On Your Toes opened on Broadway on April 11, 1936 at the Imperial Theatre, where it ran for seven months before transferring to the Majestic Theatre, for a total run of 315 performances. The show was directed by C. Worthington Miner, choreographed by George Balanchine and starred Ray Bolger.

After several years in Hollywood, Rodgers and Hart had very little to show for their efforts. They returned to New York in 1935, to a different Broadway than the one they’d left four years earlier in the giddy 1920s. Their peers (Berlin, Porter, the Gershwins) were still there, but were producing more adventurous, more sophisticated and more political work. They were forced to adapt. Over the next eight years, they would write eleven shows—almost all of them hits.

Rodgers and Hart struck up a collaboration with Russian choreographer George Balanchine. By the beginning of 1936, Balanchine created dances for Josephine Baker and the Nicholas Brothers in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1936 on Broadway. Only four months later, his work was on display again in On Your Toes. Rodgers was said to be intimidated by the Russian choreographer, who spoke little English. “But that was okay,” Rodgers said. “He spoke a lot of dance.” With the ballets “Princess Zenobia” and “Slaughter on Tenth Avenue,” Rodgers and Balanchine set a new standard for how dance could be used to advance the narrative of a musical comedy.

A 1939 Warner Brothers screen adaptation starred Eddie Albert, Vera Zorina, Alan Hale, Frank McHugh, and Donald O’Connor. The film eliminated all the songs, using them only as underscoring, but retained Balanchine’s ballets.

On Your Toes was revived in 1953, directed by George Abbott and again choreographed by Balanchine. The cast included Vera Zorina, Bobby Van and Elaine Stritch. The show included a new set of orchestrations and two additional songs, “The Heart Is Quicker than the Eye” and “You Took Advantage of Me.”

A second revival, again directed by Abbott, opened in 1983 and ran for 505 performances. The cast included Natalia Makarova and Christine Andreas. The original orchestrations and choreography were used.

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