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Broadway Baby, Houston Bound Actor and dancer Stephen Hanna By DON MAINES Photo by ROBERTO ARAUJO
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tephen Hanna was packing to move back to New York City after teaching for a year in Charleston, South Carolina, when he got a call that he had been booked for a part in the May 28–June 9 production of Jerome Robbins’ Broadway at Theatre Under the Stars (TUTS). “Big news—we are coming to Texas!” crows his husband, Bret Shuford, who is eager for a return visit to his hometown. Hanna, a dancer, and Shuford, an actor, are known on social media as “The Broadway Husbands” whose adventures are enjoyed by a lively online following. Fans can follow the couple as they depart Charleston for Houston on May 6, then return to the Big Apple on June 9 to teach at a summer musical-theater intensive for triplethreat performers. Hanna has never seen Jerome Robbins’ Broadway, which is understandable since
TUTS is only the second playhouse in the world to nab the rights to the show since it toured the U.S. after winning the 1989 Tony Award for Best Musical. However, he’s danced the “Suite of Dances” for West Side Story, and he performed a pas de deux during the song “Lonely Town” in the 2014 Broadway revival of On the Town. Production numbers from those musicals, along with other American classics such as Peter Pan, Gypsy, and Fiddler on the Roof are all featured in Jerome Robbins’ Broadway. Other famous shows include The King and I, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, and High Button Shoes. Jerome Robbins’ Broadway was selected as the final presentation of TUTS’ 50th-anniversary season. “Over the course of our 50-year history, we’ve done many of these classic musicals that were so beautifully choreographed by Jerome Robbins,” says Dan Knechtges, the artistic director at TUTS. “To cap off this celebratory season, we couldn’t choose just one, so we’re doing them all.” “I think it’s a great choice,” says Hanna, “because so many different shows are repre- ➝ OutSmartMagazine.com | MAY 2019 45
