Hi, I'm Warren Carlyle.
I'm the choreographer of Kiss Me Kate on Broadway.
We're here today at Playbill to talk about the number
''Too Darn Hot" and you're about to get a breakdown.
Here it is, top of Act Two.
There's Greg on the clarinet.
This should feel warm, bee da ba bim.
It's the intermission, so the dances are about to
come through the doors.
Bababa hot, like the temperature rising, the music rises.
Here's Adrienne, so of course James T. Lane there in the
white shirt, and Adrienne the green, they're lovers.
Marissa, Preston plays a stage manager.
He's about to take his sweater off.
So were storytelling then. We know it's warm without a
single word, boo doom...
James sings.
Greg is gonna respond, "yes, it's hot."
James sings,
Yeah, I heard you the first time, it's so hot.
Right, so having conversation there, I kind of like that.
And here's the connection, "my baby tonight."
And there's his baby, there's Adrienne in the green.
She says no thank you. She crosses her legs away.
Uh-oh
Now we're in tempo, here we go, snap.
[snapping]
Here he goes, he's going after her.
He gives her that look.
Gives her the look. Here he goes.
Rhythm.
That keeps me ahead of the audience, just a little hick.
Here comes girls, and energy and laughter, right.
Running away from a guy, so battle of the sexes.
And now we start to fold in the rest of the cast.
Preston, Derick,
and still tension. So I'm not fully, I keep stop start,
stop start with this.
See those beautiful girls, downstage left.
Christine Cornish, Hailey Fish,
Here come the guys, Will Burton,
Now he's about to show off,
and like a little thermometer, oooooh
he's doing it for her he's doing it for her,
and he says, what do you think?
She blows smoker and says, ah ah ah.
And he very publicly kind of fails and
then has to recover. Here comes Erica.
And he's still not giving up, he's still not giving up.
He's gonna do anything he can to get her attention.
Now I start kind of like whipping up the rest of the crowd
Right? It's getting a little bit more lively.
He's enlisting the help of everybody else.
His cat and mouse.
And she chooses Greg, the clarinet player.
Ohhh, and then off he goes. And here's the bridge.
Now everyone's in, so now the whole ensemble.
He has all of their attention, so this becomes a global idea.
Jump.
Oh, oh, oh, so now we'll get a little sexy.
I don't know if a a dresser ever wiggled his hips like that.
I think that's a big deal. Her comes the language...
"Madame." Haley Fish's leg.
Here comes the vocals, new idea.
A really great three-part harmony.
This is a gear change up.
So now syncopations, and I'm syncopating.
Now I start to dance, this is a tease more than anything.
Right? And everyone's in it.
Men especially actually respond to that.
And now he's acting crazy, now he's just cutting loose.
And it's cute, and it's a close-up.
Now everyone's singing, so now we're in a wide shot.
Everyone's singing, but we introduce a new story.
Here's Charisse and Rick. And she says, oh no thank you.
And then James cheers him up.
We're building.
A Marine, here's Preston.
Ah ah ah, here's Erica, she's the cutie pie.
We could get in trouble with Erica, she's so beautiful.
And we're singing, and now we're all singing.
And now here comes contrast. I'm gonna go
from a triple pirouette, I'm gonna duck right down,
watch this. And we're quiet.
Now we're loud.
Now we punch.
And we live.
Repeat.
And then we melt like wax candles.
And there's push and pull in this part ring, look.
This is great tension in these lines.
And then Haley melts, revealing Cherise and she says
no to Will, no.
Show of strength as she plays with Darius.
She look to the girls, she says no thank you.
Here come the girls.
Now they start to sweep.
So now this is all about female strength.
The girls go to the boys, and the boys say, woah woah woah
it's too hot, those women are too hot.
Here comes a new idea, here's Corbin
Alright, so this is a new idea. Previously this character
was never in this number. Bill Calhoun was offstage
for 45 minutes, and now here he is.
This is very American to me, like three times in a break
goes the second time, here's the third time,
a time step, syncopate, and stop time.
And this, this stop time is uniquely his language.
No one else dances like this in the show.
This is the language of Bill Calhoun, but now look
here comes a challenge. So I think of nice reference
to the Nicholas Brothers. Something that
you can't see now in this day and age.
And boy did James work hard at this.
James had never tapped before this show, James T. Lane,
he literally learned to tap for this.
This is fast feet. We're basically trying to start a fire.
Clarinets.
Now we start whaling.
That long sustained note.
Trenches. Trench and a trench and a trench. Jump.
This is the response.
And then we release.
So now I'm starting at zero.
And all eyes were on James T. Lane follow Poppa, follow James...
baa dow
So this is is quiet, and it's loud
like like it's fat in a pan kind of like boiling.
Build, build, build, drop, built again
drop. Build for the third time keep building.
Now we're in partners so now you see commonly
kinda for the first time on the refrain of the song
and between men and women, spread harmonious
sections. They're equal.
But it's a 40's jive too. This is called Spanky, you spank.
Well I like the game of it, like through each other's legs,
like kids almost. Greg.
Now watch these men in the center. They're gonna
melt like a candle. Right, these women are
punching but the men are kind of
melting in the middle of it. Now I start to punch with the
shim sham, and it grows and I like the diagonal from
Tonya up on the crates they're down to Greg on the stair.
Here come my men. There's Rick,
there's Darius,
here comes Sam.
This is all a show of strength.
Boom, boom. And they hold it, again. Buh dah.
Buh dah
Everyone. Here comes the story,
here is the reminder of James and Adrienne.
It's still not concluded. She still hasn't said yes.
So now we're still in pursuit.
boo boo bah boo boo boo boo
boo boo this is like playing a drum kit
buh buh buh buh buh buh bah
This is just a show of strength.
This is like I can jump 12 times.
And we recapitulate but now Adrienne is dancing with
James for the first time so now she said,
yes, I'm all yours, I'm in. And we build.
Easy.
These lights make me really happy. He switches
every time in every phrase the light switch
makes me really happy.
Don't hold her to the lights, and they're really magnificent.
And now we go...
and everyone melts.