This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:27] Donna McKechnie: Hello, everybody, shall we?

[0:29] Mimi Quillin: Hello.

[0:30] Nancy Ticotin: Yes, let's do it.

[0:30] Dana Moore: Here's to the ladies.

[0:35] Donna McKechnie: Welcome. Here we are at Sardi's Restaurant. Oh, my favorite place, really, in one of my favorite places in the theater district, and I'm sitting with three gorgeous women, Mimi Quillin, Nancy Ticotin, and Dana Moore.

[0:50] Nancy Ticotin: Oh my god, I just hear that.

[0:52] Donna McKechnie: Ticotine.

[0:53] Nancy Ticotin: Like nicotine.

[0:54] Donna McKechnie: I should know that.

[0:55] Nancy Ticotin: That's okay.

[0:56] Donna McKechnie: Because you know my sisters and brothers were all into business and everybody says it differently. We know because we haven't seen each other.

[1:02] Donna McKechnie: First of all, do you know each other?

[1:04] Mimi Quillin: Actually, yes.

[1:05] Donna McKechnie: Well, then you know, you know, we're quite you today. So I went today. I want to start connecting the dots a little because I haven't seen you. I love reunions, and we haven't seen each other since halftime.

[1:16] Nancy Ticotin: Since the CD signing.

[1:17] Mimi Quillin: Yes, that's right.

[1:18] Donna McKechnie: That's right. They recorded. And our wonderful producer Dori Berinstein was our producer. And so and you just came back from In the Heights.

[1:27] Nancy Ticotin: At Dallas Theater Center.

[1:29] Donna McKechnie: And I didn't know that you did the original show as well.

[1:31] Nancy Ticotin: Yes. I created the role of Camila.

[1:33] Donna McKechnie: Yeah.

[1:33] Nancy Ticotin: From the O'Neill, like back in 2004, and then we did many workshops. Then it went off Broadway, and Tommy Kail, the director, always wanted Priscilla in that role.

[1:42] Nancy Ticotin: Priscilla Lopez came and did that part, and then she had to leave because Tommy Walsh passed away.

[1:46] Donna McKechnie: Right.

[1:46] Nancy Ticotin: In London, and I came in and did it off Broadway. And then on Broadway, I covered the three adult females.

[1:51] Donna McKechnie: Wow, wow. And then I just did the grandmother, Abuela Claudia.

[1:55] Nancy Ticotin: Wow.

[1:56] Donna McKechnie: Which is great. I tell you that. No high heels, no eyelashes. I wore a moo.

[2:01] Nancy Ticotin: Wait a minute. I have to tell you that speaking of high heels, that just triggered something. Because I used to watch you every night, every performance. In halftime, she had these high heels on.

[2:11] Donna McKechnie: She dances like a demon. And she's not only doing that in singing, full tilt, she's climbing stairs on this platform.

[2:18] Nancy Ticotin: Dancers dancing with an amazing dancer, Alex I dancer.

[2:23] Donna McKechnie: Right. And turning and flipping and landing on him. And I mean that's ending in a layout. Okay, so you have done so much, so much. So, first of all, welcome dancers. We're all dancers.

[2:33] Nancy Ticotin: We all started as dancers, and we're singers and actors and writers and choreographers and teachers.

[2:42] Dana Moore: Everything, master teachers.

[2:45] Donna McKechnie: But I want to get to that. But I just have to quickly recap each of you. So on your feet on Broadway.

[2:51] Nancy Ticotin: Uh, that was I didn't do on your feet on Broadway. I did the first national tour.

[2:55] Donna McKechnie: Okay, okay, good. Well, that's like a Broadway show on tour.

[2:59] Nancy Ticotin: Exactly. Jerome Robbins Broadway, my A My Name and is Alice. Still Alice, yeah. West Side Story, the revival. Jerome Robbins' choreography, King and I, Damn Yankees Revival.

[3:12] Donna McKechnie: You did eight different characters on Law and Order.

[3:15] Nancy Ticotin: Yeah.

[3:15] Donna McKechnie: Wow. And you've done—

[3:16] Nancy Ticotin: I've done some Law and Order.

[3:18] Donna McKechnie: You've done Law and Order, SVU, Criminal, all of them.

[3:20] Nancy Ticotin: I've done it.

[3:21] Donna McKechnie: Okay, so then we've got, uh, well, did you start dancing first or singing first? Because your show at the Green Room that I saw, it was a lot of singing.

[3:32] Nancy Ticotin: Oh my god, it was fantastic. A lot of singing.

[3:34] Donna McKechnie: But just great.

[3:35] Nancy Ticotin: Yeah, I started as a dancer, and I was sort of the original member of Ballet Hispanico of New York at the age of 13.

[3:41] Donna McKechnie: And you're from the Bronx, right?

[3:42] Nancy Ticotin: Yeah, but it was in New York, it was Manhattan, the company, yeah. And next year, Ballet Hispanico is celebrating their 50th anniversary.

[3:49] Donna McKechnie: Oh, they are.

[3:54] Nancy Ticotin: Yeah, right. Between Columbus and Amsterdam. So I just have to read this little to recap this to put a point on all of this right now, because this is so fast, but because I want to really get into dish, you know.

[4:04] Dana Moore: Yeah, and our dish.

[4:07] Donna McKechnie: Um, so there was not a dry eye. This is from the Dallas newspaper.

[4:11] Nancy Ticotin: Oh my gosh.

[4:12] Donna McKechnie: And this touched me as I read it to myself. There was not a dry eye in the theater at the conclusion of her Paciencia y Fe. And Ticotin embodied the beautifully bittersweet position of an immigrant, someone who longs to belong as they once did, and who is grateful for aspects of their new life and who is intensely perseverant.

[4:42] Nancy Ticotin: Through Abuela, Nancy shows us that strength does not lie in bravado, but in patience and faith.

[4:49] Donna McKechnie: Oh, that makes me cry.

[4:51] Nancy Ticotin: Thank you.

[4:54] Donna McKechnie: What that says to me is this writer, you communicated the depth of a character in a song that shows what a powerful actress you are.

[5:07] Nancy Ticotin: Thank you. Do you know because the music is so powerful and that song is great. But it's what you know, and you—

[5:11] Donna McKechnie: Thank you. So Dana, 12 Broadway shows. I've seen you do so many of them, but as I'm kind of looking at our lives, you know, I'm looking at everybody superficially, but 12 Broadway shows. Wow.

[5:31] Dana Moore: And you were handpicked by Bob Fosse in so many of them.

[5:36] Donna McKechnie: And Chicago, well, just to name a few, Chicago, Sweet Charity, Dancing. Um, and you did A Chorus Line.

[5:44] Dana Moore: This was stunning. I, as I read, five characters in A Chorus Line, five ladies.

[5:51] Donna McKechnie: That's so Cassie. What are they?

[5:53] Dana Moore: Well, Cassie, Sheila. Sheila's the one I did on the line, and but I understudied Sheila, Judy when I first went in, and then I very quickly, like within a month, I went into the line as Sheila.

[6:10] Donna McKechnie: Still understudying Cassie.

[6:13] Dana Moore: Judy, right? And Judy. And but that I think the other two characters you're talking about must be, um, you know, Vicky.

[6:22] Dana Moore: Vicky Vickers. And Linda.

[6:23] Donna McKechnie: And Lois, it's Lois, yeah.

[6:27] Dana Moore: It said Linden. I went, I don't, you know, the A Chorus Line fans are gonna kill me, but I don't know who Linda is.

[6:32] Donna McKechnie: I don't either.

[6:32] Dana Moore: I actually read Lois.

[6:34] Donna McKechnie: It's Lois.

[6:35] Dana Moore: I'll set the slowest. Oh, it's not a correct thing. The internet. We didn't know.

[6:40] Donna McKechnie: Um, so yeah, uh, that's fantastic. You know that show through and through.

[6:45] Dana Moore: My really, I mean, every show I'm in when I'm in it, it's my favorite show.

[6:51] Donna McKechnie: Yeah, yeah. Every role I'm doing, it's my favorite role. Okay, so here we on the on your toes, Will Rogers Follies, uh, How to Succeed.

[7:00] Dana Moore: Was Will Rogers your first?

[7:02] Dana Moore: No, back.

[7:04] Dana Moore: I'm old.

[7:05] Donna McKechnie: No, you're not. You can't say that here at you in Sugar Babies.

[7:10] Dana Moore: Yeah, Sugar Babies.

[7:11] Donna McKechnie: Oh, that was your first show?

[7:12] Dana Moore: Was that your first?

[7:13] Dana Moore: Yes, I've got a bigger one. Sugar Babies.

[7:14] Donna McKechnie: Singing in the Rain.

[7:15] Dana Moore: Okay, Sugar Babies. I saw that.

[7:16] Donna McKechnie: I didn't see it. Um, you did the film The Producers.

[7:21] Dana Moore: And the Woody Allen film.

[7:22] Donna McKechnie: I did. And both of you are with the Fosse legacy, right?

[7:28] Dana Moore: Yes.

[7:28] Donna McKechnie: You're teaching. As I've known you over time teaching at Steps and the master classes for Fosse, which is kind of a separate thing.

[7:38] Dana Moore: Um, Dana teaches at Steps.

[7:40] Dana Moore: I do. Well, I just do the legacy classes right now.

[7:45] Donna McKechnie: But you also are teaching, are you still teaching at Marymount?

