Stories from the Stage: Chrissy Fournier and the Road to Broadway
In 1962, she performed in a Broadway production of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. In 1963, she toured in Jerome Robbins’s production of West Side Story in Japan. In 1968, she became Chanhassen Dinner Theatre’s first choreographer. But before all of that, Lundstrum faculty member Chrissy Fournier was a young girl growing up in Minneapolis and pursuing a love of musicals wherever she could.
“Back in the day we didn’t have a Lundstrum, so my mother enrolled me in a ballet class.”
Chrissy started early when her mother enrolled her in Russian ballet at age seven. “Back in the day, we didn’t have a Lundstrum, so my mother enrolled me in a ballet class,” Chrissy recalled. The Victor Stangl School of Russian Ballet on Hennepin Avenue expected discipline and focus from its students, and Chrissy credits her five years there with instilling an early sense of the self-discipline she would need in her career. She enjoyed her time at the school, but she remembers her options being limited, “In those days, there was no way to study anything else.”
“It was an amazing opening up of a whole world I didn’t know yet.” - CHrissy Fournier
To pursue her passion for musical theater, she turned to movies. “I lived for MGM musicals, I would literally go the Uptown theater with my 35 cents after school, and I’d watch every MGM musical that came out––Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds, Fred Astaire, the whole panorama of these amazing artists. I developed my eye for musical theater,” she recalled. Lacking a formal teacher in musical theater, she remembered, “I would watch the movie, buy the original movie track, take it home and recreate the choreography.” Practicing in front of her bedroom mirror, Chrissy strived to imitate the art she saw playing out on the silver screen.
When Chrissy attended The University of Minnesota, she was finally able to get the formal training she desired. At college, she signed up for a Modern Dance course and studied under Loyce Houlton, the future founder of Minnesota Dance Theatre. “It was an amazing opening up of a whole world I didn’t know yet,” she recalled. Beyond the university, Chrissy also performed in the community in shows like The Boy Friend. She remembers it as a wonderful but hectic time in her young life, as she ran between classes and shows all over the Twin Cities.
Loyce Houlton, a mentor of Chrissy’s and the future founder of Minnesota Dance Theatre.
She started to cultivate a dream of moving to New York just as she landed a job with the University of Minnesota Showboat. It was a paid position. “I just saved my money, like a squirrel putting nuts away for the winter,” Chrissy chuckles to remember. She spent a summer working, and even living, on the boat with an eye on New York. But first, her community needed her help.
In 1963, Sir William Tyrone Guthrie founded the Guthrie Theatre.
In 1959, Sir Tyrone Guthrie published a small invitation in the New York Times seeking a city that would like to become the home to a resident theater. Minneapolis and six other cities responded. Frank Whiting, the director of the University of Minnesota Theater at the time, led the charge to convince Sir Guthrie to choose Minneapolis. Among his efforts, he organized the students of his theater department to meet Sir Guthrie and his wife when they came to visit. Chrissy and her classmates organized a reception followed by a performance on the showboat. “We all knew he was someone very special, but we had no idea the extent of what he’d do,” Chrissy said remembering the way Sir Guthrie towered over the crowd of people at their show. The Guthries were impressed, and the rest is history.
Beginning in 1958, University of Minnesota students performed on the Minnesota Centennial Showboat.
Chrissy’s story, of course, continues. It spans Broadway, national tours, and even international tours. But before she lit up the professional stage, Chrissy was like so many of Lundstrum’s students, a young performer seeking opportunities to explore her craft. Chrissy didn’t have formal musical theater training. She picked up dance as a child, acting along the way, and singing when a director told her she needed it for a part. For Chrissy, there was no specialized teacher to help her pursue her triple-threat dream. In this regard, Chrissy’s students are different. They have Chrissy right behind them to lend a hand and show the way.
Want to study with Chrissy?
She teaches private lessons.