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Where there's a musical, there's a Marshall
Sunday, April 01, 2001 By Christopher Rawson, Post-Gazette Drama Critic
WITH A BIG HOLLYWOOD musical of "Chicago" just given the green light and a much-anticipated Broadway revival of "Follies" opening this week, the careers of the director/choreographer Marshalls -- Rob, 40, and sister Kathleen, 38 -- have such forward thrust, you can hardly get them to look backward.
Consider Kathleen's recent 21-month sprint. In July 1999, she began choreography for the Toronto workshop of "Seussical," then hurried into rehearsals for the Broadway revival of "Kiss Me Kate." As soon as "Kate" opened in November, she jumped into directing and choreographing the New York premiere of Stephen Sondheim's long-dormant first musical, "Saturday Night." All along, she was doing artistic director duties for New York's hit Encores! series, planning its season of three concert musicals, including her own direction and choreography of "Wonderful Town." Then (we're up to last July) she plunged fully into "Seussical" -- rehearsals, Boston tryout with attendant troubles and delayed Broadway opening, by which time she was already working on the Broadway revival of "Follies." And that's just the big stuff.
So Thursday, when "Follies" opens, Kathleen might expect a couple of days' rest -- except she has to prepare to direct and choreograph "Hair" for Encores!, and there's also the national tour of "Kate" to cast and rehearse.
Now for Rob: As a veteran with six Tony nominations for choreography and the hit "Cabaret"(which he also co-directed) entering its fourth year on Broadway, he has had several of those two-year sprints himself. But now he switches into another pace -- Hollywood's. Two weeks ago, Miramax gave the go-ahead to the film of "Chicago," which Rob will direct and choreograph. He immediately hired a studio and dancers to begin pre-production.
Rob had been on a mainly Hollywood rhythm for a year, working on plans to direct three movies and a new stage musical. But he had time to take on a month-long stint as "play doctor" for the troubled "Seussical," which allowed him to work with Kathleen again.
Their mother, Anne, just retiring this spring from the University of Pittsburgh School of Education, says they felt the "Seussical" interlude "was like getting on a bicycle again. No one else would have been able to move right in and work together like that."
After all, that's how the two kids from Squirrel Hill started -- working together. There were the shows right in the living room, shared with Rob's twin, Maura Powell (who runs an interior decoration firm in northern Virginia with her husband). At ages 12 and 10, all three played Von Trapp children in the CLO's 1973 "Sound of Music." Rob, Carnegie Mellon class of '82, spent his junior year touring nationally in "A Chorus Line." Kathleen, Smith College '84, is just enough younger that her grad school was the tour of "Cats." Each quickly became a dance captain, the first step to choreographer -- Kathleen, 26, on that tour, Rob, 23, with "The Rink" on Broadway.
When Rob broke through as a Broadway choreographer with "Kiss of the Spider Woman" (1993), his assistant was Kathleen. The team held through three Broadway shows, until Kathleen's solo work took over.
Now, they live near each other on New York's Upper West Side. Rob has a life partner, John DeLuca, a director/choreographer and acting coach, while Kathleen has been too busy to find a mate. Together, they keep their parents hopping, so as not to miss an opening. "Bored with opening nights?" says father Bob, a retired Pitt dean and English professor: "Not yet!" "Who would be?" asks Anne.
Not us. We wrote at length about their early careers in 1994. It's time to catch up.
Kathleen Marshall puts her stamp on Broadway and 'Follies'
From Sunday, March 06, 1994
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