[7:50] Dana Moore: Yes, I am.

[7:50] Donna McKechnie: But you've taught all over the world, Dana.

[7:52] Dana Moore: Uh-huh.

[7:53] Donna McKechnie: And you know, I had the privilege of seeing Mimi, well, besides Sweet Charity, but seeing you teach students, and I saw you, I think I took a class, but I observed it too.

[8:06] Nancy Ticotin: Yeah.

[8:06] Donna McKechnie: You're the—well, you can imagine what the students are getting from the way you teach, because you're so accurate about what's been imparted, what's been given you.

[8:20] Dana Moore: But you also have the background, the point of view. You can give them as Fosse always did, brought you back to your personality, your acting intention.

[8:31] Dana Moore: Absolutely. You know, it was all so much a part of his theory.

[8:34] Donna McKechnie: The acting part of it, yeah.

[8:36] Dana Moore: It was so important. And you give them the backstory of why this step connects to this and what's the idea behind it.

[8:43] Donna McKechnie: That's the only way it's just greatly way. And you know what? Mimi and I were just talking about this the other day about we have to teach it the way it was taught to us.

[8:54] Dana Moore: Of course, right?

[8:55] Donna McKechnie: Um, and sometimes that means you spend two hours on eight counts or sixteen counts, but it has to be given and shared that anyway.

[9:07] Dana Moore: Because if you—

[9:07] Donna McKechnie: Well, what you were showing them too, Mimi, when we were doing the—you came by if my friends could see me now, and Donna was there that day at Steps, and I said, come by, and she was fabulous.

[9:20] Dana Moore: It was great because what I took in was the fact that when you say you could do it a little differently without knowing what it meant, and it wouldn't look the same.

[9:31] Donna McKechnie: But if you have—but the slight difference why this was he was so keen on specifics, attention and whatnot, you know, and detail-oriented.

[9:41] Dana Moore: But you know what I think too, I think that we all—the anyone that worked with Bob or Gwen has still in our minds a picture of them.

[9:52] Donna McKechnie: Yeah.

[9:52] Dana Moore: And that's becoming a rare thing on this planet. And the power and the responsibility of that is what makes me go, oh my god, I have to pass it on.

[10:03] Donna McKechnie: Because it's not second, it's firsthand. And so when I picture up something better than this, I actually really—I eventually see the people that performed it, but I see Gwen first teaching it to me.

[10:14] Nancy Ticotin: Yeah.

[10:15] Dana Moore: Like the story, the story you told about, well, I remember, I can't remember if I heard it from her or might have heard it from you. She loved Jackie Gleason and Art Carney.

[10:27] Donna McKechnie: Okay, and she was a real clown, right?

[10:30] Dana Moore: Yeah, yeah.

[10:30] Donna McKechnie: And she did this one little step that she has da-da-da-da-da.

[10:35] Dana Moore: Yeah, Gleason used to do that, yeah.

[10:37] Donna McKechnie: And that's a way it was, but it was Reginald Van Gleason.

[10:41] Dana Moore: But yes, but when Art Carney used to leave, he did that little thing like that.

[10:45] Donna McKechnie: Yes.

[10:45] Dana Moore: And shooting his cuffs. And she loved the way he moved, both of them.

[10:50] Donna McKechnie: So to find those little tidbits out, you know, is—and you are.

[10:54] Dana Moore: Choreography has the background of the choreography so rich, amazing.

[10:58] Donna McKechnie: We were just talking before, Nancy. You are such a great dancer, and you would go for these years ago for these auditions, because I said you've got to, you know, you're a Fosse dancer.

[11:09] Nancy Ticotin: But he never saw me.

[11:11] Donna McKechnie: Because I—every time I went to any audition for like dance.

[11:15] Nancy Ticotin: Which wasn't any of this.

[11:16] Donna McKechnie: Yeah.

[11:16] Nancy Ticotin: It was—who was it?

[11:18] Donna McKechnie: I don't know. You said you knew who it was at all.

[11:20] Nancy Ticotin: Might have been Kathy Dobie.

[11:26] Donna McKechnie: But you know, perfect pirouettes, everything, doing it better, at least as good as everybody else. And I would always get caught up, be like, really?

[11:34] Nancy Ticotin: Yeah.

[11:35] Donna McKechnie: But I always knew he had to see me.

[11:38] Nancy Ticotin: He never got to see me.

[11:39] Donna McKechnie: I don't know. So how did that happen? Let me just—I have—I just missed a whole thing here. Look at me. I'm trying to be like, you know, so I've got pages here.

[11:48] Dana Moore: Very good.

[11:49] Donna McKechnie: Where is the meme paper? Because I have to find anything here. So, okay, so I'm kind of—you can take it away from me any time you want. But um, my question to you is because I didn't know how you and Fosse and Gwen got together because I saw a brilliant play that you wrote that you performed.

[12:09] Mimi Quillin: Thank you.

[12:09] Donna McKechnie: And it was just—I had the privilege of the men's scholar.

[12:12] Mimi Quillin: Yes, called Fosse at the Men's School.

[12:14] Donna McKechnie: Called Fosse at the Men's School.

[12:16] Mimi Quillin: Yes, yes.

[12:16] Donna McKechnie: Yeah. And so I want you to talk about that a little bit. You started in ballet.

[12:21] Mimi Quillin: Yes, you're from where you're Staten City then.

[12:25] Mimi Quillin: And I'm from Staten Island, and I got off of that as fast as I could. But I actually wound up back on it. But anyway, that's another story. Anyway, I started studying at the Metropolitan Opera Ballet School as a kid, and then they closed when they moved to the New Met. But in that time, I got a lot of training, and I would super for the operas, and I supered for—this is gonna date me. I actually was on stage with Nureyev and Fontaine for Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty. So as a child, I got to see Nureyev and Fontaine dance.

[12:56] Mimi Quillin: So in my mind, in my mind's eye, like I talk about Gwen and Bob, are these incredible dancers and also just the ensemble of the Royal Ballet. So you know something I'll never reach, but it's in my head. It was a life experience that you you'll never. And then there was, and then they moved to Lincoln Center, and Alvin Ailey choreographed um, and I was in the opening of that with Leonine, me and Leontine Price. Yeah. Um and it was directed by Franco Zeffarelli.

[13:24] Dana Moore: What was it that was directed?

[13:25] Mimi Quillin: Anthony and Cleopatra. The opera Anthony and Cleopatra, directed by um Zeffirelli and choreographed by Alvin Ailey. Crazy. Crazy, right? I think I was 12. And we didn't do much. But the one thing, Zeffirelli was wonderful to me because I was so young, and there was the funny story is that there was a scene with Vestal Virgins, and he wanted me to be one of them, and they were going to be bare-breasted. And my mother said, absolutely not. And I was in tears. But I and of course he wanted me to be a Vestal. I was a Vestal Virgin. And then they wound up using older and putting net on them and sparkles and stuff. So it didn't, it never was what it was, but that was my first theater disappointment. But one of many, but anyway, I but um, yeah, so I I got my training there, and then I went. I sort of I always loved Broadway as a kid, and then I kind of veered off into the ballet world for a while, but it got very frustrating because I'm almost foot tall.

[14:23] Nancy Ticotin: If you stood up, you would be like six, what?

[14:25] Mimi Quillin: Well, I I'm Oh you mean on time. I'm like five, ten and a half. Yeah. Yeah, so it was very frustrating the ballet world. I mean I danced in the Milwaukee Ballet and the I gu Pittsburgh Ballet. Pittsburgh Ballet, and then I did chamber dance theater with William Carter of ABT, and that was just heaven, but it didn't last long. Our money got you know taken. But the thing is, your background, you know, provided Fosse with a lot of material, right?

[14:54] Dana Moore: Well, you know, he would say to me, How did you just fix that? And I would say, well, you're just unique, because I would always see it through that lens. She was the dad, she was the big dance cat.

[15:04] Mimi Quillin: No, she was the trainer. You were in the shows and you trained, you know, our company of Sweet Charity so brilliantly. But what but what is the story you know we told about the story?

[15:15] Dana Moore: The story about when when you met when Gwen was being honored.

[15:15] Mimi Quillin: When Gwen was being honored or Dance Machine?

[15:23] Dana Moore: Yes.

[15:24] Mimi Quillin: I mean that's the Dance Machine story, yeah. So it's American Dance Machine. So I was in American Dance Machine with Lee Theodore, which were you in Dance Machine, maybe you know, did a piece for my Lady's Bodyguard. Ah that's how I know. And she was a friend of Tina Raminas, the founder of Lady's Body Club. Yeah. Well, I had a good time with the city. And she also staged the West Side Story, the first revival. She reenacted, she gave us the choreography.

[15:44] Dana Moore: Wow.

[15:44] Mimi Quillin: And is that the one that Debbie Allen did?

[15:46] Dana Moore: Yes.

[15:46] Mimi Quillin: Oh wow. And Stephen Bogardo.

[15:48] Dana Moore: And Steven's husband. Which is how I know Dana.

[15:51] Mimi Quillin: And who played Maria?

[15:52] Dana Moore: Josie DeGusma.

[15:54] Mimi Quillin: And she went to college with me. She was a little ahead of me. But anyway, um it's like a good. But what we're talking about.

