An American in Paris: The Complete Guide to the Tony Award-Winning Broadway Musical

A GI who misses his train home. A girl who holds a secret. A city still finding its light after the darkness of occupation. An American in Paris — Christopher Wheeldon’s ravishing dance-driven musical, powered by the timeless songs of George and Ira Gershwin — swept Broadway in 2015, winning four Tony Awards and establishing itself as one of the most visually magnificent Broadway musicals of the modern era. This is its complete story.

An American in Paris is a musical play inspired by the beloved 1951 MGM film of the same name, starring Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron, and adapted for the stage by director and choreographer Christopher Wheeldon with a book by Craig Lucas. Incorporating songs and orchestral works by George and Ira Gershwin, the production world-premiered at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris in December 2014 before transferring to Broadway’s Palace Theatre, where it opened on 12 April 2015.

The production marked a landmark moment in Broadway history: a ballet choreographer, Christopher Wheeldon — making his directorial debut on the theatrical stage — casting two principal dancers, Robert Fairchild of the New York City Ballet and Leanne Cope of the Royal Ballet, in the leading roles. Neither had previously appeared on Broadway. The result was a show that straddled the worlds of ballet and musical theatre with extraordinary grace, earning unanimous praise for its choreography, design, and the sheer romantic beauty of its Parisian world.

The Broadway production ran for 623 performances before closing on 9 October 2016. A US national tour opened in Boston in autumn 2016, a West End production followed at the Dominion Theatre in March 2017, and further productions have reached Australia, Italy, and beyond. The production won four Tony Awards — Best Choreography, Best Scenic Design of a Musical, Best Lighting Design, and Best Orchestrations — and was also honoured with Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, Drama League, and Fred and Adele Astaire Awards, among others.

Background

The origins of An American in Paris as a stage musical lie with the estate of George and Ira Gershwin, who sought to create a stage production based on the celebrated 1951 MGM film. The film itself had been built around Gershwin’s 1928 tone poem of the same name — an orchestral work depicting an American’s impressions of Paris — and featured Gene Kelly as GI-turned-painter Jerry Mulligan and the luminous Leslie Caron as the French girl Lise. The film won six Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and its eighteen-minute dance finale remains one of the greatest sequences in the history of the movie musical.

For the stage adaptation, the Gershwin estate recruited Christopher Wheeldon, one of the pre-eminent ballet choreographers of his generation, who had worked extensively with the Royal Ballet, the New York City Ballet, and San Francisco Ballet, but had never directed a theatrical production. Wheeldon brought in playwright Craig Lucas to write the book, and together they made a series of bold decisions that distinguished the stage show sharply from the film.

Most significantly, Lucas substantially deepened and darkened the story’s historical context. The setting remains Paris in 1945, but Lucas’s version grapples seriously with the legacy of World War II and the Nazi occupation. Lise, the film’s somewhat mysterious French girl, is given a profound and sobering backstory: she is revealed to be the daughter of a Jewish butler to the wealthy Baurel family, whose parents were arrested by the Nazis. Henri Baurel and his family saved her life during the occupation, and her sense of obligation to Henri — whom she does not love — is thus not merely social convention but a debt of survival. This added layer of dramatic weight gives the show an emotional gravity that the original film, for all its cinematic beauty, never attempted.

Lucas also added the character of Adam Hochberg — the pianist played by Oscar Levant in the film — as a more fully developed figure: a young Jewish-American veteran with a war injury and an unrequited love for Lise that gives the story a third emotional perspective. The show also, quietly and without fanfare, raises questions of sexuality through Henri’s character, a dimension that the 1951 Hollywood film could never have broached. These additions made for a richer, more complex narrative, though critics were divided on whether the book was always equal to the production’s astonishing visual ambition.

“A masterpiece! An old-fashioned, big-hearted spare-no-expense Broadway romance that instantly catapults Christopher Wheeldon into the ranks of top-tier director-choreographers, like Jerome Robbins and Bob Fosse.” — Terry Teachout, The Wall Street Journal

Production History

World Premiere: Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris (2014)

An American in Paris received its world premiere at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris on 10 December 2014, running through 4 January 2015. The Théâtre du Châtelet — the very venue name-checked in the show’s own plot, as the ballet in which Lise becomes a star — proved a magnificently apposite location for the production’s debut. The French reception was warm, with the Parisian press charmed by the show’s loving portrayal of their city, and NPR reported the French were going “crazy” for the production. The Paris run served as both a world premiere and a workshop of sorts: the production was revised and the book refined before the Broadway transfer.

