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Breaking out: broadway fireball Nancy Lemenager hits her stride in Movin' Out.

Article Excerpt
It's every gypsy's dream: to be pulled from a Broadway chorus line to do a featured solo; to parlay that solo into bigger roles around the country; to return to Broadway as tire star of a new musical. Nancy Lemenager lived that dream, and the big question is, What happens next?

A leggy strawberry blonde equally at home blithely tapping to the melodies of Jerome Kern in Never Gonna Dance and grinding her pelvis to Billy Joel in Movin' Out, Lemenager knows that careers like Gwen Verdon's and Chita Rivera's don't happen very often in today's musical theater. "They used to take people's assets and foster them and nurture them," she mused one cold afternoon before a performance of Movin' Out. "They would take your comedic abilities and your dance abilities and your quirkiness, and they would just roll it all up and make things for you--like having a tailor make you a suit. Somebody like a Bob Fosse took a Gwen Verdon and made her a star--you just don't have that any more."

Which means that dancers like Lemenager, 34, can't wait for opportunities to come their way--they have to be more entrepreneurial. "I would love the chance to create pieces with people and see where that leads," she said. "I want to play interesting...

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