Portrait: Jeff Calhoun

ackstage at the Kennedy Center lies a subterranean maze inhabited by actors, stage technicians and other denizens of the theatre world. It's also where choreographer Jeff Calhoun calls home as Annie Get You Gun runs in the Opera House. And this is his third Washington production this season.

A native of Pittsburgh, Calhoun briefly attended Chicago's Northwestern University. But his formal education ended when Tommy Tune invited him to join the national tour of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. "I made a deal with my parents: I could leave college and tour with Whorehouse, so long as I went back to school when it was over. I fully intended to go back, but after the show ended, I realized there was nothing you could learn in college that you couldn't learn on the job."

That tour took Jeff to Hollywood, where he landed a role in the 1982 film version with Dolly Parton and Burt Reynolds. Describing himself as "the skinny one in front," Calhoun say he still gets recognized. "I'm shown in gay bars every week. People call me all the time and say 'Oh my god, I just saw you on T.V.!' That was a long time ago, though. I don't think I'd recognize myself now."

More screenwork followed, including Aria, Weekend Warriors, and an episode. of T.V.'s The Twilight Zone, but Calhoun wanted to concentrate on his next dream: directing for the stage. One of his first big breaks was heading up Hollywood's Salute to Broadway, the first celebrity AIDS benefit of its kind. "It was truly an incredible experience," he recalls. "Bob Hope was the headliner. Everyone was in it. Michael Bennett had just died, and we managed to reunite the entire original cast of A Chorus Line.

Calhoun's professional relationship with Tune began during the Broadway run of My One and Only, and continued to flourish in productions like Tommy Tune Tonight, Grease, and the Tony Award-winning Will Rogers Follies. In 1995, Tune broke his foot

during a Tampa performance of another Tune/Calhoun collaboration, Busker Alleyforcing him to cancel its intended Broadway run. Shortly thereafter, Tune abruptly ended their 21-year old professional and personal relationship. "You'd have to ask him why," says Calhoun, "He certainly didn't relay that information to me." Still, Calhoun has kind words for Tune: "He was my mentor and my friend. Next to my parents, he was the most influential person in my life. It was the best training that anyone who wants to do what I do could have possibly received."

Never one to give in, Calhoun kept working on various projects. He even contributed to a special musical episode of Xena, Warrior Princess with Grease alum Lucy Lawless. When Barry and Fran Weissler decided to produce a revival of Annie, Get Your Gun, they asked Calhoun to help out. Though Annie's director, Graciela Daniele, is an accomplished choreographer in her own right, time was short and Daniele had her hands full with Peter Stone's new book. While many might find working with two industry giants like Daniele and Bernadette Peters daunting, Calhoun relishes the experience.

"There are only a few people in my entire career that I've dreamed of working with. Hal Prince is one. Graciela Daniele is another. She's the most generous, nurturing director I've ever known." As for Annie herself, Calhoun remarked that "Bernadette Peters is everyone's fantasygay, straight, male, female, whatever. In I've got the Sun in the Morning, she even came up with her own steps. I just built a routine around them."

Rehearsals, meetings and rewrites keep Calhoun from seeing much of Washington, but he did get to visit one local watering hole. "I went to Remington's to do research on two-stepping for the show. It was great just to be out in the community." -DAN AVERY

Annie, Get Your Gun plays through this Sunday, January 24. Call 202.467.4600.

Jeff Calhoun and Annie's Cowboys photographed by Michael Wichita

METRO WEEKLY

January 14, 1999

METRO

WEEKLY

January 14. 1999