren, You're a good actress,
act like a good dancer, youknow. I saw I saw Twila
choreograph. It was the national tourof Moving Out, and she invited me

(05:57):
into just to sit to watch herat work. And it was fascinating because
you had, you know, awhole array of dancers doing stuff. And
you remember, she sits on achair and she sits at the very edge
of the chair with her hands onher knees and her head bobbing up and
down, and she's watching all ofthese dancers moving and then they finish the
numbers. Says okay, fine,and then she looks the dancer to the

(06:20):
far left in the corner of theroom. She says, Jerry, on
that one beat, your pinky needsto go up. She doesn't miss a
detail, not a line. Ilearned so much from her. I really
really did a lot of what yousee and Tommy came from my work with
Twila and my work in modern danceand Graham Company, you know. But
that's the thing about Twyla and thegreat the choreographers you know, we see

(06:43):
the big sweep of things, butyou have to look at every single movement
of every single dancer to make thattapestry come to life. Absolutely, absolutely,
And how about working with the actorsand getting into character. Do you
feel like you get very involved witheach character and how they express themselves?

(07:03):
Sure? I love it. Imean I love figuring out how each character
walks and moves, and you knowwhat trauma they're holding and where they're holding
it, and you know how youwalk onto a stage and how you exit
the stage, all of those things. Stillness is incredibly important. I love

(07:23):
all of that. That's why Ilove losing myself inside each show because it's
endless beginnings for me. Every newshow has just such possibilities of a whole
new universe for me. Like toif you can explain to me your role
as a choreographer once the show opens, do you step away? Do you
come back every now and then?How does that work? I know that

(07:46):
when I was a dancer, therewas nothing more thrilling to when the choreographer
left the building. So I thinkthat there's something about handing it over to
the performers, handing it over tothe dancers, and then I come and
visit. I would say every twoweeks. But each of my shows says
it's own associate choreographer who stays attachedto the show, and they take notes
and they're present in the building atleast four times a week, and they

(08:09):
maintain the shows. You know,just things things. Everything tends to you
know, I don't know entropy,the laws of entropy. Things tend to
shift and move. So somebody isthere always making it seem steady. But
I do like to come back andthen you with fresh eyes, you see
new things, for the better orfor the worse. But it's so lovely
to come back after two weeks andgo, oh what about this? Oh,
unless you're in a long run likeCats. And Jillian Lynn, my

(08:31):
old buddy, she came in onceto look at Cats on Broadway. She
hadn't seen it in a few years, and she said, the dances are
all fat, and they got ridof them. That's what you said,
that's funny. Well, it hadbeen running, It had been running so
long and no one was maintaining it. Yeah, you have to have someone
maintaining a show. Yeah, it'sjust otherwise things moved. It's live theater.

(08:54):
Nothing is exactly the same every night, so you have to make sure
that you're driving inside a lane.So what do you what are your best
wishes? Then to your your castfor once upon a mattress, what are
you telling them as they're about toopen diet? You can see this re
us from there's sower Pad's kids,there's chalcoates of cookies, there's chalk,
the vodka everywhere else. Well,you know, I know, I know,

(09:16):
Lauren, I know dancers. Iknew some ballet dancers. They lived
on cigarettes and whiskey. That wasit. That's right, yes, And
the sower Pads kids, I mustI think. You know the thing about
what we're doing. We're having somuch fun and rehearsals and we have to
like that is part of the job. The job is to leave the craziness
of the world outside really and comein here and create this kingdom. That

(09:39):
is that this that Sutton Foster walksinto his fred and injects such child like
joy. So we have to havethat inside the rehearsal room. If we
don't, you will notice that onstage. And we so we're having so
much fun because it's actually imperative tothe process to have fun, believe it
or not, because if they're havingfun on stage, the audience will have

(10:01):
fun watching them have fun. Andyou can't fake that. So we're having
a blast. It is such asilly, silly room. I'm looking forward
to it. This is so thisis a limited run. Just want to
make sure we know. It's atthe Hudson Theater July thirty first to November
thirtieth, and then you guys aremoving on to la Yeah, so exciting.
Well, of course, we wishyou all the best, Lauren.
It's absolutely a pleasure to talk withyou, to meet you here about your

