ABSTRACT
This chapter examines Bob Fosse’s style before describing how his musicals were advertised pre-Pippin; it concludes with a discussion of Pippin’s commercial. Fosse’s choreography depended upon contributions from individual dancers no matter whether they were stars or chorus dancers. Before Fosse’s name became synonymous with style, it was associated with his then-wife Verdon, who was among Broadway’s biggest dancing stars in the 1950s and 1960s. The shrewd use of different media to circulate his choreographic style that is what made Fosse’s style a star in its own right; this is because the filmed versions capture his choreographic and directorial points of view. Pippin was just the second Broadway musical Fosse directed and choreographed that did not star Gwen Verdon. Bob Fosse’s work across multiple media embodies how far style can be stretched, how it can be sold, how it was the star, and how it became “Fosse.”.
