Streaming file 1, December 4, 2018 (approximately 1 hour and 52 minutes). Diane Laurenson speaks with Kevin Winkler about her childhood in Elmont (N.Y.), in particular, her dance classes with Nancy Baron; her success as a competitive gymnast; going to Broadway musicals and other performing arts events with her mother; matriculating at the University of Massachusetts where she started taking dance classes; how impressed she was by Richard Jones and the Luigi technique; (briefly) Marilyn Patton and the dance department at the University of Massachusetts; graduating from college and moving to New York City where she continued to take dance classes, including at Steps on Broadway; her experience performing as a gymnast in the 1989 Milliken Breakfast Show; her experience auditioning for a touring ("bus and truck") production of Bob Fosse's show Dancin'; Bob Fosse's practice of having all auditioners perform a routine set to the song "Tea for two"; life on the Dancin' tour including realizing how much she had to learn as a professional performer; her lifelong habit of learning by observation; (briefly) the musical The Little Prince and the Aviator; lessons she learned from observing Bob Fosse including his ability to bring out a performer's individual strengths and his strong sense of theatricality; touring in Europe with Dancin' and her shift to performing as a swing; the characteristics of a successful swing; later working as the dance captain and swing for a production of Dancin' at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane in London; the enthusiasm and appreciation shown by foreign audiences for American musicals; working with Linda Smith and Chris Chadman to put together a new production of Dancin' in the Drury Lane Theatre in Chicago; the term "Fosse dancer"; the Boston production of Big deal including anecdotes about Bob Fosse; the production stage manager Craig Jacobs including an anecdote about her auditioning for the national touring production of Sweet Charity; what constitutes a choreography bible including its function as a form of dance notation; reminiscences of the day of Bob Fosse's death, in Washington, D.C. during the Sweet Charity tour; her feelings of gratitude to Bob Fosse; his advice to her about the importance of friends; her life in New York during the 1980s and the serendipitous opportunities that came her way, in particular due to her acquaintances Sylvia Fay and Scott Salmon; classes she took during this time including with Luigi, Bob [Robert] Audy, and Lee Theodore at the American Dance Machine; some of her favorite roles including Nickie in Sweet Charity and as an Argentinian prostitute in Graciela Daniele's Dangerous games; Daniele as an artist.
Streaming file 2, December 6, 2018 (approximately 1 hour and 49 minutes). Diane Laurenson speaks with Kevin Winkler about working in the theater during the AIDS crisis between the late 1970s and the mid-1980s; the qualities of a successful assistant (to a director) as based on her own experiences, including with Bob Fosse and Chet Walker as well as with her husband Bob Richard; working for Bonnie Walker on the [1993 made-for-television] movie Gypsy; Chet Walker and Billy [Bill] Hastings including how she first met them; (briefly) her and Walker's company 8 & ah 1; her transition from dancer to choreographer, including her work with her husband Bob Richard as a turning point; her fascination with the musical West Side story including the fact that it opened the day after her birth [September 25, 1957]; her role as Anybodys in various touring productions of West Side story including the 40th Anniversary tour where she met her husband, Bob Richard; Bob Richard's teacher Eddie Gasper including an anecdote about the lyrics to the song "Big Spender"; how she feels when dancing now; choreographing a production (directed by her husband) of Peter Pan at the North Shore Music Theater, including her use of the percussive dance form Stepping; her choreography for a production of Chicago directed by her husband, including her use of tango and the Charleston; how much she has been influenced by working with Bob Richard in particular regarding how to stage theater in the round; other aspects of working as a choreographer with her husband as director; (briefly) Alan Johnson and how he influenced and inspired her and her husband in particular with respect to their restagings of West Side story; her first husband Michael Paulin and how she came to join the IATSE [The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, Moving Picture Technicians, Artists and Allied Crafts of the United States, Its Territories and Canada] as a stage hand and electrician; some of the shows she worked on as part of the original lighting crew; her experience running the front spot (spotlight) for Les miserables under the tutelage of James Gardner; how this led to similar jobs with other shows including Miss Saigon; how her experience as a dancer and her musicality helped her in her lighting work; dance as the center of her life including how it has helped her survive various life trials; teaching dance including her first classes, at Broadway Dance Center; her goals for her students and her teaching methods including how Bob Fosse has influenced her teaching style; encouraging her students to internalize a work's historical context as part of their learning process; teaching in foreign countries, in particular, in Japan; (briefly) her experience teaching in New Zealand; more on her goals for her students; her current projects: spending more time with her teenage son, and taking acting classes in non-musical theater; the satisfaction of seeing her and Bob Richard's former students as professional musical theater performers.