‘Tap Dance Kid’ settles into role
Excerpt from Alvin Klein’s 1984 profile of Jimmy Tate in “Tap Dance Kid:”
''I LIKE them to like me because I'm me, not just because I'm the Tap Dance Kid.'' Jimmy Tate was referring to the fans awaiting his autograph - he signs ''when I'm not too tired'' - at the stage door of Manhattan's Minskoff Theater, where the musical, ''The Tap Dance Kid'' is playing.
With the 10th-grade classes he will be attending at the Hackley School in Tarrytown beginning Tuesday and a Sept. 20 taping of a television break- dancing contest, which will be shown next month with Jimmy as the host, the 13-year-old performer's regime will be more tiring than the mere eight shows a week he's been doing all summer, even though he has been reading his vacation assignment, the novel ''Of Human Bondage,'' in his dressing room before performances.
But then he is used to all that, having played the title role in the musical - by his mother, Estelle Tate's estimation - ''about 25 percent of the time'' whenever the original Tap Dance Kid, Alfonso Ribeiro, now 13, was indisposed. The show opened last December. Two months ago, when Alfonso left the cast to appear in the upcoming television series, ''Silver Spoons,'' Jimmy graduated from standby to nominal star. So far, he has only missed one performance.
Throughout the eight-month preopening workshop process, during which the musical evolved, the youngster ''sat around and watched,'' he said. He also learned the dance routines from the choreographer Danny Daniels, the actor-dancer Hinton Battle (both of whom won Tony Awards for their contributions to the musical) and Alfonso himself.
''When he broke in, he broke in; he didn't fool around,'' asserted Mrs. Tate, once an aspiring opera singer. She recalled the time her son tried out for a role in a musical that never came to be: ''Satchmo,'' which was to have been based on the life of Louis Armstrong. That was two-and-a-half years ago. Not knowing how to tap dance before the audition, Jimmy took a crash course with a teacher in Thornwood. Afterward, the director, Gene Kelly, asked him how long he had been tapping. ''Five days,'' Jimmy retorted. ''Five years?'' Mr. Kelly asked in disbelief. ''No, five days!'' Jimmy repeated.
After auditioning for ''The Tap Dance Kid,'' Jimmy had six ''call backs.'' He was selected, he maintained, because he seemed ''like a real urban street kid.''
Which is hardly typecasting, Jimmy having been brought up in the ''country'' where his parents were also raised. His mother was born in White Plains, where the family has been living for nine years, and his father, James, moved to Mount Kisco from North Carolina during childhood. The younger Mr. Tate - he is an ''only child,'' which means ''I get more things to myself at Christmas'' - was born in Yonkers; the Tates later moved to Elmsford.
Nor does the character of Willie, the Tap Dance Kid, resemble the real Jimmy. More than anything, Willie wants to be a dancer in spite of protestations by his father, an upwardly mobile lawyer. Actually, the elder Mr. Tate, who works in the construction field but once played the drums in an Army band, does not object to whatever show business aspirations his son might have. Furthermore, the boy does not appear to have any in particular, in spite of being something of a veteran at his age; he will turn 14 on Oct. 14.
The young performer has appeared in one production after another of ''Shenandoah'': in a now-defunct dinner theater in Thornwood in 1979, at Elmsford's An Evening Dinner Theater in 1980 and at the Darien Dinner Theater in Darien, Conn., in 1982; in ''Oliver'' (An Evening, 1980), and in local community-theater versions of ''Showboat'' (Westlake High School in Thornwood) and ''Carousel'' (with the Pleasantville Music Theater at the Pleasantville High School).
It all began at the age of 9, when he was picked for the part of the oldest brother in ''Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat'' at the Rye Country Day School where he was then enrolled.
Although Jimmy has appeared in one film - ''Zelig,'' with Woody Allen in which he was again cast as ''a little street kid'' - and a cable television show and is now making his Broadway debut in a prominent part, he is as level-headed about the future as his stage father, and aware of the ephemera of fame, especially at his time of life. At 4 feet 9 inches, and weighing 90 pounds, he could outgrow the role in a flash; his contract extends until December. ''You never know. It's hard to keep a steady paycheck coming in. So I'm saving up for college, but this is okay for the time being,'' he said.
See original article in The New York Times archives:
The New York Times: 'Tap Dance Kid' Settles Into Role (1984)
