Works & Process presents The Legendary Broadway Icon Chita Rivera in conversation with Arts Journalist Patrick Pacheco

As part of their Fall 2023 Season, Works & Process presents Tony Award-winner Chita Rivera in conversation with Patrick Pacheco, featuring American Dance Machine for the 21st Century (ADM21) on Monday, November 6, 2023 at 7:30 pm at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1071 Fifth Avenue, New York City. For tickets and additional information, visit www.worksandprocess.org/. Tickets start at $35.

Come be inspired and join the legendary Chita Rivera and arts journalist Patrick Pacheco, co-author of “Chita: A Memoir.” This is a rare opportunity to be a fly on the wall as Chita puts you in the room with such luminaries as Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim, Jerome Robbins, Bob Fosse, Hal Prince, John Kander, Fred Ebb and so many others. Chita draws from her decades-long career working on Broadway classics from West Side Story, Bye Bye Birdie and Chicago to modern musicals like The Rink, Kiss of the Spider Woman, and The Visit.

A theatrical icon and one of Broadway’s greatest triple-threat talents, Chita Riverais one of the most nominated performers in Tony Award history having earned 10 nominations, won twice and received the 2018 Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre. She trained as a ballerina (from age nine) before receiving a scholarship to the School of American Ballet from the legendary choreographer George Balanchine. Her electric performance as Anita in the original Broadway premiere of West Side Story brought her international stardom.

Chita was awarded The Presidential Medal of Freedom and the coveted Kennedy Center Honor; performed her solo concert at London’s Cadogan Hall and Carnegie Hall. Her most treasured production is her daughter, singer/dancer/choreographer Lisa Mordente. Her long-awaited critically-acclaimed book Chita: A Memoir, published by HarperOne, is available now.

Chita says, “I’ve long considered writing my memoir, but I’ve never been one to look back…until now. Now it feels right and with Patrick Pacheco, I couldn’t be more pleased to pass on my experience to a new generation. I hope my words and thoughts about my life and career resonate and readers just might discover some things about me they never knew.”

Patrick Pacheco is an Emmy Award-winning TV commentator and arts journalist whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The LA Times, The Wall Street Journal, Esquire.com, and other periodicals. He wrote the 2009 Disney documentary Waking Sleeping Beauty and his plays include My Life with Men…and Other Animals, co-written with Maria Cassi, and the new musical, Christmas in Connecticut, with Erik Jackson.

As part of the program, dancers from American Dance Machine for the 21st Century will perform works created and made famous by Ms. Rivera from such shows like West Side Story, Chicago, and more!

ADM21 is a rebirth of The American Dance Machine, founded in 1976 by noted Broadway luminary Lee Theodore to preserve musical theater choreography at risk of becoming obsolete. Lee created a “Living Archive” by engaging the original artists – from theater, film, and television – to reconstruct, stage, and present great choreographic works with the nuance, style and technique as originally intended. These stagers carry forward the artistic wisdom of past generations to a new generation of artists and audiences. In 2012, Nikki Feirt Atkins revived the organization as ADM21 to ensure great works of musical theater choreography remain true to the original work, yet fresh, relevant, and vibrant.