[16:02] Dana Moore: Oh, so Gwen was there was always a host for American Dance Machine. And she and Cheetah were hosting, it was a benefit up in New Haven. And um it was a weekend of performances. And coincidentally, there was a week of prior to that, auditions for the revival of Sweet Charity, which at that point Bob was only going to oversee the production, but he was running the auditions. And I was in the city. I think I well, I know she's or maybe big deal, or I don't know.

[16:31] Mimi Quillin: Oh, right, big deal, right. Yeah. But um, so I was in Hawaii doing an industrial, and I couldn't make the women's um equity calls, so I went to the men's open call, and that was when I said I'm not leaving until Fosse's face says go over. I just was like that non-class. Well sort of that it never happened. But um I just kept standing there, you know. And Chris was in there, Chris Chadman, and so I went and he got me in, and I was the only woman in 50 men. But then so I auditioned, and then I went right up to New Haven that afternoon, and Gwen Verdon walks right over to me and says, There's a step in the show you're gonna hate. And it and she just she knew where I was because Lee Theodore never let anybody out a dress rehearsal, but she let me out, which was really like thank you. Amazing.

[17:21] Mimi Quillin: So that whole weekend, um we were performing, and all I knew was I'd done this audition with a bunch of men, and and Gwen came in and she said, Bob wants to see you again. Maybe. And here's his number, and that's why the title of my show is Call Fosse at the Min Scoff. She's called Fosse at the Minskov, and it said Fosse Minskov and the phone number and all that, and she handed me the little piece of paper which I have framed. And she framed this little corner of an envelope that was scribbled on. And um then she told me what to wear. And the folklore, which I found out later, was that I looked terrible. That Gwen had said, Did you hire Mimi? And he said, Well, she's a good dancer, but no, first he said, Mimi Who? And then he said, Oh, well, she's a good dancer, but she looks terrible.

[18:08] Dana Moore: Oh no!

[18:09] Mimi Quillin: And so she came in and she was like, you know, you've got to mm-mm. Do this, do this, do this. And and so I went back feeling all propped up and over made up and everything. And he I did the whole chorus audition by myself for him the following Monday. And all alone, no Chris in the room, just m I don't think Chris was there. No, it's just me and Bob. If Chris was there, I didn't see him. And and an accompanist, no, there was no assistant.

[18:35] Dana Moore: That's amazing how fun.

[18:37] Mimi Quillin: And he um you know, did that slow walk around the room with the little puffing cigarette that he'd do where he looked at you from every angle? Not too nerve-wracking, isn't it?

[18:45] Dana Moore: Oh my god.

[18:46] Mimi Quillin: And he came right up to me and he said, Boy, Gwen was right about you. I mean, he really he really but you know, I think Gwen had said to him, uh which she said to me later, you're you're just like me, you're not much up close, but on stage you light right up.

[19:03] Dana Moore: Oh, is that a compliment?

[19:06] Mimi Quillin: I don't know if that's a compliment, but I'll take it from you.

[19:10] Dana Moore: Does anybody do a better imitation?

[19:12] Mimi Quillin: That's really good.

[19:12] Dana Moore: Not that I know of. I'm trying to go easy on it though, because I'm saving it for my show.

[19:17] Mimi Quillin: So I have to yeah, but I have to. What is the one what'd you say one line for me that you that I saw you do? It was a it was she was coaching us um in Big Spender, and we were doing the shoulder rolls as you back up, you know so you're coming and it's just your back coming towards the audience and she'd say roll your shoulder like you're wearing a dirty bra.

[19:39] Dana Moore: Do you remember that you're wearing a dirty bra.

[19:43] Mimi Quillin: I know funny I mean what is a dirty bra I don't know I I just but it made sense I know but it does make sense you know one of the things that I want to go back to where because you when you started you had an experience with Gwen when you were like nine right did you meet her the first time yes I read this and I went oh my god I have to ask you about that because you come from you've read that on the internet it's all out there lies truth it's all this was the truth but tell us I was it was a big dance convention for dance masters of America and I grew up in the Pittsburgh area and Pittsburgh was it in Pittsburgh you go to the local dance studio I did.

[20:32] Nancy Ticotin: I went to a really I realized now what wonderful training I had in this little kind of local you know local Dolly Dingle dancing studio.

[20:42] Mimi Quillin: Yeah yeah um it's got flies on the yeah so you your sister and your brother that you you were all trained at the same both my brothers yes I have an older brother a younger brother and a sister that's cool.

[20:58] Nancy Ticotin: So you're dance masters of America.

[21:01] Mimi Quillin: So I am. And I mean, we had teachers back then that would come and we had Mathematics come. Really? We had Peter Jennaro. We had um and Gwen. It was actually Peter Gennaro and Gwen were teaching a map a big, you know, class. It was seemed like thousands of students, but of course it wasn't, but it was hundreds of students. And I was just of the age to be in that level of class.

[21:25] Nancy Ticotin: You were nine?

[21:32] Mimi Quillin: Nine. Yes. Yes, that's when I first started. And Peter was up demonstrating and and and saying, Gwen, you you know, demonstrate this step. And I don't even remember how it happened, but somehow I I think it was Gwen wanted to a dancer to come. And I was kind of close to the front and in the middle. And so I was kind of close by and I was little. And she just pulled me up and she said, So you must have been good and adorable and gorgeous. So what did you have?

[22:06] Nancy Ticotin: I didn't know what I was doing with my pelvis at that time.

[22:10] Mimi Quillin: I did. That's what you did. What did she have you do? Um it was I don't even remember what the step was. It it could have been. And of course, at that time my mother was a huge, huge fan of Gwen Verdon, of you know, any any show, any variety show that came to the show.

[22:32] Nancy Ticotin: Did you say that she your mother was the your champion in terms of inspiring you to continue?

[22:38] Mimi Quillin: I would say it was in your corner for that, right? Most definitely. Took my father a little more. Yeah. Because it was draining the the the uh bank account bank account. Yes. All four of us were in dancing school. And of course, you know.

[22:52] Nancy Ticotin: So a lot of costumes at the end of the day.

[22:54] Mimi Quillin: Yeah, but my mom made all the costumes.

[22:55] Nancy Ticotin: Yes, my mother did too.

[22:57] Mimi Quillin: Oh really? My mom made them for money book.

[22:59] Nancy Ticotin: Did she?

[23:00] Mimi Quillin: Because that's how my mother didn't have to be a good one. We we had no money. So my mother would be up all night sewing tutus. Really? Because that's I found out later that's how uh she I they paid for my night classes. Exchange she she made the costumes for other dancers, not just for you. And for they learned how to do the the bodices and the you know I mean the real thing. My mother was making um tuxedo jackets for the for the gentleman.

[23:30] Nancy Ticotin: Whoa, and then actually when we wore them too. But yeah, my mom and she didn't know how to do it, she knew how to sew.

[23:37] Mimi Quillin: She was jacket sewed all our clothes.

[23:40] Nancy Ticotin: But I know my mom did too, she made all our clothes. But when it came you know, to costumes, she just learned. She just it's come up in the this show before. It it we need that encouragement. Yeah. Dancing is so hard. And all your parents want generally is for you to be safe and happy, right? And theater is not especially the era I grew up, but uh it was just frowned upon. So it's not a secure, safe.

[24:08] Mimi Quillin: I have a good story. When I did I did the movie The Whiz. I was like the one Hispanic in this African American uh production, this movie. And we we were working daily, but we were rehearsing we ended up rehearsing more than 30 days, and we were doing daily vouchers at this at the time. It was sixty-six dollars a day. We had to sign every day. That's like background actress. Then SAG said we had to join the union. And everybody said, Well, why are we joining the union? Because extras, at that time it was called extras, um, don't work more than 30 days consecutive. Then we then they said, Okay, then we're not extras, and we want to have a contract of principal players.

[24:45] Nancy Ticotin: Oh wow.

[24:45] Mimi Quillin: So the Cohen brothers who were producing it, they came in from LA. The president of SAG came in from L from LA. It was a big brew ha ha. We said we're not doing one day of filming until we have that contract. So the first day it was at the World Trade Center before it even opened. We were in the plaza doing Emerald City. Uh and everybody had to have their contract. We signed it and then we started shooting. So as a result, we made a lot of money, right? So the first year, first week I had my paycheck, I cashed it out, right? I cashed it. I had the cash. I came home to the apartment in Queens, we were living in Jackson Heights at the time, and I threw the money in the air. And and my father said, I should have been a dancer. Oh, and that's we started a precedent of dancers being create paid as principal players in movies because of the problem.

[25:32] Nancy Ticotin: Well good. Yes, thank you.

[25:34] Mimi Quillin: So your sister, you have a family of of this.

[25:38] Nancy Ticotin: All of us. My brother's an assistant director, my sister's a film actress.

[25:42] Mimi Quillin: Oh, thank you. Ooh. They treat us so well here. How lovely.

[25:47] Dana Moore: Wow. Even ducks to the house. Did you get the lentils?

[25:53] Mimi Quillin: I did.

[25:54] Nancy Ticotin: I thought it sounded really interesting.

[25:55] Mimi Quillin: And you and I got the same thing.

[25:57] Nancy Ticotin: I love lentils.

[25:58] Mimi Quillin: I think they have tons of magnesium in them.

[26:00] Nancy Ticotin: Did you get it lent it's a lentil stew?

[26:02] Mimi Quillin: Oh, fabulous.

[26:03] Nancy Ticotin: It's good if Russell's gratitude.

[26:04] Mimi Quillin: But what happens here?

[26:06] Nancy Ticotin: Do we eat while we're doing this?

