E-Mail This Article to a Friend Fats chance The Huntington gears up for Ain’t Misbehavin’ BY IRIS FANGER

To borrow a phrase from Fats Waller, the joint was jumpin’ last week at the Huntington Theatre Company’s upstairs rehearsal studio, where director and choreographer Marcia Milgrom Dodge led her ensemble through the high-stepping struts that open act two of Ain’t Misbehavin’. Based on legendary jazzman Waller’s prodigious output, the musical, which opened in 1978 on Broadway, is a rollicking song-and-dance revue comprising 30 numbers by one of the great performer-composers of the Harlem Renaissance. And it opens the Huntington’s 22nd season next Friday.

Waller played what’s called "stride piano," in which the left hand "strides" back and forth to establish the beat while the right hand plays the melody. Taking over at the piano, this production’s musical director, Ronald Metcalf, demonstrates the style with assured panache and a glint of humor. "Our rehearsal pianist is really getting a master class in Fats Waller," Dodge says. "Ron is clear and true about how this music should be performed."

Oversized personalities like Waller — and as his nickname suggests, his personality isn’t the only thing that was oversized — dominated a creative milieu that moved from Harlem to the downtown Broadway theaters and out to Hollywood. Born to an Abyssinian Baptist minister and a music-teacher mother, Thomas Wright Waller (1904-1943) was playing the organ for his father’s congregation by the age of 10, and he cut his first player-piano roll at age 18. Among his songs that America is still singing are "Ain’t Misbehavin’," "Honeysuckle Rose," "I Can’t Give You Anything But Love," and "Two Sleepy People," all of which will be belted out at the Huntington by cast members James Alexander, Dana Dawson, Todd E. Pettiford, Terita Redd and Soara-Joye Ross.

Waller was also a fixture at the Harlem rent parties that provided him a steady living and gave Dodge, who has staged Ain’t Misbehavin’ at the Virginia Stage Theater and the Cleveland Playhouse, the idea for her setting. "I saw the original production at Manhattan Theatre Club when it was born, before it moved to Broadway. When I was asked to direct one myself, I started reading everything about the period. I heard stories that George Gershwin was going up to Harlem to the rent parties to listen to the great performers.

"I always watch the Fred Astaire movies when I start a production. I want to be as surprising and as inevitable as his dancing is. What I always seek is that moment of gasp followed by sigh. I’ve directed this show so many times, it’s really in my bones."

Dodge studied at the University of Michigan with Elizabeth Bergman, who’s now teaching at Harvard, and she considers herself a tap dancer/hoofer. "I studied ballet, but pink tights and me didn’t go together. I got my Equity card because I thought you should, but I’m much happier backstage as a choreographer and director. I’m too bossy."

Next up is a mystery drama that she wrote with her husband, Anthony Dodge — they adapted The West End Horror, a novel by Nicholas Meyer that has Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson investigating the murder of a theater critic in London’s Theater District in the 1890s. Sir Henry Irving, George Bernard Shaw, Ellen Terry, and Oscar Wilde are among the characters. "Even though it’s a straight play, there’s an on-stage pianist playing music of the period," Dodge explains. "There’s a couple of musical turns. With my background, I can’t avoid it. Music is everywhere, feet are tappin.’ "

Ain’t Misbehavin’ is presented by the Huntington Theatre Company at the Boston University Theatre, 264 Huntington Avenue, September 12 through October 19. Tickets are $14 to $69; call (617) 266-0800.