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Tuesday, November 10, 2026Nov 10

Choreographer Joshua Bergasse looks to add Tony to Emmy

In this June 2, 2015 image, choreographer Joshua Bergasse appears at a rehearsal studio in New York. Bergasse who choreographed "Gigi," and "On the Town," is nominated for a Tony for best choreographer. The Tonys will be handed out on Sunday at Radio City Music Hall in New York. Kristin Chenoweth and Alan Cumming will host. (AP Photo/Frazier Moore)
In this June 2, 2015 image, choreographer Joshua Bergasse appears at a rehearsal studio in New York. Bergasse who choreographed "Gigi," and "On the Town," is nominated for a Tony for best choreographer. The Tonys will be handed out on Sunday at Radio City Music Hall in New York. Kristin Chenoweth and Alan Cumming will host. (AP Photo/Frazier Moore) In this June 2, 2015 image, choreographer Joshua Bergasse appears at a rehearsal studio in New York. Bergasse who choreographed "Gigi," and "On the Town," is nominated for a Tony for best choreographer. The Tonys will be handed out on Sunday at Radio City Music Hall in New York. Kristin Chenoweth and Alan Cumming will host. (AP Photo/Frazier Moore)

NEW YORK (AP) – Choreography is a mystical endeavor, elevating the common act of movement into high art.

Joshua Bergasse is a leading practitioner of that art. His work is perhaps most widely known from two seasons of “Smash,” NBC’s Broadway-musical-within-a-melodrama for which, week after week, he devised brilliant dance routines (and won an Emmy).

This April saw the Broadway opening of “Gigi,” which he choreographed.

And since last fall, the revival of “On the Town” at Broadway’s Lyric Theatre has truly certified him (to borrow from its signature song) as a helluva choreographer. Indeed, Sunday night, viewers of CBS’ Tony Awards telecast (8 p.m. EDT) can savor a dance number from the show and find out if Bergasse will be taking home the Tony for best choreography.

Earlier this week, though, he had no time to dwell on Tony what-ifs. In a rehearsal space on (where else?) 42nd Street, he was running a troupe through its paces for Monday’s one-night-only charity performance of “Bombshell,” the Marilyn Monroe musical whose backstage gestation formed the heart of “Smash’s” TV narrative.