[26:08] Mimi Quillin: Yeah, sure.

[26:08] Nancy Ticotin: Okay.

[26:09] Mimi Quillin: Okay.

[26:09] Nancy Ticotin: I yeah, we do everything here.

[26:11] Mimi Quillin: We read pages, we dance, we sing, we can do it.

[26:15] Dana Moore: Delish.

[26:15] Mimi Quillin: This is the you know, Mark's the first show, isn't it?

[26:18] Nancy Ticotin: Because it's ladies who lunched, so we have to pay tribute to the slightly document.

[26:23] Mimi Quillin: Right?

[26:23] Nancy Ticotin: So um yeah, yeah, cheers.

[26:25] Mimi Quillin: Yes, cheers.

[26:28] Nancy Ticotin: Me too.

[26:28] Mimi Quillin: I see.

[26:30] Nancy Ticotin: Um I th I had something.

[26:34] Mimi Quillin: Oh, oh, oh, okay.

[26:35] Nancy Ticotin: This is what I want, you know.

[26:37] Mimi Quillin: I want to go back to to Bob Fosse just for a minute because uh Mary Ann Lamb, our good friend.

[26:44] Dana Moore: Yeah, Mary Ann.

[26:45] Mimi Quillin: Jerome Robbins' was the way I did that with her.

[26:49] Dana Moore: Gorgeous, yeah.

[26:49] Mimi Quillin: She's amazing.

[26:50] Dana Moore: She's a fantastic.

[26:51] Mimi Quillin: And you know, I just want to say she's an amazing person, exactly.

[26:54] Dana Moore: Yeah, she's not only an amazing dancer, but I am bowled over by the person she is.

[26:59] Mimi Quillin: She's so generous.

[27:00] Dana Moore: It's a good one.

[27:01] Mimi Quillin: I have an amazing story, a blooper story from Jerome Robbins', Broadway, after you do that.

[27:04] Dana Moore: Go ahead.

[27:05] Mimi Quillin: Oh, okay.

[27:05] Dana Moore: I no, my it's not a story.

[27:07] Mimi Quillin: I just wanted to bring up to to get your feedback about.

[27:11] Nancy Ticotin: We were talking about how uh she worked on the Fosse/Verdon film, you know, training.

[27:16] Mimi Quillin: And you did too, right?

[27:18] Nancy Ticotin: The series and the theory.

[27:19] Mimi Quillin: Yeah, I did too.

[27:20] Nancy Ticotin: Yeah, you did too.

[27:21] Mimi Quillin: All of you uh and did a great job.

[27:24] Nancy Ticotin: Um, and we were talking about how Fosse, uh those two stars, Sam Rockwell and Michelle Williams, were so brilliant.

[27:32] Mimi Quillin: Yeah, and I I love Sam Rockwell, but we were just saying, kind of apart from that, how we missed they had to do it for the story, for the arc of that of that the drama of that uh story, that relationship.

[27:46] Dana Moore: But I experienced Fosse in a much more warm, charming humor, his humor.

[27:53] Mimi Quillin: More loving his loving, yeah.

[27:54] Dana Moore: Oh, and I know that you've been in the series.

[27:58] Mimi Quillin: In the way it was playing.

[27:59] Dana Moore: Yeah, but I mean they had I don't think it was a failing on Sam Rockwell's.

[28:02] Mimi Quillin: No, no, no, no, no.

[28:03] Dana Moore: That's a direct story.

[28:04] Mimi Quillin: It was I don't know or script or something.

[28:07] Dana Moore: I mean, they were going for, I don't, it was so beautifully done.

[28:10] Mimi Quillin: I don't want to be a big thing.

[28:11] Dana Moore: I don't know if it's going to be on that one, but it definitely was.

[28:13] Mimi Quillin: I don't know if it's a failing.

[28:14] Dana Moore: But it missed the mark.

[28:14] Mimi Quillin: Right, but it wasn't a failing even.

[28:17] Dana Moore: But I just we just this a spontaneous conversation came up uh as we bumped into each other at Starbucks, and I said, Yeah, I kind of wish that that was a more available for that story.

[28:29] Mimi Quillin: Because I remember I mean, you experienced you know his his humor, that dry thing.

[28:36] Dana Moore: I remember doing, and we had our great you we did the most one of the most important things in my life, being in that Minskov rehearsal room with Gwen and Fosse and our rehearsal pianist, just and you were training me with Gwen.

[28:50] Mimi Quillin: Yeah, my show.

[28:52] Dana Moore: What was that?

[28:52] Mimi Quillin: Sweet Charity.

[28:53] Dana Moore: We were just they just done it abroad.

[28:55] Mimi Quillin: We were taking it on the road.

[28:58] Dana Moore: His last production, and he was in the next room choreographing a ballet or something, but he would come in every day, or most days, or later on after like a week, the first week, maybe.

[28:58] Mimi Quillin: I can't remember.

[28:58] Dana Moore: But he would come in and sit on the side and say, Don't mind me, I'm just I'm I'm just sitting here, just by me.

[29:17] Mimi Quillin: Yeah.

[29:17] Dana Moore: And then like ignore him.

[29:19] Mimi Quillin: Yeah, yeah.

[29:20] Dana Moore: Like you're going to and we could because well I could because I was so like blinders on just trying to, and I never marked because I'm with you and Gwen, and they don't mark.

[29:30] Mimi Quillin: I mean, there's no marking.

[29:34] Dana Moore: Nobody marks.

[29:34] Mimi Quillin: Yeah.

[29:35] Dana Moore: And I lost like the the fastest way I lost weight in my life because I knew and there are no five minute breaks.

[29:41] Mimi Quillin: But slowly, because and this the point of this whole thing is his he's so cute and charming.

[29:48] Dana Moore: The work is always the most important thing with any great person I've worked with.

[29:53] Mimi Quillin: And he would slowly like move the chair.

[30:00] Dana Moore: Moving in.

[30:01] Mimi Quillin: Don't mind me.

[30:01] Dana Moore: I'm just in the front.

[30:02] Mimi Quillin: He would just kind of move and eventually he'd end up in the front.

[30:06] Dana Moore: And uh I just love that.

[30:08] Mimi Quillin: I just thought that was so well he loved you, you know.

[30:10] Dana Moore: I remember the day he came in after seeing you, because you had just gone into A Chorus Line again.

[30:15] Mimi Quillin: Yeah.

[30:15] Dana Moore: And so it was this glorious return.

[30:20] Mimi Quillin: And he went to he, I think he second acted it or whatever.

[30:24] Dana Moore: Whatever it was, he just went to see you.

[30:26] Mimi Quillin: Well, there no second.

[30:28] Dana Moore: Well, there you go.

[30:28] Mimi Quillin: Whatever it was, he walked in.

[30:30] Dana Moore: Bob Fosse showed up and they let him in.

[30:32] Mimi Quillin: Like five times.

[30:34] Dana Moore: And he came in the next day and he just said, Yeah, he'd seen it, you know, and that he was very excited about working with you.

[30:41] Mimi Quillin: I never heard this.

[30:42] Dana Moore: I didn't plant it.

[30:43] Mimi Quillin: Absolutely.

[30:44] Dana Moore: No, you didn't plant it.

[30:45] Mimi Quillin: He absolutely said she's gonna be terrific.

[30:47] Dana Moore: Oh my god.

[30:49] Mimi Quillin: I'll tell you one thing.

[30:49] Dana Moore: He said he was just like that dance that she does.

[30:53] Mimi Quillin: Yeah.

[30:53] Dana Moore: That's one awkward dance.

[30:57] Mimi Quillin: But she looks beautiful doing it.

[30:59] Dana Moore: I don't know.

[30:59] Mimi Quillin: And he but he he didn't know how you did it.

[31:02] Dana Moore: But that's a choreographer looking at another choreographer and critique, and that's Bob, and he would kill me if he was alive and heard me say that.

[31:09] Mimi Quillin: No, but I mean it that they both they respected each other, but they always that that kind of forced competition because of the shows.

[31:18] Dana Moore: But uh when I was in rehearsal with you, you were in the room.

[31:22] Mimi Quillin: Do you remember this?

[31:23] Dana Moore: And Ken Land was there.

[31:26] Mimi Quillin: We were doing the yeah, and he said, I want you to turn upstage and do that that line that way, upstage.

[31:33] Dana Moore: And and I kind of hesitated and I went, Well, um, because I was still trying to, you know, throw the line out here.

[31:41] Mimi Quillin: I forgot that I had a microphone.

[31:43] Dana Moore: Um, and I said, Oh, can I do it positive?

[31:45] Mimi Quillin: No, he goes, No, turn it, turn upstage.

[31:47] Dana Moore: And he said, Oh, I forgot.

[31:50] Mimi Quillin: You're from that show where everyone faces the front.

[31:53] Dana Moore: Oh, well, I guess we know what he thought about that.

[31:58] Mimi Quillin: I love that.

[32:00] Dana Moore: Oh my god, oh, that's when I was teasing you here toward you.

[32:04] Mimi Quillin: And you know, Gwen adored you, and this isn't, I know you didn't plant this either, but I really I we can I tell this story.

[32:10] Dana Moore: I don't know.

[32:11] Mimi Quillin: Okay.

[32:11] Dana Moore: It was when you had the Martha Swope um uh photo shoot.

[32:16] Mimi Quillin: Oh, she gave it to the phone.