Broadway: Palace Theatre (2015–2016)

The Broadway production opened at the Palace Theatre on 12 April 2015, following a preview period. Casting Robert Fairchild — a principal dancer with the New York City Ballet — as Jerry Mulligan and Leanne Cope — a first artist with the Royal Ballet — as Lise Dassin, Wheeldon’s strategy of anchoring the show in dance rather than traditional musical theatre performance immediately differentiated the production from anything else on Broadway that season. Both leads were making their Broadway debuts.

The creative team assembled for Broadway was formidable: Bob Crowley, one of the most celebrated designers in British theatre, created sets and costumes of extraordinary painterly beauty, deploying moving scrims and translucent scenic panels to conjure the streets, cafés, and rooftops of post-war Paris. 59 Productions provided animated projection design that brought the visual language of Art Deco, Impressionism, and twentieth-century French painting to the theatrical stage. Natasha Katz designed the lighting. The musical score was adapted, arranged, and supervised by Rob Fisher, with orchestrations by Christopher Austin and dance arrangements by Sam Davis.

The Broadway production closed on 9 October 2016 after 623 performances and 29 previews — a run that was somewhat shorter than initially projected, the show having announced an earlier-than-planned closing date in July 2016. Nevertheless, it was a commercially successful and critically celebrated production that won four of its twelve Tony nominations and established itself as one of the signature Broadway shows of the mid-2010s.

US National Tour (2016–2018)

The first US national tour opened in Boston, Massachusetts, in October 2016, starring Garen Scribner as Jerry Mulligan and Sara Esty as Lise Dassin. The tour visited cities across the United States through July 2018, bringing the production to audiences who had not been able to see it during its Broadway run. A second US national tour opened in Waterbury, Connecticut, on 28 January 2022, starring Branson Bice and Camila Rodrigues. This second tour visited more than 20 cities before closing in May 2022.

West End: Dominion Theatre, London (2017–2018)

The UK premiere took place at the Dominion Theatre in London, with previews from 4 March 2017 and an official opening on 21 March 2017. Robert Fairchild and Leanne Cope reprised their roles as Jerry and Lise, with the West End cast also featuring Haydn Oakley as Henri Baurel, Zoë Rainey as Milo Davenport, David Seadon-Young as Adam Hochberg, and Jane Asher as Madame Baurel. After three months, Ashley Day took over the lead role of Jerry from Fairchild. The production ran until 6 January 2018. The West End production was filmed with a live audience in May 2017, live-streamed to cinemas, and is now available for viewing on BroadwayHD and aired on PBS’s Great Performances.

Italian Premiere (2018)

The Italian premiere of An American in Paris took place in Genoa at the Teatro Carlo Felice in October 2018, further extending the international reach of the production.

Australian Tour (2022)

The production received its Australian premiere at the Lyric Theatre, Brisbane, on 8 January 2022, with Robert Fairchild and Leanne Cope again reprising their roles in the early legs of the tour. The Australian Ballet’s Cameron Holmes and Dimity Azoury alternated in the lead roles alongside the Broadway originals. The tour subsequently visited Arts Centre Melbourne (18 March – 23 April 2022) and Theatre Royal Sydney (29 April – 2 July 2022), before continuing with Crown Theatre Perth (9–24 July 2022). An Adelaide stop was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Plot

The story is set in Paris in 1945, in the immediate aftermath of the liberation of France. The musical is narrated in retrospect by Adam Hochberg, a young Jewish-American veteran and pianist, who begins by telling us the story of how his friend Jerry Mulligan came to Paris.

US Army Lieutenant Jerry Mulligan, struck by a mysterious girl he glimpsed on the maze-like streets of Paris, deliberately misses his troop train home and decides to stay in the city to pursue his passion for painting. He befriends Adam Hochberg, a fellow veteran whose war injuries have left him with a permanent limp, and the two bond over their mutual desire to make art in a city beginning to find its light again. They also meet Henri Baurel, the son of wealthy French industrialists, who is secretly developing a nightclub act while outwardly preparing to manage his family’s American business interests.

