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Choreographer Lorin Latarro is no stranger to the musical “Chess.” Aside from listening to the cast recording on repeat as a theater kid, she worked on the 2019 revival at the Kennedy Center.
This time around, she’s back on Broadway and curated the moves for the revival with Lea Michele, Aaron Tveit and Nicholas Christopher.
The show is set amid the Cold War and follows Freddie Trumper (Tveit) and a Soviet chess champion, Anatoly Sergievsky (Christopher). Caught in the middle of the competition and these two men is Michele’s Florence Vassy. She’s dating Freddie, but finds herself falling in love with Anatoly.
Director Michael Mayer and Latarro go back to her days as an associate choreographer on “American Idiot.” This time around, Danny Strong updates the book, and Latarro reinvents the musical moves. Here she speaks with Variety about some of the ideas of working with the ensemble, the “One Night in Bangkok” choreography, and her move into directing.
In the show, the ensemble remains largely on stage. Can you talk about some of the ideas behind that?
Some very clear ideas from the beginning were that the ensemble frames the action, and they’re shape shifters. They can become the action, comment on the action, or they can push into the space to put some tension in the action. During songs where they’re not singing, they’re still active. Every actor in the ensemble is experiencing the show in a specific way. All of that stuff has been curated specifically.
I liked the idea of the ensemble in stiff gray suits. Where did that come from?
Tom Broecker did the costumes. I googled John Longo’s photographs, and it’s pictures of men in suits in crazy off-kilter positions, so I posted those around the room, and that became part of the impetus of the show.
Michael and I had both been to Russia years ago. We saw constructivist art, and it’s straight, red, black, white and muscular. So I was interested in creating these pictures that fluctuated between these angular constructivist lines.
When we did it at the Kennedy Center in 2019, I approached it in a different way. We became the chessboard, and there was more literal dancing. As I got older, I was more interested in the expressionistic bits of it and then exploding to dancing for “One Night in Bangkok” and “The Arbiter” song. We really curated when we dance and how we dance.
You mentioned “One Night in Bangkok.” In it, Aaron is down to his underwear and is slipping into his clothes. What went into putting that together?
The music and the story are king. The story is that he’s in Bangkok. If you’ve ever gone to Soi Cowboy in Bangkok, sex is the currency. There is a sense in real life of men watching women. That is part of the reality of what happens on those streets. I wanted the women to feel sexy and empowered, and they had lots of input on the dance. We thought we would be a bit cheeky about it, and start with everybody dressed, and they get into various states of undress, which does two things. It creates an ensemble who are now playing the role of Bangkok. It also gave us this fun, cheeky moment where Aaron starts undressed and he is dressed in reverse on stage. So it gave us another thing to do inside the number. We had a lot of fun figuring out the best way to literally get his pants on.
When you are putting a show together, stuff gets left on the cutting room floor. As a choreographer, what is it like when the show opens, and that happens?
It happens in every show. As the story changes, the choreography changes because choreography is story. As the writers make decisions about what is an important story to tell, inevitably, you have to stay streamlined.
In “Chess,” there was a piece of music just before Nicholas Christopher’s incredible “End Game.” It was this choral piece of music in the original number. The ensemble came on stage holding candles and did a procession. It’s very slow and beautiful. It feels almost like you’re in a trance. I had this idea to create a pas de trois, telling the love triangle story. But when we watched the show in front of the audience, it was at a moment in the show musically that dipped just when we needed to rise up. I understand structurally why we decided it had to get cut. There’s a saying in theater that you have to kill your darlings. It’s never fun, but it’s a necessary thing to do.
Is there a number you loved putting together?
“Golden Bangkok” at the top of act two. Kevin Adams, our lighting designer, and I had such fun because we worked on the dancers popping out of the light. It took six hours of tech time to get the precision of that. I’m proud of it because it was a moment, and there’s no story to tell. So we tried to make it interesting in a way, collaboratively with lighting. It’s some of the hardest dancing in the show.
The dance break in “The Arbiter” was fun because there was never a dance break there. It was fun to see Bryce Pinkham dance in that moment.
“Murano” is another moment I loved. It was set in Northern Italy. We wanted to be modernist. So we took positions of haughty poses that were only elbow to wrist, and then we put them together in these very long sequences. That probably took the longest to teach; even though it looks simple, it was a hard number to teach all those positions because on every single syllable, there’s a shift of the shape, and it teaches the audience that we’re not going to do chess the old way. We’re going to do it a new way.
Next up, you’re moving into directing. What made you want to do that?
I love choreographing, and it’s like breathing to me, but directing is something I feel really excited about. I’m doing “Begin Again,” a John Carne film with new music by Train. I’m also working with Emily Saliers (Indigo Girls) on a new musical called “Starstruck,” based on a lesbian retelling of Cyrano. I’ve had the greatest teachers. I have worked alongside giants like Michael, Marianne Elliott and Jerry Zaks. I do feel like I have a set of tools with me in the room, and all of their guidance and their teachings, and now it’s time to find my own voice.
I also love that you’re working with rock stars.
Yes, the language of rock stars
What is the language of rock stars?
I’ve worked with Pet Townsend, Green Day, and Benny and Björn of ABBA. What I love about the way those artists work is that their songs are metaphorical. What rock and roll music does really well is that it lives inside of a metaphor, which is what choreography does really well. You’re not being literal when you’re choreographing. I think these two things really work well. One of the things I enjoy working with when I’m working with these guys is getting them to stay metaphoric and yet pushing the story.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
English (US) ·