[32:17] Dana Moore: And that day, yeah, and that day I remember Gwen said she wasn't feeling very well, which was very rare for her.

[32:23] Mimi Quillin: Gwen wasn't it?

[32:24] Dana Moore: And she was yeah, she was like, you know, I'm I'm feeling a little off.

[32:27] Mimi Quillin: And I said, Well, yeah, if you want to go home, I I know what we've done these shoots with both Debbie and Annie, and I can take her we haven't done it over at Martha Swope, but I knew what needed to be done, and and and I don't think it was really a control thing, but or maybe it was.

[32:43] Dana Moore: She was like, Well, you may think you know what you're doing, but I'm pretty sure I could do it better.

[32:46] Mimi Quillin: And I was like, Well, I was pretty sure you could do it better too, Gwen.

[32:48] Dana Moore: Well that was that was her, wasn't it?

[32:51] Mimi Quillin: It was like Oh, yeah, but I think this tells me how much she adored you because I don't I think passing it to you because she loved you was easier and harder.

[33:04] Dana Moore: Do you know because it had the heart in it?

[33:06] Mimi Quillin: It really not I'm not saying anything against anyone else, it's just saying that the heart the heart of it.

[33:13] Dana Moore: And and she um I just got chills saying that, and and she said to me, Let's go for lunch instead.

[33:20] Mimi Quillin: And so we maybe food will make me feel better.

[33:23] Dana Moore: So we went to curtain up around the corner from Martha Swope, and we walked in, and of course, it was just like the grand everyone just fell.

[33:30] Mimi Quillin: The waiters and the Major D just everyone fell to the side and they gave her a center table.

[33:35] Dana Moore: And that was when she ordered a plate of spaghetti and a beer.

[33:39] Mimi Quillin: And um feel better.

[33:42] Dana Moore: Everyone was carving up at that point.

[33:44] Mimi Quillin: Plain spaghetti and a beer.

[33:45] Dana Moore: And then we went over to um and she felt perked up.

[33:49] Mimi Quillin: I think she just needed, you know, she wasn't an egotistical woman, but she needed she needed a little bolstering there to remember who Gwen Verdon was.

[33:56] Dana Moore: Is and we walked over to Martha Swope and she gave you, she said, I've never given this to anyone.

[34:03] Mimi Quillin: And I've tried to recreate it or remember it.

[34:05] Dana Moore: And it was a pose.

[34:07] Mimi Quillin: It was a pose with the cane out.

[34:09] Dana Moore: Yes, but lying on the lying on my side with my leg over like this.

[34:15] Mimi Quillin: And um and she said, Because for PR for papers, they you you need and and you need a a a widthwise a lengthwise picture.

[34:27] Dana Moore: Right.

[34:28] Mimi Quillin: And I was on my arm and the and the cane.

[34:32] Dana Moore: Well, I remember one where the cane was there and the hat was on the cane.

[34:36] Mimi Quillin: Yeah.

[34:36] Dana Moore: And she and that was Vittorio, and the way she looked at it.

[34:39] Mimi Quillin: That was one of them.

[34:40] Dana Moore: But she gave you a number.

[34:42] Mimi Quillin: You're talking about another one that she gave you too.

[34:44] Dana Moore: She gave Donna poses that she never gave to any of the other charities.

[34:48] Mimi Quillin: And she actually remarked, I I've I've never given that to anyone else.

[34:52] Dana Moore: Well, saving it.

[34:55] Mimi Quillin: Thank you for that.

[34:56] Dana Moore: Because I didn't know that I didn't know I I knew that I I I had to earn her respect.

[35:02] Mimi Quillin: I that's why I work so hard, because she was my eye cut.

[35:05] Dana Moore: Well that'll be your number one thing.

[35:07] Mimi Quillin: You were mine.

[35:07] Dana Moore: She loves a hard worker.

[35:08] Mimi Quillin: Oh, by the way, that's great.

[35:10] Dana Moore: Yeah, but one loves a hard worker.

[35:12] Mimi Quillin: But when, but uh, you know, she was my inspiration.

[35:16] Dana Moore: She was it.

[35:17] Mimi Quillin: Um, but when we did the closet scene, she said, now I can't do the voice like you do, but you could tell do you want Annie's version or do you want Annie's version or Debbie's version or my version?

[35:30] Dana Moore: And I said, I'll take yourself.

[35:31] Mimi Quillin: Yours.

[35:31] Dana Moore: Absolutely.

[35:32] Mimi Quillin: Yeah, absolutely.

[35:33] Dana Moore: Your daughter, anyway.

[35:34] Mimi Quillin: Thank you for that.

[35:35] Dana Moore: That's very sweet.

[35:37] Mimi Quillin: And uh, Fosse uh was and and Gwen.

[35:39] Dana Moore: I mean, they were just, you know.

[35:41] Mimi Quillin: And the best moment in that closet with Gwen was when she lights the cigarette and she's just smoking, and the smoke is coming up, and then she realizes that it's going out the door, and she goes, to keep it from going out the door.

[35:53] Dana Moore: And then she puts the cigarette in her mouth, and she finds a zipper bag and she opens it.

[35:58] Mimi Quillin: She got a cigarette in her mouth, she goes, she blows it into zips it, she goes, And she just keeps smoking like that.

[36:05] Dana Moore: Do you I mean that must have been so much fun to do?

[36:08] Mimi Quillin: That was so much fun.

[36:09] Dana Moore: Oh my god, that's right.

[36:10] Mimi Quillin: And then you hear the audience reacting and laughing so much.

[36:14] Dana Moore: It's too funny.

[36:14] Mimi Quillin: Anyway, let's look at us.

[36:17] Dana Moore: I'm gonna tell the story about Mary Ann Lamb while you eat.

[36:19] Mimi Quillin: Yes.

[36:19] Dana Moore: Oh, okay.

[36:20] Mimi Quillin: Okay, so Mary Ann Lamb was in Jerome Robbins Broadway.

[36:22] Dana Moore: She had just given notice.

[36:24] Mimi Quillin: It was she was leaving the show.

[36:25] Dana Moore: She'd been in it for a long time, and it was Christmas time, and she was a she's a big animal lover, as you know, she has lots of dogs, and they have a house in the country, and so she she kept passing this, and I was in a dressing room with her, and she kept passing this dog that she kept seeing in a uh pet shop near here.

[36:41] Dana Moore: And then that dog got bigger and bigger, and she just broke down and she took, she went in and she got the dog.

[36:46] Mimi Quillin: Oh, and she brought it home, and her husband said, No, we can't have this dog.

[36:50] Dana Moore: So she put out a notice, who wants the dog, and our spotlight operator at Jerome Robbins Broadway said, I'll take the dog.

[36:55] Mimi Quillin: So I didn't know this, but she brought the dog to the theater and had it up in our dressing room, but didn't tell me.

[37:02] Dana Moore: So it's Christmas, so there's baskets of things.

[37:04] Mimi Quillin: So I go up into the dressing room.

[37:05] Dana Moore: It's like three floors up.

[37:07] Mimi Quillin: It's a Broadway theater, right?

[37:08] Dana Moore: So I go in there, and there's this big huge, mutt-looking dog.

[37:12] Mimi Quillin: Oh.

[37:13] Dana Moore: And he's eaten up all the soaps and all the baskets of people's gifts and whatever.

[37:17] Mimi Quillin: And I'm like, and I close the door and I go downstairs.

[37:19] Dana Moore: I'm like, Mary Ann, what is that dog in the dressing room?

[37:22] Mimi Quillin: She said, Don't tell anybody.

[37:24] Dana Moore: Oh my God, right?

[37:25] Mimi Quillin: So then one of the girls in the show decides to go up and visit the dog.

[37:29] Dana Moore: She wants to see the dog.

[37:29] Mimi Quillin: She opens the door and the dog goes out the door.

[37:33] Dana Moore: Goes down the stairs three flights.

[37:35] Mimi Quillin: Oh my god.

[37:36] Dana Moore: Walks right past our stage manager, Clayton Phillips, onto the stage during Gypsy.

[37:41] Mimi Quillin: They're on stage saying, Take a look, how different we are.

[37:45] Dana Moore: And the dog is right there.

[37:47] Mimi Quillin: The dog stops center stage, looks up at the spotlight.

[37:50] Dana Moore: That's his new owner, right?

[37:52] Mimi Quillin: Goes like that, and then walks off the stage.

[37:55] Dana Moore: Oh my god.

[37:56] Mimi Quillin: And we were all back in an umbrella.

[37:59] Dana Moore: That is hilarious.

[38:00] Mimi Quillin: In an uproar, she was like, What are they gonna do?

[38:02] Dana Moore: Fire me.

[38:03] Mimi Quillin: You know, she's given notice.

[38:04] Dana Moore: It was crazy.

[38:05] Mimi Quillin: Show stopping.

[38:06] Dana Moore: A dog on stage.

[38:07] Mimi Quillin: Like unplanned.

[38:09] Dana Moore: The audience loved it.

[38:10] Mimi Quillin: I'm sure it's very merry.

[38:12] Dana Moore: Oh, they didn't know that was not planned.

[38:15] Mimi Quillin: At the spotlight, his new owner.

[38:17] Dana Moore: And he probably was like, Oh my god.

[38:20] Mimi Quillin: I could get used to this.

[38:22] Dana Moore: So funny.

[38:24] Mimi Quillin: I know she's amazing, though.

