DIRTY DANCING IN CONCERT
When: Monday, Nov. 6, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Royal Theatre, 805 Broughton St.
Tickets: $77-$98.75 from the Royal McPherson box office (250-386-6121) or
Ask 10 random people to recall a single line of dialogue from Dirty Dancing, and you’ll get 10 identical answers.
“Nobody puts Baby in a corner” is one of the most revered rebuttals in movie history, and the oft-quoted dialogue continues to rouse audiences more than three decades after the film’s release.
Shannon McEldowney can testify to that. The Chicago-based performer is the lead singer in a touring production of Dirty Dancing in Concert, which pairs live music and dancing with a screening of the iconic 1987 film. “Everyone loves it when Patrick Swayze walks in the room for the first time in the movie, the whole crowd goes wild,” McEldowney said.
“But when he says, ‘Nobody puts Baby in a corner,’ they freak out.”
McEldowney, who was born and raised in North Bend, Washington, stars in the live film-to-concert experience, which comes to the Royal Theatre on Monday. The U.S.-based production has been on the road for three weeks in North America, and the results thus far have been wildly impressive, she said. “People come to the stage and dance and sing with us. It’s pure joy. Nobody feels any inhibitions when they’re watching this movie in a room full of fans.”
Here’s the rundown of what fans will encounter on Monday. While a digitally remastered cut of the box-office hit is shown on a full-size cinema screen, McEldowney and her bandmates will play live on stage. That’s a heavy burden for the band, as the Academy Award-winning soundtrack has sold more than 32 million copies worldwide and is one of the best-selling albums of all time.
Dirty Dancing in Concert has its share of fan-favourite moments — the scene where Baby (played by Jennifer Grey) pours water on the womanizing waiter is a big crowd pleaser, McEldowney said — the band triggers its share of applause in sync with the film, McEldowney said.
“Any time a song plays in the movie, the audio cuts out and our live band plays. You’re hearing the dialogue of the movie, but the music that might underscore that scene is performed totally live by us. When we play the first notes of Hungry Eyes and (I’ve Had) The Time of My Life, the crowd freaks out.”
The project was created to celebrate the 35th anniversary of the film, one of the most enduring silver screen hits of the 1980s. Producers of Dirty Dancing in Concert wisely decided against portraying specific characters in the film, however. McEldowney is costumed to match the 1960s setting of the movie, “but I’m not playing Baby,” she said.
For the purpose of the production, her reference points were singer Jennifer Warnes and the frontwomen for The Shirelles and The Ronettes, singers of songs which are key components of the film. However, once the closing credits to the film roll during Dirty Dancing in Concert, McEldowney and the band cut loose a little bit for an encore party, which runs for 30 minutes and features dance lessons as seen in the movie.
The interactive approach “is a fantastic idea,” she said. “Some of our audiences have not seen the movie beforehand. A ton are huge fans, and are seeing it for the 20th time, but others might be bringing a friend who has never seen the movie before, and they get to experience it for the first time.”
In the radio business, programmers make decisions about station playlists based on the “burn factor”—radio terminology for a song that listeners quickly grow tired of hearing. Dirty Dancing is among the most re-watchable movies in existence, but the cast of Dirty Dancing in Concert must grow tired of Swayze’s gyrating hips at some point — right?
“We don’t watch the movie every night, as we have our backs to the screen, but we do hear the audio,” McEldowney said with a laugh. “But I’m not lying, I am absolutely still a huge fan of the movie, even after hearing it several hundred times.”