(10:24):
life. It's very fascinating and allthe great work that you're doing. Thank
you. Keep those dancers. Thankyou, keep those dancers on the line
the way Twila does. I willdrive. Thank you both so much for
everything you do. Thanks a lot, Thank you. I have a great
open up. Bye. Thank you. So. Kebby, my co host
at one of six point seven LightFM, his daughter just saw her very

(10:46):
first Broadway show and it was theLion King who got them the tickets.
Hmmm, I wonder could it bethis person we know named Michael ridle Good.
Thank you so much. Yes,because it was the most beautiful experience
for them. And I think hisdaughter's going to be addicted to Broadway musicals
now, so they'll be hitting youup once again. Because they were saying,

(11:09):
what's the next one we should goto? And I thought Aladdin?
Aladdin, right, yeah, that'sclassic. I think she would love that.
But yeah, this was Covey wassaying, how they've actually been on
Safari and seen the animals. Youknow. Wow, you guys get paid
very well at LIGHTFM if you're onSafari. Not me, No, I
wasn't there, but that his daughterseemed even more fascinated and more excited about

(11:35):
seeing the characters, you know,coming down the aisles the animals. Well
you see the actors as the puppetsof the same Yeah, yeah, you
see the puppeteers working the puppets.Yep. It's called, in Julie Tamor's
rather pretentious phrase, duality. Ohwhere you can. And I remember in
my brilliant book Singular Sensation, TheTriumph of Broadway, I have a great

(11:56):
chapter on the Lion King. Andwhen Jule he was putting the show together,
all the powers that be at Disney, including Michael Eisner, came to
see it in the rehearsal. HallI have to remember there are these big
puppets on the heads of the actors. But you see the big puppet,
but you also see the face ofthe actor, right, and you see
the actors inside the puppets moving thepuppets around. So they were in the

(12:18):
rehearsal studio and nothing was painted.It was all very rudimentary, and the
suits from Disney left and said,this is a disaster. What am I
looking at? Am I looking atthe frickin puppet and I'm looking at the
freakin actor. I don't know whereto look. What they didn't understand was
that when Julie put it all togetherwith the way the puppets were painted,
with the lighting and in a biggertheater, that the audience would have no

(12:43):
trouble distinguishing between the puppet and theactor and would all blend together into duality.
But they almost pulled the plug onit because they could not figure out,
do I look at the puppet,do I look at the actor?
It's confusing, And they left thatrehearsal and they thought, scrap it,
let's move on to the next.Oh, I'm so glad they didn't and
the producers of the show begged MichaelAiser to come back. What they did

(13:05):
was said, we're going to doit in a different way. We're going
to do it at the Palace Theater. We're going to put you in the
tenth row, and the puppets andthe actors, they're all going to be
in the costume, and we're goingto have lighting. And that's when Michael
saw it and he said it works. And that one decision he made right
there was worth nine billion dollars yeap, which is how much the Lion King
has made today. Very good callat that point, very good call.

(13:28):
And you know what, trust theartists. Yes, the artists have a
vision that you cannot see. Youhave to trust the artists. You hired
them for a reason. But onceagain, our friend Michael Ridle to the
rescue because I'm getting in to seeCabaret and so looking forward to that.
Thank you, thank you. That'sthat's coming up soon. Give you share
my experience. I'll tell you whatthe Nazis come to power. I don't

(13:50):
want to give it. Would youstop giving away the ending? That's true,
that's true. It's very scary,this cabaret, very very scared.
Well, this one has like acreepier ooh, seriously creepy. Oh it's
interesting Eric creepy though, all right, because the last version I saw was
Alan Cumming, which was seductive atthe impish and sexy. Yes, now

(14:11):
this one has a scary component toit, which is appropriate for what the
show's going. Yeah, very true. You'll let me, you'll give us
your review, you will. Thankyou so much, Michael, thank you
so. We'll see you next time. Bye bye. I'm inside broadly