[38:25] Dana Moore: Oh yeah.

[38:26] Mimi Quillin: So you guys are very Fosse.

[38:28] Dana Moore: I never got to be with Fosse.

[38:30] Mimi Quillin: He always got caught after that cut, after that first.

[38:35] Dana Moore: Yeah, he never got to meet me.

[38:36] Mimi Quillin: I never got to see you.

[38:37] Dana Moore: Exactly.

[38:37] Mimi Quillin: Unfortunately.

[38:38] Dana Moore: I was cut before.

[38:39] Mimi Quillin: But I was a Jerome Robbins'.

[38:41] Dana Moore: I did everything with him.

[38:42] Mimi Quillin: Like the King in an iWest Side Story, Jerome Robbins Broadway.

[38:45] Dana Moore: And I was guest star with New York City Ballet.

[38:47] Mimi Quillin: Really?

[38:47] Dana Moore: What did you do?

[38:48] Mimi Quillin: Anita in the West Side Story Suite of Dances.

[38:51] Mimi Quillin: Yeah, that was amazing. I better be able to do that. And who was the artistic director then? Wasn't it? Peter Robinson. Jerome Robbins' and Peter Martins, both in the because now they do it in the repertoire.

[39:06] Dana Moore: Yeah.

[39:06] Mimi Quillin: Oh, well, it's no, but if they were heels and you stuff like that. You brought an authenticity too, I'm sure. Something about that the cutting edge of Broadway dance, you know. Um something I wanted to ask you. We as dancers, you you you you bring is repetition. You get it in your body. You and Cheetah told me once, I think I mentioned it uh at lunch one day, that uh you direct dancers and they just do it. And you direct actors and they say why. And we just do it. Um, but this got me into trouble is when I started speaking and doing roles. So how I wanted to ask you how is that when did what for each of you, you know, uh Dana, when did you ever have did it bring out stage fright? I I developed a kind of a stage like who am I? You know, I to be spontaneous, you know.

But because as an actor, you mean I don't understand your question. Well, the the the edge that we get is as dancers is the confidence. You know what I mean? It's like you go out there, and you just no matter how you feel, you have to do the ballet, the tondoos and the plies every day. Right. Yeah, you either fall down from a pirouette or you do it. And you just you just keep doing it. So at some point in your life, because you've all been very successful and and you've had longevity, at some point in your life, maybe it didn't happen to you. Maybe you you never had that bubble of I don't know what of being, you know, kind of fearful, anxiety written about it. So then you can't do it anymore. Is that the question? Maybe. Is that okay? Or or the I'm afraid to ask that question.

[40:47] Nancy Ticotin: No, no, no, I'm not. No, I mean at first I thought you were asking about just sort of the difference of performing when we were acting when we were acting, and you know, it wasn't just you're asked to do it and you just do it.

[41:01] Dana Moore: Yeah.

[41:02] Nancy Ticotin: I mean, I definitely it's interesting that well, I don't know what to do. Did you ever think of when you were at the height, let's put it this way, at the height of of of what of your career when you're hitting it hard and just doing it and being, you know, happy with it. Did you ever think about a time of m of transition or not then I didn't. No. It's like the question of Chorus Line. I thought I was just gonna go on. Yeah, you know, as it was going.

[41:32] Dana Moore: Yeah. Pretty pretty great.

[41:35] Nancy Ticotin: Yeah. I mean, I think um what was interesting, I remember the musical Marilyn, Kenny Ortega, I think, choreographed it. And when I went into audition for that, who choreographed it? Was it Debbie Allen? No. That's that was Carrie. It was somebody else. No, it was Kenny Ortega. Yeah, sorry. And he directed it. And I went in and they kept looking at me for a role. And this is how dumb I was. I don't want to do a role. I want to dance. For the longest time. Because I didn't have, you know, I don't have two old Broadway show. Oh, that's what I wanted more than anything. I got into it. I got to the city too late to do a chorus line. I was I just thought I'll know. So you kept saying, let me get out of the way. I don't want to play a role. People have very often seen me as that. And actually, although I like I I am a dancer, I almost think I'm you're theater though. You can.

[42:32] Nancy Ticotin: Yeah.

[42:35] Dana Moore: We well, we all are here sitting there. I have to say, when I turned 33, I thought I was gonna stop dancing. Because everybody told me that's when a dancer's career ends.

[42:44] Nancy Ticotin: Yeah.

[42:45] Dana Moore: But I just finished coming off a 19-month tour of On Your Feet where I danced. Sergio Campino, who was my dance partner in on in Jerome Robbins Broadway, he's the choreographer of the show. And when I took over the role of Gloria Pajardo, he added choreography for me. Right. The layout, lifts, kicks, all of this. And I didn't know I could, you know, you can still do eight shows a week on tour, you're traveling your day off. It was really hard. And you know, but I can s I can't believe that I'm still doing that.

[43:14] Mimi Quillin: Yeah.

[43:15] Dana Moore: And you are. And that's from Cliers and Tondu's. I tried, right? Yes, absolutely.

[43:19] Nancy Ticotin: Yeah, your best friends.

[43:21] Dana Moore: That's fantastic. And I'm not sure. So there are no, yeah, but it's all, yeah, because we were talking earlier about I'm taking names today of all the physical therapists that you could we were talking about that because that's how we we keep it going. And I find that my pre-warmup, I have to do a pre warm-up before I warm up.

[43:39] Mimi Quillin: Okay.

[43:39] Dana Moore: So when I get up every morning, I do a passive stretch for my scholartic spine, much to my cat's disappointment because I can't really go downstairs and feed him until I know I'm at least somewhat stretched. And then I go down and I feed the cat and then I come back upstairs. And then I have to be really careful that it doesn't stretch to like four. It's like an hour. I'm on the floor for an hour just adding. That's good. But I do I do a combination of Feldenkrais and physical therapy and just to get just to get in alignment enough. Right. Whether I'm going to dance that day or not.

[44:13] Nancy Ticotin: That's amazing.

[44:13] Dana Moore: And then it's gotta be more discipline. It's a lot of discipline. A lot of discipline. It's wonderful. But that's the best thing about dancers. I saw a dance at LaGuardia Performing Arts High School. I'm a graduate of the School for Music. And I taught their dance for a year, and I taught the drama students instead of Jim, they had me. They're the worst. They're so undisciplined. They talk all the time.

[44:30] Mimi Quillin: Oh, really?

[44:35] Dana Moore: You can't get their attention. They yawn and they say, well, that's what we're told. My students are just the winners now. No, not in LaGuardia, but just I have to do it. In the public schools, any actors.

[44:45] Nancy Ticotin: Actors.

[44:45] Dana Moore: They don't have the same discipline at all. They don't take the same respect. I mean, they're you know, once you give over to that and go, okay, that's not what I'm gonna that's not what's in front of me, so I have to find it. So it's the it's it's a training of the discipline and the thing. That keeps us going.

[45:02] Mimi Quillin: Yeah.

[45:03] Dana Moore: Well, you haven't stopped either. And the different things, like you said, the helden crace, and you do um Xenobette Ballet Bar, and we do gyro tonics and being elastic. Floor bar last. You know, it made me feel good one day because I've had my ups and downs, and I'm just I'm on the rise now, but it's been a a difficult year with the full muscle, all this stuff. And I started feeling a little better when I heard that Barishnikov, who is one of my favorite dancers of all time.

[45:28] Nancy Ticotin: Of all time.

[45:29] Dana Moore: Um, you know, he's just the greatest technique, danced, you know, in every way he can, and just gorgeous artist. And that I read a story, and I don't know if it's true, but it just made me feel better that day when he it took him like 20 minutes to walk around his apartment before he's 40.

[45:47] Nancy Ticotin: Yeah, like 20 minutes to get the ankles you know moving.

[45:50] Dana Moore: You know, I thought it was my ankles are moving. Those jumps that he did from there to I mean landing, yeah, that has to take a toll on your body. So it's gonna be sometimes just getting out of bed and ooh, you know, making sure the joints are in the world. But then you learn from I have to read something you said. I have to read this because this was you you uh nobody knows what it's like to have a lifetime in theater unless you've you've done a lifetime in theater and have negotiated through a lot of different things.

[46:22] Nancy Ticotin: And this is what now okay.

[46:24] Dana Moore: So this is something that caught my attention and moved me. Um and and you said it, I guess uh whether you're in a class or an audition, I guess uh from your training or teaching. You enter a room with all that you are, not all that you're not. Hold on to what inspired you to be an actor or dancer in the first place. You've trained and prepared for this moment, and if you are lucky enough to carve yourself a career in the theater, the learning will continue for a lifetime.

[46:57] Nancy Ticotin: Correct.

[46:58] Dana Moore: Wow. Absolutely. You're good. But you know, it's like I love that. So I love that you talk about you keep learning, and it's like I didn't even know how much I didn't know uh until I got older. And then you realize you don't know anything. And then you have to keep learning in a in a real experienced way, you know, in the reality of of the time you're living. And it's uh kind of thrilling if you think of it that way.

[47:25] Mimi Quillin: I I feel like uh it I'm at school all the time. You know, I'm I'm uh I get a degree every day.

[47:35] Dana Moore: No, I mean just because I get so much and I it And you get it from your students too, right? You give it and they give you the uh but your body probably is teaching you too because who knew that you were gonna get up at our age now and still show those cor those steps better than they can do them.

[47:52] Nancy Ticotin: Wow.

