Decades of dancing feet

In 1980, Randy Skinner was plucked from the chorus -- that is, from his career as a dancer -- to take a daunting role as assistant to the celebrated director-choreographer Gower Champion ("Carnival," "Hello, Dolly!") for the original "42nd Street" on Broadway. The production was based on the 1933 movie musical that transported audiences from their Depression-era gloom into a world of glamorous gowns, happy endings and leggy, high-heeled hoofers in the ever-changing kaleidoscope of perfect bodies that is the choreography of Busby Berkeley.

Champion died of cancer the day "42nd Street" opened on Broadway. But that night the show went on -- in fact, it ran for eight years. And more than 20 years later, Skinner's life unexpectedly began to parallel that of "42nd Street" ingenue Peggy Sawyer, the naive chorus girl tapped for stardom: He stepped from assistant status into the spotlight as choreographer for the 2001 Broadway revival of "42nd Street." The touring production, directed by Mark Bramble, opens Friday at the Ahmanson Theatre.

Skinner talked to The Times' Diane Haithman about his days on "42nd Street" with and without Champion and recalled how in 2001 the "youngster" of 1980 came back as a star.

Who would have thought, 20 years later, "42nd Street" would be back in my life? It was a wonderful experience in 1980, because I was so young -- I had only been in New York for four years. So when the chance came along to work with Gower on this big, splashy musical, I grabbed it. It was with mixed feelings, to be honest. I loved working with Gower, but I also felt that I was being separated from my contemporaries. Part of my heart wanted to be up there onstage with the kids. But you go where life takes you.

It was really wonderful to take a classic musical and put a new spin on it. Mark [Bramble] and I had many, many talks about that: How do we pay tribute to the past, and yet how do we make it now, and current and bigger, so that the people who had seen the original would go, "Wow, this is nothing I ever expected"?

We have 40 dancers in the chorus -- 12 men and 24 girls, plus four "swing" dancers. That's what they used in the original production, and we wanted to stick to it. It was one of the first times in history since the '30s and '40s -- in 1980, it was unheard of to bring in a cast that big. After us came "Les Miz" and all those Broadway shows that had pretty big casts, but we really brought back a chorus of 40 dancers.