Horsing around on the set of Broadway revival ‘Equus’

By Michael Kuchwara

NEW YORK — Even horses need to rehearse. Especially those played by humans.

It’s 30 minutes before the audience begins filing into the Broadhurst Theatre for a Tuesday evening performance of “Equus.” Actors in street clothes pace and leap across the stage. In the center of all the activity stands Daniel Radcliffe, wearing jeans and a number 10 Eli Manning New York Giants jersey. He, too, is in constant motion.

The performers’ movements are under the watchful eye of Spencer Liff, dance captain for the Broadway revival of Peter Shaffer’s play about a young man (portrayed by Radcliffe) who blinds six horses and a psychiatrist (Richard Griffiths) who wants to find out why.

It’s a group warm-up after a day off for Radcliffe and the young men who portray the horses and who, during the show, wear masks made of tubular aluminum and high, platform hoofs.

Liff will not be going on tonight as one of the steeds. Instead, he will be observing the performance along with the paying customers. Understudy Kevin Boseman will take Liff’s place. And the 23-year-old Liff will be giving notes on the movement, just as if “Equus” were a musical and he was critiquing the dancing.

“But you can’t really call it choreography because without music it’s hard to have choreography,” Liff says during an interview in a dressing room several days later.

The performer should know. He’s a Broadway dance baby, touring in “The Will Rogers Follies” at age 6 and making his Broadway debut at 9 in “Big.” He has also danced in such recent musicals as “The Wedding Singer” and “Cry-Baby” as well as in the films “Across the Universe” and “Hairspray.”

“I definitely think that what we do on stage is not dancing,” Liff continues. “But I still hold the job as dance captain, which is normal for a musical to have, because we do have six guys on stage. We need to be together. We need to stay tight. And we need rehearsals, just as dancers do.

“We’ve developed a different way of staying together,” he adds, explaining that in musicals “you normally have ‘counts’ to a song. In this, we use lines and certain word cues and visuals [for the counts]. We listen to each other to make sure that we’re all stamping at the same time and moving at the same time.”

The movement was devised by Fin Walker, who also worked on the London production of the show, which also starred Radcliffe and Griffiths. But the rest of the cast, many with modern dance backgrounds, is new, hired for New York.

The one nondancer is Lorenzo Pisoni, who plays a horseman in “Equus” as well as the lead horse, Nugget, the animal that gets most of the young man’s attention.

“I’ve never danced in a musical,” says the 31-year-old Pisoni, a one-time circus performer who now has made the transition to full-time acting. “I think Fin was very good at making each of the horses our own. [Their movements] came from each individual. Because of his persona and dance background, Spencer’s movement manifests itself in a different type of movement than mine.”

But not many dancers have to wear heavy masks or those high shoes, which weigh 6 pounds each, that serve as hoofs. When rehearsals started last August, a lot of time was spent getting used to the shoes.

“We put them on the very first day and we were all kind of like Bambi learning to walk,” Liff recalls.

“We would break the straps,” Pisoni adds. “The heads are the same ones used in the London production. So they had already gone through a full run and a tour and then were shipped over here.”