[47:52] Dana Moore: Much younger than you. You can still do it. They're informed. They're informed.

[47:56] Nancy Ticotin: Yes.

[47:56] Dana Moore: But all the knowledge and experience. And what I get to share with that, with all that you know, experience and the style and just what I yeah, you know, just like you say, you you know you think you know everything, and then you realize that you really didn't know anything.

[48:17] Nancy Ticotin: Or not anything, but you but there's so much.

[48:20] Dana Moore: Your perception change that has to say I don't know.

[48:20] Nancy Ticotin: I don't know.

[48:25] Dana Moore: Right. That you realize, yes, as the time has gone by.

[48:28] Nancy Ticotin: Yeah, no, I know so. Even that little quote about uh you don't go into the room with who you're not, you go into the room with who you are.

[48:38] Dana Moore: Well that you're enough.

[48:40] Nancy Ticotin: For me, that yeah, that came late in my career like that to crystallize it like that. I mean, I kind of always had figured that out early on, but I it was we were doing ballroom. The the um uh we did a workshop of the world. That's what we did together.

[49:03] Dana Moore: With Jerry Mitchell.

[49:04] Nancy Ticotin: Yes. That's what we did together.

[49:06] Dana Moore: Yeah, exactly.

[49:08] Nancy Ticotin: Exactly. Yes, okay.

[49:13] Dana Moore: Yes, correct.

[49:13] Nancy Ticotin: All right. Yes.

[49:14] Dana Moore: Yes.

[49:15] Nancy Ticotin: And Andrea Martin.

[49:16] Dana Moore: Yes.

[49:19] Nancy Ticotin: Anyway, it was those auditions. Because I walked into the room for these auditions, you know, dance and it was experienced and performance. Of course not. But I looked around the room and it was filled with people that I had when I first moved to New York, I was like, you know, you. I mean, you know, all these people that I looked so up to and I wanted to be. And then there was also this whole tier of folks that I was on the stage with and doing in working at the same time. And then there was an another tier that were these amazing men and women who had been doing Broadway for a while as well, but not my age, basically.

[50:15] Nancy Ticotin: Right.

[50:16] Dana Moore: And I just looked around that room and I was just like I mean, I could hear vocalizing higher than I knew I was going to be able to sing. And I, you know, legs were still going, and I just, and it really wasn't even about the Jody Bullet people. That's the same thing. But I just went the energy in that room must have been. And I just went, I can't, I'm not look, I I look at that. I can't be I you know, and then I finally went, I have to go, you know.

[50:46] Nancy Ticotin: I just I didn't think I even realized it until I went, yeah until I had a callback, and then I went, oh no, you know what you mean?

[50:46] Dana Moore: Oh no.

[50:55] Nancy Ticotin: Oh no, it was wonderful that I had a call back, but I was like gonna have to be there with all those people again.

[51:00] Dana Moore: But it was a little intimidating in the beginning.

[51:02] Nancy Ticotin: Well, because they were all that.

[51:04] Dana Moore: Yeah.

[51:05] Nancy Ticotin: And I and it finally dawned on me, yes, but I have my own version of that. I had my own basket of wonderful things.

[51:15] Dana Moore: Yes.

[51:15] Nancy Ticotin: And that's what I have to walk into the book.

[51:17] Dana Moore: That's what I thought of you.

[51:19] Nancy Ticotin: I mean, you're not saying what you're saying. I was there thinking that of you.

[51:23] Dana Moore: In that same room.

[51:24] Nancy Ticotin: And I'm not, you know, when I think about it, of course. My my good friend Lillius White and your good friend Lilius. Um, we did a we did we're we went to our manager's birthday a couple weekends ago, and she said something, and I have to call her and thank her for it because she said, um people see your blessings when they first meet you. They don't see the interior they don't see how you feel about yourself.

[51:50] Mimi Quillin: So blessings meaning like what's out on the exterior. Like they tell you even. Everything that all of your talent, the things that you could do, you weren't seeing that, you weren't experiencing it because you were a little intimidated.

[52:04] Nancy Ticotin: Yes. That's the fear that comes up and says, I don't know if I'm good enough. But I loved the way she put that. It just gave me a different way of looking at it because that's true. People see I mean it wasn't even so much that I it was scary. It was just I was seeing all of those blessings. And I just and it took a moment for me to go, and I have my own. I'm filled with my own.

[52:31] Dana Moore: Yeah. It takes a long time to get into the room. That's what you have to walk into the room with, not with what you're not. What's all around you.

[52:39] Mimi Quillin: That's great advice. Really good. I'm definitely gonna I've been talking about it.

[52:43] Nancy Ticotin: I'll drink tonight.

[52:44] Mimi Quillin: Yeah, absolutely. Have a drink.

[52:45] Dana Moore: I'll have my iced tea.

[52:48] Mimi Quillin: I'll just smell your cocktail.

[52:50] Nancy Ticotin: Oh, that's good. You want the an olive?

[52:52] Mimi Quillin: No, thanks. You know, that reminds me of um Randy Graf. I taught with her at Manhattan School of Music a couple of years ago.

[53:02] Dana Moore: I not with her in the room, but we were on the same faculty.

[53:06] Mimi Quillin: And um what did you teach?

[53:08] Dana Moore: I taught jazz.

[53:09] Mimi Quillin: Okay. She was doing the art of the song or the acting.

[53:14] Nancy Ticotin: Acting song.

[53:15] Mimi Quillin: And she's still there doing amazing work. It's an amazing faculty up there. But um one of her students quoted her, and I was so touched. I've taken it. It's um, and it's her student that's in um the fiddler right now.

[53:32] Nancy Ticotin: Oh Samantha Hahn in the Yiddish is in it.

[53:35] Mimi Quillin: She was a sophomore, and she's absolutely lovely. But anyway, hi Samantha, shout out to Samantha. And Samantha wrote something on a Facebook page, um, as as Randy Graf would say, um, nothing to prove, only something to share.

[53:52] Dana Moore: So when you go in to nothing to prove I have nothing to prove to you about myself, I have only something to share.

[54:00] Mimi Quillin: Oh that is so much healthier.

[54:02] Nancy Ticotin: Oh than I can't. I really wish I'd heard that a long time ago.

[54:05] Dana Moore: Me too.

[54:06] Mimi Quillin: Our food is a good thing.

[54:06] Nancy Ticotin: Well, you know, we hear these things.

[54:07] Mimi Quillin: We're gonna do that.

[54:08] Nancy Ticotin: We hear these things in theory, we know. We understand in theory, but sometimes it takes it took me a long time to kind of put to have to develop.

[54:17] Dana Moore: It takes all the experience that we've had of you know that's something a version of that is what I share with my students, not just my college students, my memory students, but my my professional students.

[54:33] Mimi Quillin: And it is even when you're doing choreography, you know, and say, Don't show me, don't muscle it, live it.

[54:44] Nancy Ticotin: But it is exactly that. It's it's nothing to prove. You don't have to prove how perfectly you've gotten the choreography or how you know much um even that you're acting it. Don't it it you have nothing to prove, just share.

[55:02] Mimi Quillin: You know, it's funny, it's hard to understand. I studied um ballet for a long time with this modern dancer, uh Christine Wright. A lot of Broadway people would go down. I would see like Liz um Parkinson?

[55:14] Nancy Ticotin: Yes.

[55:15] Mimi Quillin: I would see her down there, and just different people over the years. But um Christine's now in Toronto, but Christine would come up to you at the bar and you'd be she'd be you'd be working away at whatever, and she would speak to you, and then I would try to show her that I knew what she wanted me to do.

[55:30] Nancy Ticotin: She said, Don't show me.

[55:31] Mimi Quillin: Yes. Uh-huh. Don't show it. Think it.

[55:34] Nancy Ticotin: Oh, just absorb it.

[55:35] Mimi Quillin: Listen. And you know, that's the first teacher, and that's as an adult performing, maybe even post-performing as a dancer, whatever. That information finally, you know, I finally see and I see it with people. I just try to pass that on too.

[55:50] Dana Moore: So yeah, I don't no, I I don't show me, just embody take it in.

[55:57] Mimi Quillin: Uh-huh. Make it your own. Take it in and let it find a way to do it. Let him do you.

[56:01] Nancy Ticotin: I mean, that's kind of like Felden Christmas.

[56:02] Dana Moore: That's kind of a subtle, uh that's a nice very subtle, yeah.

[56:06] Mimi Quillin: But uh one of those things you you take with you forever.

[56:09] Nancy Ticotin: Yes. Because it's like under don't underline the joke.

[56:12] Mimi Quillin: Don't you know there's so much more acting, it's bringing acting aspect.

[56:16] Dana Moore: Because in acting, you you have to have your backstory, but don't tell anybody.

[56:19] Mimi Quillin: Right. There's so much in our popular. There's so much in our popular culture like that that that is show and tell or the highest note, the highest kick, the most turns.

[56:30] Nancy Ticotin: The loudest word.

[56:30] Mimi Quillin: And it's it's all you know, it's good for um, you know, the price of a ticket. But there every once in a while there'll be a show that comes along that really does have the heart and really does go for you know the storytelling and has you know somebody's gonna be able to do that.

[56:46] Dana Moore: I think the band's visit had that.

[56:48] Mimi Quillin: I was thinking about really yeah, also come from away.

[56:48] Nancy Ticotin: Yeah, right?

[56:48] Mimi Quillin: Come from away, yeah.

