{"id":15512,"date":"2022-02-18T14:47:24","date_gmt":"2022-02-18T14:47:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/?p=15512"},"modified":"2025-04-21T07:16:21","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T07:16:21","slug":"louis-johnsons-orbit-house-of-flowers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/2022\/02\/18\/louis-johnsons-orbit-house-of-flowers\/","title":{"rendered":"Louis Johnson&#8217;s Orbit: House of Flowers"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2 class=\"ql-block\" data-block-id=\"block-863b1921-4394-45ce-934e-f866ec5002d5\"><strong>Louis Johnson and House of Flowers<\/strong><\/h2>\n<div class=\"ql-block\" data-block-id=\"block-7f677a52-7461-46db-acd8-3e603ec6157c\">\n<p>Broadway musical <em>House of Flowers<\/em> featured a cast of many familiar faces from the ballet and modern dance world. Louis Johnson performed an ensemble role as a \u201cTownsperson\u201d in the production with <strong>Donald McKayle<\/strong>, <a class=\"ql-link\" href=\"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/2017\/02\/26\/arthur-mitchell\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Arthur Mitchell<\/a><span data-void-detect=\"true\"> (New York City Ballet principal and founder of Dance Theatre of Harlem), and <\/span><strong>Walter Nicks<\/strong>. The cast also included <strong>Alvin Ailey<\/strong> as Alvin, <a class=\"ql-link\" href=\"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/2020\/12\/10\/carmen-de-lavallade\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Carmen de Lavallade<\/a><span data-void-detect=\"true\"> as Carmen, <\/span><a class=\"ql-link\" href=\"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/2021\/01\/04\/geoffrey-holder\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Geoffrey Holder<\/a><span data-void-detect=\"true\"> as The Champion, and <\/span><a class=\"ql-link\" href=\"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/2021\/03\/30\/glory-van-scott\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Glory Van Scott<\/a><span data-void-detect=\"true\"> as \u200b\u200bMamselle Cigarette. Johnson and Mitchell had performed together previously in a 1952 production of <\/span><em>Four Saints in Three Acts<\/em> and would work together in the future when Johnson choreographed for the Dance Theatre of Harlem.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sources:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a class=\"ql-link\" href=\"https:\/\/playbill.com\/production\/house-of-flowers-alvin-theatre-vault-0000000916\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">House of Flowers, Playbill<\/a><\/p>\n<h2 class=\"ql-block\" data-block-id=\"block-5d1ef28e-6f34-4788-a564-18e2e5cf700a\"><strong>More about House of Flowers<\/strong><\/h2>\n<div class=\"ql-block\" data-block-id=\"block-fe72bf4e-4e04-4c72-9f63-5544f4cb462c\"><em><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.playbill.com\/playbill-covers\/b87021fa50a7390caac0abfc4ff9d5f1-House-of-Flowers-Playbill-03-55.jpg\" alt=\"House of Flowers Playbill - March 1955\" \/>House of Flowers<\/em> ran from December 30, 1954 to May 21, 1955 at the Alvin Theatre on West 52nd Street. The musical was based on Truman Capote\u2019s short story of the same name, with lyrics and book also by Capote. Harold Arlen composed the music, and Oliver Messel was awarded a 1955 Tony Away for best scenic design for a play or musical. <em>House of Flowers<\/em> tells the story of a sex worker in Haiti who has rejected a wealthy man to eventually marry her poor beau. It was the first musical to feature the steel pan outside of Trinidad and Tobago.<\/div>\n<div class=\"ql-block\" data-block-id=\"block-e3bb417a-3a2b-484c-bbad-e29ff8dcfd4b\">\n<p><strong>Sources:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a class=\"ql-link\" href=\"https:\/\/playbill.com\/production\/house-of-flowers-alvin-theatre-vault-0000000916\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">House of Flowers, Playbill<\/a><br \/>\n<a class=\"ql-link\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/House_of_Flowers_(musical)\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">House of Flowers, Wikipedia<\/a><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-426\" src=\"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/MinMOBB4.jpg\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 71px) 100vw, 71px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/MinMOBB4.jpg 1156w, https:\/\/mobballet.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/MinMOBB4-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/mobballet.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/MinMOBB4-100x100.jpg 100w, https:\/\/mobballet.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/MinMOBB4-600x600.jpg 600w, https:\/\/mobballet.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/MinMOBB4-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/mobballet.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/MinMOBB4-768x768.jpg 768w, https:\/\/mobballet.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/MinMOBB4-1024x1024.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/mobballet.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/MinMOBB4-830x830.jpg 830w, https:\/\/mobballet.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/MinMOBB4-230x230.jpg 230w, https:\/\/mobballet.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/MinMOBB4-350x350.jpg 350w, https:\/\/mobballet.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/MinMOBB4-480x480.jpg 480w\" alt=\"\" width=\"71\" height=\"71\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Madeline Crawford<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Louis Johnson and House of Flowers Broadway musical House of Flowers featured a cast of many familiar faces from the ballet and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[288,253],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-louis-johnson-constellation-universe","category-universe"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15512"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15512\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15513,"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15512\/revisions\/15513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}