It was easy for out director/choreographer Sergio Trujillo to identify with the 18-year-old heroine of the 1983 film Flashdance.
In the film, Alex Owens (played by Jennifer Beals) pines to become a professional ballerina despite her lack of classical training. Similarly, Trujillo started his dance career at what is considered to be a very late start at age 19.
"I'm very close to this show because it parallels my story," Trujillo said in recent telephone interview, adding that he started to dance around the time Flashdance was released in cinemas.
Now to clarify, Trujillo wasn't like Alex in the sense that he didn't launch a whole 1980s fashion craze for legwarmers and torn over-the-shoulder sweatshirts. Nor for that matter, did Trujillo juggle Alex's exhausting workload of being a professional welder by day and an exotic dancer by night (one of the many implausible plot points in the film that was lambasted by critics when Flashdance was first released).
However, Flashdance managed to ride out the critical drubbing to have a big cultural, aided in large part by the burgeoning popularity of the new MTV cable network. Flashdance wowed with its Top-40 hit-filled soundtrack that included such songs as "Maniac," "Gloria," "I Love Rock and Roll," "Manhunt" and the Academy Award-winning title song "Flashdance—What A Feeling."
"The film had an impact on me, and I remember it vividly," Trujillo said. "So when they asked me if I wanted to direct and choreograph the show, I saw it as an opportunity for me to be able to create a choreographic vocabulary that is really quite wide in range because my training has been in all of it—I've done classical, I've done jazz, I've done modern and I've done Broadway."
Broadway and touring veteran Jillian Mueller ("Bye Bye Birdie," "Memphis") stars as Alex Owens in the tour, and she feels that Flashdance audiences are in for a choreographic treat because the stage version "takes what you know and love from the movie and gives you more."
"There's more storyline and there's more plot for dancing, which is a big blast," said Mueller stressing the show's dance variety. "We have women from serious ballet backgrounds and guys who are break dancers."
"I'm a child of the '80s, so in terms of dance and in terms of movement, that's how I grew up dancing," Trujillo said. "So it wasn't a hard one for me in going to do research."
Flashdance on stage also comes with 16 new songs by Robbie Roth and Robert Cray that augment the recognizable '80s pop hits. A stage version of Flashdance previously toured the U.K. and played in London in 2010.
Trujillo was brought aboard to helm the current North American tour of Flashdance, which was launched this past January in Pittsburgh (where the show is set). Working on Flashdance allowed Trujillo to have another crack at both directing and choreographing, since Trujillo is mostly known just as the choreographer for such shows as The Addams Family, Memphis and Jersey Boys.
Locally at the Royal George Theatre, Trujillo previously directed and choreographed the musical White Noise, a show with Broadway aspirations that have now been put indefinitely on hold. There is also talk that Flashdance is headed to Broadway, though a few previously announced opening dates have been postponed.
Trujillo admitted that he and the Flashdance writing and producing team are still working on the show on tour. In fact, Trujillo was customizing some of the choreography for Mueller and her climactic audition dance in Dallas when she replaced Emily Padgett who was the previously cast as Alex.
"Jillian is a real triple threat," Trujillo said, adding that on stage, Flashdance doesn't have the film's luxury of using body doubles to do the more sophisticated choreography. "She's quite a 'turner,' as I call her, and we were able to do more with her turning and spinning and to show off her gorgeous legs."
Flashdance is just one of many projects Trujillo is currently working on. He and his former Memphis collaborators are developing a show called Chasing the Song based upon famed 20th century songwriters who work in New York's Brill Building, and he also has a project with the Argentine creators of the off-Broadway hit De La Guarda in the works.
Despite all of this activity, Trujillo was taken off guard when he was chosen by the government of Colombia in 2012 as one of the top Colombians in the world. This honor arrived soon after Trujillo's marriage to his longtime partner, Broadway actor Jack Noseworthy, in October 2011.
"We've been together for almost 23 years," Trujillo said. "We've always behaved like we're married and we're happy to be able to stand out as a couple who can stand out to proclaim our love officially."
Even though Flashdance has been spoofed a lot recently in commercials (dancing hamsters and car salesmen), the film and stage show both stress the importance of striving to follow one's artistic dreams. It's a message that spoke to Trujillo in his successful pursuit of a dance and theater career.
Once you find a love for the art for the thing that you do, you make sacrifices," Trujillo said. "And you really dig into yourself and ask questions to pursue that dream."
Flashdance—The Musical continues through Sunday, Aug. 18, at the Cadillac Palace Theatre, 151 W. Randolph St. Performance times are 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays (also 7:30 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 11), 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays (also Wed., Aug. 14). Tickets are $18-$85; call 800-775-2000 or visit www.broadwayinchicago.com .