Adam takes Jerry to the Paris ballet, where he is accompanying auditions, to sketch the dancers. The mysterious girl from the street arrives late for the audition — she is Lise Dassin, revealed as the daughter of the famed ballerina Arielle Dassin. Jerry is immediately and deeply infatuated. So, unknown to Jerry, is Adam. American philanthropist Milo Davenport — struck by both Jerry’s talent and his good looks — agrees to fund the ballet season on the condition that Adam writes the score and Jerry designs it. Jerry interrupts Lise at her perfume counter job to tell her she has won the role, and launches an energetic and increasingly chaotic courtship.

It emerges that Lise lives with the Baurel family and that Henri — the same Henri who is friends with both Adam and Jerry — intends to propose to her. Lise writes letters daily to her parents, still hoping they are alive, and agonises over whether to follow duty or follow her heart. Jerry and Lise meet daily by the Seine, where he draws her. He insists on calling her “Liza” for the hour they spend together, as though a different name can create a space apart from obligation. Their feelings for each other deepen while all three men — Jerry, Henri, and Adam — find themselves singing separately about their love for the same woman, in a gleeful comic trio.

Milo, who has fallen genuinely in love with Jerry, discovers that he has invented a pretext to see her and is only using her connections. Their relationship becomes complicated. Jerry discovers that Lise and Henri are engaged, and in a desperate and foolish impulse at a costume party, kisses Lise in front of everyone.

The engagement of Lise and Henri is announced publicly. Jerry, invited as Milo’s guest to a Baurel party, tries and fails to avoid Lise. He confronts her in the garden and she admits she loves him — but insists she cannot be with him, that she is beholden to Henri for reasons she will not explain. Jerry breaks up honestly with Milo, who, despite her heartbreak, thanks him for his honesty.

The crucial truth is eventually revealed by Adam: Lise is the daughter of the Baurels’ Jewish butler. During the Nazi occupation, her parents were arrested and she was entrusted to the Baurel family’s care. Henri threw himself into the French Resistance — risking his own life and his family’s safety — to protect her. Lise’s sense of obligation to marry Henri is thus not mere social expectation but a profound debt of survival, impossible to discharge and impossible to escape.

Henri, meanwhile, reveals his nightclub ambitions in a triumphant performance. His father is proud; his mother relents. Jerry accidentally exposes Henri’s secret to his parents — a further complication — and Henri, furious, punches Jerry. But Adam shares the truth of Henri’s wartime sacrifice, and Jerry, understanding at last the full weight of what Lise owes the Baurel family, is shaken. Lise has overheard everything. She leaves with Henri.

The ballet opens. As Lise dances, she imagines her partner is Jerry, and their pas de deux becomes transcendent — the climactic eighteen-minute ballet sequence that is the centrepiece and emotional peak of the production, set to Gershwin’s orchestral tone poem. The ballet is a triumph. After the curtain call, Lise gives Adam a rose from her bouquet, recognising all he has done for her. As she leaves with Henri, she changes her mind. She returns to Jerry. They dance together and walk off into the Paris night.

Musical Numbers

The score of An American in Paris draws entirely from the existing catalogue of George and Ira Gershwin, adapted and arranged by Rob Fisher with orchestrations by Christopher Austin. The musical retains key numbers from the 1951 film while expanding the score significantly with additional Gershwin songs drawn from across his songbook. The arrangement and adaptation of the Gershwin catalogue is considered one of the show’s great achievements — familiar songs feel fresh and dramatically purposeful throughout.

Act One

1. “Concerto in F”Orchestral — Jerry’s arrival in Paris; the opening sequence
2. “I Got Rhythm”Jerry, Adam, Henri, and Ensemble — the three friends bond over art and Paris
3. “Second Prelude”Orchestral — the ballet audition sequence
4. “(I’ve Got) Beginner’s Luck”Jerry — his courtship of Lise at the perfume counter
5. “The Man I Love”Lise — her letter to her mother; her longing for true love
6. “Liza (All the Clouds’ll Roll Away)”Jerry and Lise — their meetings by the Seine
7. “‘S Wonderful”Jerry, Henri, and Adam — the comic trio in which all three realise they love the same woman
8. “Shall We Dance?”Milo and Jerry — Milo’s ruse to spend time with Jerry
9. “Second Rhapsody / Cuban Overture”Orchestral — the costume party; Jerry’s impulsive kiss

