Dancing along the road to Drayton
Dancer turned director and choreographer Michael Lichtefeld brings his passion to local stages
ST. JACOBS — Kentucky-born choreographer/director Michael Lichtefeld started dancing at age seven — first in ballet then he was switched to tap and he wasn’t happy.
“Because I’m a boy, they put me in tap,” he said. “But I still loved ballet.”
The affable director was recently in St. Jacobs, leading the 20-member cast of the musical “Thoroughly Modern Millie,” which opened last week at the St. Jacobs Country Playhouse.
The New York City-based Lichtefeld has quite the pedigree: Six Broadway musicals, eight off-Broadway shows, plus national and international tours. Lichtefeld is also in demand in Canada, having worked several seasons at Stratford as well as Drayton.
Lichtefeld said that while he did not come from a family of performers, his grandmother showed artistic flair in most things she did and often found artsy projects for the two of them to engage in, such as making ceramics, crafts or creating greeting cards.
The spark of imagination began here and for Lichtefeld, manifested in a desire to express himself on stage.
By the time Lichtefeld was just starting to enter his teen years, he had joined the Louisville City Ballet where he got his first real taste of performance.
“I stopped dancing for awhile, then went to Butler University, Indiana,” he said. “I knew they had a good dance program.”
After graduating from a comprehensive performance program that included learning acting skills, Lichtefeld did what every young
stage-struck hopeful does: He headed for the Big Apple and a chance at stardom.
“I packed up the U-Haul and headed to New York,” he said. “You do these things without thinking about it when you’re 21.”
But the sprawling city proved overwhelming for a kid from Kentucky.
“I stayed in the apartment three days, I was terrified to go out,” he admitted.
But once he steeled himself enough to get outside and start auditioning, Lichtefeld landed his first gig at the famous Radio City Music Hall, performing in a four-week run in “Charlotte’s Web.”
He remembers standing on the stage, looking out in awe. “Gawd, I thought, this is a fairy tale.”
From there, his career started moving upward, including landing his first Broadway role in “Dr. Jazz” which had great costumes but other issues and only lasted four performances.
“From there I did some summer stock stuff,” he said, adding there were other shows but nothing as big as when he landed a role in “Evita” where he performed for a year and a half and worked with legendary dancer Gregory Hines, a performer he describes as “so incredibly supportive of you” and “a sweetheart of a man.”
Lichtefeld got into directing quite unexpectedly following an injury when he was asked to choreograph a musical revival at a “very posh supper club.”
“I knew I wanted to choreograph it, I didn’t know I wanted to direct, too,” he said. The show was “a huge hit” so much so, he was asked to return and suddenly, a director was born.
The jobs started coming after that but what really upped the ante for Lichtefeld was when he was asked to direct “Camelot” in Stratford in 1998.
He knew his work was taken seriously when theatre star Cynthia Dale called to ask him to direct “South Pacific.”
The prospect scared him a little, given the show was focused on story more than dance numbers.
Lichtefeld has had steady work as a director for a couple of decades now and continues to feed on the energy and creativity emanating from the stage
“I love having an idea in my head and seeing it on stage: the lighting, the set design, the costuming and the look,” he said. “It’s all interconnected.”