User:GKB502/Gail Benedict, Dancer, Actor, Singer, Director, Choreographer

Gail Benedict: Broadway Actor, singer, dancer, director, writer, film maker and choreographer as well as choreographic assistant to such esteemed choreographers as Donald McKayle, Bob Fosse, Christopher Chadman, and Robert Longbottom.

Early Life: Gail Kathleen Benedict, was born in Storm Lake, Iowa in 1952. Her mother, Wanda Gail Anderson, married Harold Lloyd Benedict when he returned from World War II in 1946. She was given her grandmother's name, Gail, who was a professional artist with the Hallmark Greeting Card Company before her marriage. Gail's mother had always dreamed of being a dancer, but growing up in rural America during the great depression offered little opportunity to pursue such a dream. Wanda was determined that she would provide such opportunities to her own children at any cost.

Gail was a hyper active child and loved to dance around the living room in her mother's petticoats imagining herself to be a swan like the one's she'd seen in the San Francisco ballet productions her mother treated her to once a year. She also worshipped the talents of Shirley Temple and dreamed of someday making musical movies. At the age of 5, her mother enrolled her in the finest dance school she could find in San Bruno, California where the family had located so that her father could work for Pan American Airways at the San Francisco airport. Her teachers, Steve and Micki Granger, had recently left successful carreers in Hollywood to found their own private studio and to raise their own family. Micki had come from a long line of professional dancers and was well versed in the "Jack Cole style" of Jazz dance. Steve was a master Tap dancer and choreographer (35 years Micki's senior) and had choreographed and worked for some of the great Hollywood directors and dancers of the 30's, 40's and early 50's.

Gail's mother bemoaned the fact that Gail didn't take to the disciplined dance class as she had imagined. "She was awkward and clumbsy...nothing like the little swan who swept around the house like a white tornado". It was the constraint of being relegated to the way someone else wanted her to move rather than what came naturally to her that took a while to overcome. She was tiny and therefore always put at the end of the line of her dance class and outside the reach of the studio mirror, so she learned to feel the movement more than to see herself replicating it and that early experience helped her to quickly develop her own unique way of moving. According to her teacher Micki, "Gail was smart as a whip and a terrific mimic. You could show her something once and she'd have it.  She was naturally musical and theatrical by nature". Gail's mother had filled their home with books, music, art, theatre and dance and she and her two older brothers were being raised as "Modern Rennaisance children". Gail studied the violin and guitar from fourth grade through college as well as voice and dance and her brothers, James and John grew up to be fine musicians, artists and photographers in their adult lives.

Within two years Gail was taking private lessons and was paired with another outstanding Granger student, Debra Tahara, who also grew up to become a professional dancer. Together they garnered trophies in regional talent competitions and probably would have continued on as a team if Gail's father had not been transferred to Florida for his work with Pan American Airways.

Southern Florida was a joy for Gail, who also loved the outdoors and especially the warm water beaches. For a year she froliced in the sun and learned to swim and snorkel, but did very little dancing because her mother did not drive and the nearest dance school was an hour away in Miami. By the end of 4th grade Gail was turning more to sports, especially track and field and gymnastics, to satisfy her need to master the boundless energy of her body. As fortune would have it, her father was transferred once again, this time to Long Island, New York and outstanding dance training once again became available to her. Her mother enrolled her in the Andre Eglevsky School of Ballet and there began Gail's first serious foray into classical dance. At first, she hated ballet because, to her, it was constrained and codefied movement that felt like a full body straight jacket. She had come to love the freedom and earthiness of Jazz and Tap and, as much as she admired it, she discovered that her athletic little body and flat arched feet were poorly suited to the lean, willowy demands of point shoes and tutus. Although she spent three years with the Eglevsky school and became quickly elevated to more advanced levels of technique it was the sudden and catastrophic development of her mother's terminal illness of Huntington's Chorea that prompted the family's return to California.

Once back in California she joyfully returned to her studies with the Grangers as well as enrolled (upon Micki's advice) in another classicl ballet school in San Mateo to study with Richard Gibson. She spent three years under the tutelage of Mr. Gibson and it was there that she started to believe she might have a future as a professional dancer. It was in high school that she discovered "Modern" dance from her gymnastics teacher who sponsored an after school dance club. It was in this creative environment that Gail first started experimenting with choreography and was cast as the dancing lead in all her school musicals (when she wasn't in the pit fullfilling her duties in the school orchestra as concert mistress). Although she was a strong academic student, when it was time to consider what to go on to study in college there was no doubt in her mind that Dance and Music were her destiny. At the time there was no Musical Theatre Major offered at universities so Gail chose to pursue a degree in dance. First at Mills College in Oakland, California where she became immersed in the world of Modern dance and choreography and was taught and inspired by such modern dance greats as Merce Cunningham, David Woods, and Charles Weidman. She danced outside of school with the Margo Jones Dance Company and the Rec Russel Jazz Company, both budding bay area choreographers. It was her desire for more cutting edge training that led her to audition for The California Institute of the Arts and she transferred there for her sophomore year. There, under the mentorship of Bella Lewitsky and Donald McKayle, Gail received the challenge and opportunities that lead her into her professional career. At nights, in the basement of the film school, she offered an open Tap class to fulfill her pedigogy requirement and it was there she began to develop her own techinque for teaching the art of Tap Dance. While completing her B.F.A. over the next two years she danced and toured with Mr. McKayle in the Inner City Repertory Dance Company of Los Angeles and upon graduation in 1973 soon became his choreographic assistant for her first Broadway show, "Dr. Jazz". During the year that she assisted Mr. McKayle in designing the dances for his new show she took any legitimate theatre work she could find. She did TV specials with Sonny and Cher, tribute specials with Donald O'Connor, taught Tap at Rainbow Studios in Hollywood, danced with the Americana Ballet Company for a brief stint, sang folk songs in a Piano Bar in Downey, California for the lunch crowd and created her own night club "flash dance" act (a combination of Jazz and Modern Dance acrobatic improvisation to percussive music) in a Persian night club called Persepolis in Beverly Hills. By the end of that first year out of college Gail was more than eager and READY to head for Broadway.

"New York, New York, What a Wonderful Town" to be continued...