Act Two

1. “Fidgety Feet”Jerry and Ensemble — a wild dance number at the Baurel party
2. “Who Cares? / For You, For Me, For Evermore”Milo & Henri / Jerry & Lise — parallel domestic scenes
3. “But Not for Me”Adam and Milo — both unlucky in love, they reflect on longing and loss
4. “Stairway to Paradise”Henri — his nightclub act; his fantasy of performing at Radio City Music Hall
5. “An American in Paris”Full Company — the eighteen-minute climactic ballet sequence; Lise’s triumph at the Théâtre du Châtelet
6. “They Can’t Take That Away from Me”Adam, Jerry, and Henri — the three friends’ vow to always remember Lise
7. “Epilogue”Jerry and Lise — they dance together; a Paris that finally feels like home

Original Broadway Cast (2015)

The Broadway production opened at the Palace Theatre on 12 April 2015, produced by Stuart Oken, Van Kaplan, Roy Furman, and Michael McCabe, by special arrangement with Elephant Eye Theatrical, the Pittsburgh CLO, and the Théâtre du Châtelet.

Cast Across Productions

Notable Replacements

Given the unique demands of the show — requiring leads who are trained ballet dancers capable of also singing and acting — the pool of potential replacements was considerably more specialised than for most Broadway productions. The most significant replacement during the show’s run was in the West End, where Ashley Day took over the role of Jerry Mulligan from Robert Fairchild approximately three months into the London engagement.

Creative Team (Broadway)

Critical Reception

The critical reception to An American in Paris on Broadway was overwhelmingly positive, with reviewers consistently singling out the choreography, design, and the performances of the two leads. The few dissenting notes tended to focus on Craig Lucas’s book, which some critics felt was serviceable rather than inspired — a fair critique that the show’s advocates readily conceded while arguing, equally fairly, that the dancing more than compensated.

The West End production received equally warm notices, with the British press particularly admiring of Leanne Cope’s performance. The Independent praised her ability to go “from wide-eyed to slinky in one bright glance,” while WhatsOnStage described Fairchild as possessing “muscular and exciting” movement with “a charming ease” and “gravity-defying sprezzatura.” Those who felt Wheeldon’s pacing was at times “sedately” handled acknowledged that the production’s visual brilliance — Bob Crowley’s sets described by the British press as having “a touch of genius” — was beyond dispute.

“Leanne Cope and Robert Fairchild created the parts of Lise and Jerry on stage and inhabit them fully. He is ballet royalty — a principal at New York City Ballet — yet with the sly, sexy instincts of a Broadway hoofer. He sings well, too, and brandishes a megawatt charm of which Gene Kelly would be proud.” — WhatsOnStage (West End production)

Awards and Nominations

An American in Paris was one of the most-nominated shows of the 2014–15 Broadway season, receiving twelve Tony Award nominations and winning four. It also received multiple Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, Drama League, Fred and Adele Astaire, and Grammy nominations.

Tony Awards (2015)

Drama Desk Awards (2015)

Outer Critics Circle Awards (2015)

Fred and Adele Astaire Awards (2015)

Other Honours

Legacy & Significance

An American in Paris occupies a distinctive place in the Broadway canon as one of the most genuinely dance-centred musicals of the modern era — a production in which the choreography is not an embellishment to the storytelling but the primary vehicle for it. Christopher Wheeldon’s Broadway debut as a director was a remarkable achievement, and the production established him as a major creative force in musical theatre as well as ballet.

The show also raised fascinating questions about casting — questions that extend beyond Broadway. By placing two ballet dancers with limited musical theatre experience at the centre of a commercial Broadway production, Wheeldon demonstrated that the traditional hierarchy of skills required for Broadway leading roles (singing first, acting second, dancing third) could be profitably inverted, provided the material and direction were strong enough to support it. That experiment worked more than well enough to justify the risk.

The production’s visual world — Bob Crowley’s painterly designs, 59 Productions’ animated projections, Natasha Katz’s golden Parisian light — has been widely cited as one of the most beautiful stage pictures in recent Broadway memory. The climactic eighteen-minute ballet, set to Gershwin’s An American in Paris tone poem, remains one of the most ambitious and successful sequences in contemporary Broadway history: a moment where the worlds of classical ballet and commercial musical theatre achieved a genuine and exhilarating synthesis.

The production is currently available to view on BroadwayHD and PBS’s Great Performances, ensuring that the West End filmed production in particular remains accessible to audiences worldwide. For students of musical theatre, dance theatre, and the ongoing conversation about what Broadway can be, An American in Paris remains essential viewing — a show that, in its finest moments, made the whole city of light feel like it was dancing.