‘They’re annoying and stupid and slow everything down. Nobody likes a dream ballet!” That’s a quote from Apple TV+’s Schmigadoon!, the musical theatre parody that could only have been made by people who absolutely love (almost) all things musicals. Drew McOnie is having none of it. “Maybe we should put that on the poster,” he jokes, since he has commissioned a triple bill of dream ballets for his inaugural season as artistic director at Regent’s Park Open Air theatre.
What’s a dream ballet anyway, you may ask. It’s the bit in a musical where the dialogue and songs stop and dance takes over, often to delve into the psyche of a character at a crossroads. Agnes de Mille’s original dream ballet for 1943’s Oklahoma! was called Laurey Makes Up Her Mind – she had to decide between two suitors – and it was a major moment for dance on Broadway. Other famous dream ballets include in the 1951 film An American in Paris, where Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron spend 17 minutes dancing through elaborate painted stage-sets of Paris, or Singin’ in the Rain’s Broadway Melody, a film within a film.
