‘An American in Paris’ dances from film to stage

Garen Scribner can only see the people in the front few rows when he’s on stage in “An American in Paris.” But what he sees is enough to keep him going.

“When you’re on tour you’re going from city to city, you’re always in airports. It’s exhausting,” Scribner said. “But I can see the front however-many rows, and I see people taking each others hand and saying ‘I remember this song.’ It’s really wonderful. Wherever we go, people jump to their feet at the end of the show. Everyone loves it.”

Scribner plays Jerry, the title character in the George and Ira Gershwin musical based on the 1951 movie musical. He and Sara Esty were the two leads (the characters played by Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron in the film) on Broadway and in Paris, and they now have those same roles in the first US tour. The tour started i Boston in October, and its comes to the Straz Center for the Performing Arts in Tampa for eight performances starting Tuesday.

The stage musical is based on the movie, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture but there are significant differences.

“It’s different songs,” Scribner said in a phone interview. “It’s all Gershwin, of course, but we’ve eliminated some songs and added others to fit the book that Craig Lucas wrote.”

The most familiar songs in the stage version include “I Got Rhythm,” “The Man I Love,” “’S Wonderful,” “Shall We Dance?” and “They Can’t Take That Away From Me.” Among the songs from the film that are not in the stage version are “Embraceable You” and “Nice Work If You Can Get It.”

Playwright Lucas, who also wrote “Prelude to a Kiss,” “Reckless” and “The Light in the Piazza,” has made some significant changes to the movie’s script. It’s still set in Paris, just a few years after World War II. In the film, the characters don’t talk about the war much. Scribner speculates that audiences in 1951 weren’t ready to have thoughts about the war mixed into their entertainment. In the stage version, the characters, and Paris itself, are clearly still recovering from the war.

The stage version is dance-heavy, but the choreography is nothing like that in the film. Still, Scribner said, it’s spectacular. Christopher Wheeldon won a Tony Award for his choreography. Bob Crowley’s set also won a Tony.

“The choreography of the sets changes is incredible in itself,” Scribner said. “The city of Paris almost becomes a character in the musical.”

The differences between the movie and the musical are significant, Scribner said, but fans of the film won’t be turned off by the changes.

“You don’t have to pick one of the other,” he said. “people who love the movie love this show.”

Details: Dec. 20-25, Morsani Hall at the Straz Center for the Performing Arts, 1010 N. MacInnes Place, Tampa. 7:30 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday, 2 and 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, 2 and 8 p.m. Friday, 2 p.m. Saturday, 7:30 p.m. Sunday, $39-$125 plus service charge. 813-229-7827, strazcenter.org.

This story was originally published December 14, 2016 at 4:50 PM with the headline "‘An American in Paris’ dances from film to stage."