Wayne Lamb

Michael "Wayne" Lamb (October 24, 1920 – June 5, 2001) was a Broadway dancer, choreographer, theatre director and professor of dance.

Lamb was born in Centerville, Kansas to Marno W. and Clara (Burdue) Lamb.

He attended the University of Wichita and the University of Kansas, where he studied dancing.

He left college to tour with Earl Carroll's Vanities, playing five shows a day on the movie circuit for three months.

"They said if I was interested in joining them, I had to be in Kansas City the next morning. So I quickly quit school and joined the show."

The movie circuit consisted of performing between movie screenings at theatres across the country.

His fledgling career was interrupted by the World War II draft.

He spent the next three years in an Army uniform, chauffeuring officers and the occasional entertainer – such as Marlene Dietrich and Dinah Shore – around Europe.

He served in France, Belgium, Holland, England and Germany as a staff sergeant, and earned the Bronze Star.

After his discharge and the GI bill, he went to New York City, where he immediately enrolled at the former Alviene School for the Dramatic Arts, where Fred Astaire studied.

Other Broadway shows included The Day Before Spring, which opened on November 22, 1945, at the National Theatre, where it ran for 167 performances, and the national company of Call Me Mister, which included Bob Fosse, Carl Reiner and Buddy Hackett in the cast.

Wayne was the ballet dancer and Bob Fosse the tap dancer in this production.

The show ran 15 months in venues all over the country.

Lamb was in the Pre-Broadway tryout of Bonanza Bound, choreographed by Jack Cole and included Gwen Verdon in the chorus with Lamb.

Writer/Director Joe Stockdale recalls Jack Ragotsy's first impression of Lamb in Call Me Mister in Chicago: "As a young dancer he had an animal grace that was electric in its force and energy."

He also worked with actress Vivian Blaine, writer Mel Brooks, director George S. Kaufman and comedian Imogene Coca.

He first appeared as a solo dancer in the 1946 revival of the Franz Lehár operetta Yours is My Heart at the Shubert Theatre, lasting two months; Bloomer Girl, also at the Shubert Theatre starring Celeste Holm with choreography by Agnes Demille, and the musical revue Make Mine Manhattan (1948–1949) at the Broadhurst Theatre with Sid Caesar, which ran for 429 performances.

He was also a student at the American Theatre Wing from 1947–50, studying dance with Russian ballet teachers Helena Platova and Edward Caton, English ballet teachers Antony Tudor and Margaret Craske, Modern dance pioneers Martha Graham, Hanya Holm and Doris Humphrey, Japanese modern teacher Yeichi Nimura, and African-American modern dance innovator Katherine Dunham.

Jack Ragotzy recalls a story that Lamb told about choreographing a poem for Doris Humphrey: "After the piece was presented," he said, "she gave me the best advice of my life. 'Never work on anything unless you can add something of yourself to the work. If you can't add something of yourself, the work is already complete and there is no need for you to spend your time or energy on it.'"

Lamb joined the national touring company of The Day Before Spring, which closed three days after its debut in Chicago during a crippling coal strike.

A month later, he would receive his Broadway debut.

Lamb appeared in six Broadway musicals.

Lamb toured internationally from 1948 to 1950 as a concert dancer with the Elena Imaz International Dance Trio, presenting Spanish dances created by Imaz, who was originally from Argentina.

They also appeared in the Carnegie Hall Summer Concerts.

Lamb performed as a regular dancer on The Admiral Broadway Review which became Your Show of Shows in 1950, working with Buddy Hacket, Nancy Walker and Imogene Coca.

Lamb was instructor of ballet classes for the New Dance Group in New York City and director of the ballet department for seven years, from 1950–57, 'teaching whenever I was in town.' In 1958, he was Director of the School of Dance and Fine Arts in Hastings, Michigan.

A picture of Lamb with the trio is featured in the January 10, 1951 edition of the Sarasota Herald Tribune.

From 1952 to 1955, other appearances included Toast of the Town (later called The Ed Sullivan Show), Stop the Music with Bert Parks, The Tony Martin Show, The Ezio Pinza Show, the Bob Hope television specials, and The Colgate Comedy Hour.

Wayne himself declared that he was the first one to wear a dance belt on television in an early version of The Burl Ives Show. Lamb elaborated for the Kalamazoo Gazette: "They wouldn't allow me to stand up straight for fear the American public would see my crotch!"

In 1955, Lamb's interest in choreography led him to The Barn Theatre, a summer stock theatre in Augusta, Michigan, where he began directing musicals and plays alongside his companion, Angelo Mango, who was also an actor.

His first assignment for the Barn was choreography for Jack Ragotzy's South Pacific.

Lamb is listed in the Broadway World Internet Database as the choreographer for two Off-Broadway productions of Shakespeare, including A Midsummer Night's Dream in 1956 at the Jan Hus Playhouse and Twelfth Night in 1957 at the Shakespearewrights Theatre.

Lamb taught dance for Eureka College (Illinois) in 1959, Williams College in 1962 and the University of Massachusetts Amherst from 1964 to 1966.

His teaching relationship with Purdue University began in 1960 and lasted until 1986.

In 1967, he taught dance classes for Diamond Head Theatre in Hawaii.

The Holland, Michigan Evening Sentinel from June 1971 states that Lamb's first show for the 1971 summer season was Hello Dolly, which opened June 29, 1971 with Jack Ragotzy as producer and Lamb as Associate Producer.

The cast included Angelo Mango.

He was promoted to assistant professor in 1971, and is listed as an associate professor in a 1978 Barn Theatre program bio.

A 1978 Barn Theatre program bio states that Lamb had been with the Barn for 23 years and shares "top artistic and managerial decisions with Jack Ragotzy" (artistic director).

Lamb was Associate Producer at that time.