[56:54] Dana Moore: Yeah.

[56:55] Mimi Quillin: So it it's it's wonderful that's refreshing to the artist there, the way it was choreographed.

[57:02] Nancy Ticotin: Also, I'm gonna say um Bright Star had that as well.

[57:10] Dana Moore: I'm so sorry I missed that.

[57:11] Mimi Quillin: I've heard that so many people.

[57:13] Nancy Ticotin: And just the way it was choreographed, and it was so much.

[57:17] Mimi Quillin: It wasn't about showing anything. It was just about telling the story and so beautifully.

[57:25] Dana Moore: Uh Josh Rhodes.

[57:28] Mimi Quillin: Smart smart choreography.

[57:31] Nancy Ticotin: Very yeah, it's not about showing.

[57:33] Mimi Quillin: It's good, isn't it?

[57:33] Dana Moore: It's good, it's about telling.

[57:35] Mimi Quillin: You know, it's that when I do my solo show called Fossey, and I get like Are we gonna see this? Are we gonna see this?

[57:40] Nancy Ticotin: It's coming again.

[57:42] Mimi Quillin: Okay, good. Um but um I one of the things that gets me is to say, you're just telling a story.

[57:53] Dana Moore: Yeah.

[57:54] Mimi Quillin: Then everybody wants to hear about it. Tell a story. But see, if I think about that, that gets me crazy.

[58:00] Nancy Ticotin: Because maybe they do, maybe they don't.

[58:01] Mimi Quillin: It's just like, no. It's hard. All I'm doing when I go out there is telling you a story. You're not proving it.

[58:07] Dana Moore: Once you're out there, you're out there.

[58:09] Mimi Quillin: You'll either like my story or you won't. And that I have no control over.

[58:13] Nancy Ticotin: And doing a solo show.

[58:17] Mimi Quillin: I had no idea.

[58:18] Dana Moore: It's wonderful.

[58:21] Mimi Quillin: I know. I'm so glad you said that.

[58:24] Nancy Ticotin: And it's like when you break the fourth wall for the first time.

[58:27] Mimi Quillin: Tambour race.

[58:28] Nancy Ticotin: I remember, oh my God, I remember well you're like but you wouldn't I mean you've gone through that then.

[58:35] Mimi Quillin: But when I first did it, I w I remember um it was a club downtown somewhere. It's no longer there.

[58:42] Nancy Ticotin: And I was standing in the hallway and I w heard my name.

[58:46] Mimi Quillin: I was nervous because I had never done this before.

[58:49] Nancy Ticotin: First time out.

[58:50] Mimi Quillin: And I heard my name and it hit me. I went, oh my God, I think I've lost my mind. What am I doing here?

[58:57] Nancy Ticotin: I think I've gone crazy.

[59:00] Mimi Quillin: Yeah. I mean, I thought this is crazy. What am I doing? And then with that feeling, I just threw myself out on the stage and da da da.

[59:12] Dana Moore: And that's all on your years.

[59:13] Mimi Quillin: I was horrible.

[59:14] Nancy Ticotin: I've seen this show.

[59:15] Mimi Quillin: But the morning.

[59:15] Dana Moore: What do you mean was horrible?

[59:16] Mimi Quillin: Oh, you felt horrible? It was horrible. It was a hor it was horrible.

[59:20] Dana Moore: But it's like you keep you keep, I was determined, uh I guess it's the dancer's training, maybe.

[59:27] Nancy Ticotin: Yeah.

[59:28] Mimi Quillin: Not to walk away from something, always go to keep mastering.

[59:32] Dana Moore: We're pushed almost to a point where n nothing will be perfect, but we're pushed to a place sometimes because it's not attainable.

[59:41] Mimi Quillin: To to be more perfect.

[59:42] Nancy Ticotin: Yeah.

[59:43] Mimi Quillin: You know, you it's not, it's never enough.

[59:44] Dana Moore: Never never good enough.

[59:46] Mimi Quillin: But that's our tr part of our training.

[59:48] Nancy Ticotin: And so I was reluctant to say, oh I can't do this.

[59:52] Mimi Quillin: This is not for my personality at all.

[59:55] Dana Moore: But then now ten years later, it's easy.

[59:59] Mimi Quillin: Yeah it is. But it's also I I'm I'm like addicted.

[1:00:04] Nancy Ticotin: I love it.

[1:00:05] Mimi Quillin: I love it too. I love making uh one on one contact and and the spontaneity of getting all the the goods from the audience.

[1:00:06] Dana Moore: From the audience.

[1:00:16] Mimi Quillin: Yeah. And having your own sort of script.

[1:00:18] Nancy Ticotin: But yeah.

[1:00:20] Mimi Quillin: There's something about that exchange in the moment that is just uh it gives me a rush and it's because we're doing it together.

[1:00:27] Dana Moore: I don't know.

[1:00:28] Mimi Quillin: Yeah yeah I was alone a lot maybe I don't know why.

[1:00:31] Nancy Ticotin: But did you have go through well the first time I ever sang like in a cabaret setting was West Side Story had opened in Paris where I eventually ended up living for two and a half years but I'm going back next month but um I had they had invited me to a place called the Hollywood Savoy which was hosted by this American man from Tennessee, Stacy McAdams and and he asked me to come up and sing a song so I sang Don't Cry for me Argentina and I stood up there and you know the people are right there.

[1:00:57] Mimi Quillin: There's no darkness where you don't see the my knees were shaking I was so petrified.

[1:01:04] Nancy Ticotin: It was scary to look at the other people seeing yes that you could see their faces.

[1:01:09] Mimi Quillin: You don't have that invisible wall that protection right there right there it was really scary.

[1:01:13] Nancy Ticotin: But I love doing the one woman thing.

[1:01:16] Mimi Quillin: But it's great now, right?

[1:01:16] Nancy Ticotin: I love it.

[1:01:17] Mimi Quillin: You get out of that that's I talked to Cheetah about it a little bit.

[1:01:19] Nancy Ticotin: I'm much more of a singer now too.

[1:01:21] Mimi Quillin: So you you she said do it.

[1:01:23] Nancy Ticotin: You have to do it.

[1:01:23] Mimi Quillin: There'll be nothing more satisfying.

[1:01:26] Nancy Ticotin: And I thought, oh my God, the goddess of this is actually talking to me about it.

[1:01:30] Mimi Quillin: And I I will take with your blessing what you've said to me.

[1:01:33] Nancy Ticotin: But she you know yeah it's it's um it's a muscle that you if you're in my show I didn't dance when you I didn't do any dancing that time.

[1:01:41] Mimi Quillin: Oh I was just well I thought you did because you moved.

[1:01:45] Nancy Ticotin: Yeah but I didn't but and then when I did it again Valton who was the understudy to Alex from halftime he came and we did Komono with the choreography.

[1:01:54] Mimi Quillin: Wow first number layout and then I didn't dance the rest of the shit you just need a little bit.

[1:01:58] Nancy Ticotin: It was that's what I've learned.

[1:01:59] Mimi Quillin: Well the stage was this big right the stage is this little shoulder with a dirty brave don't give it all away just so when you finally do something like a big kick it's a big deal.

[1:02:11] Nancy Ticotin: She was right.

[1:02:12] Mimi Quillin: Yeah. It's like don't just keep it all like this so that then when you finally oh you only need to do one and then they're like wow.

[1:02:19] Nancy Ticotin: Yeah.

[1:02:19] Mimi Quillin: But if you go out there going whack wow it's like well what are you gonna do now?

[1:02:26] Dana Moore: I try to impart that to the younger you know so good.

[1:02:29] Mimi Quillin: It's a core thing to tell them not to hit their face.

[1:02:32] Nancy Ticotin: And I'll say don't don't this is not the right line.

[1:02:37] Mimi Quillin: It's like no it's 45 is a beautiful line.

[1:02:40] Dana Moore: 90 is a beautiful line.

[1:02:42] Mimi Quillin: It's not all about in your face man also they just don't get it.

[1:02:45] Nancy Ticotin: With dance machine Robert Lafos I've been working with the oh yeah this new new company and he was training the dancers and he was saying I don't want to see the you know when they do the splits the the splits they jump or they do the leaps.

[1:03:01] Mimi Quillin: Yeah and it's and he just says, I want to see the line.

[1:03:05] Nancy Ticotin: So your line arm is a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit there is something you're saying when it's here that's very different from here or here.

[1:03:11] Mimi Quillin: Right.

[1:03:12] Nancy Ticotin: You know what I mean?

[1:03:12] Mimi Quillin: It's it's this and it's just that much.

[1:03:15] Dana Moore: And when you look at Margot Fontaine, talk about talk about it.

[1:03:19] Mimi Quillin: She was not known for extension.

[1:03:22] Nancy Ticotin: It was large tasteful forty five.

[1:03:26] Mimi Quillin: But she was totally satisfying.

[1:03:39] Dana Moore: What is it?

[1:03:41] Mimi Quillin: Puppies?

[1:03:49] Nancy Ticotin: It's great.

[1:03:50] Mimi Quillin: Anyway, should we cheer one more time here with the ladies' hurried?

[1:03:54] Dana Moore: I want to thank you all for being here.

[1:03:57] Mimi Quillin: Thank you, Donna.

[1:03:58] Nancy Ticotin: Thank you, Lady.

[1:04:05] All: Salud.

[1:04:07] Mimi Quillin: I'm so much gracious.