"Staying Alive"

John Travolta's Saturday Night Fever character Tony Manero heads to Manhattan to become a dancer on Broadway in Sylvester Stallone's "Staying Alive" (Paramount, 1983). The opening credit sequence has many shots of an audition happening at the Orpheum Theatre, 842 S. Broadway in Los Angeles.

A look into the house during the audition. The film also stars Cynthia Rhodes as Jackie, the girlfriend who sticks with him despite various distractions, and Finola Hughes as Laura, a British dancer he has a fling with.

Another shot during the opening credits.  

Travolta walking off the stage. He didn't make the cut.

Visit the pages about the Orpheum Theatre on the Los Angeles Theatres site for a history of the 1926 vintage vaudeville house along with hundreds of photos.

Travolta goes to the closing night of a show his girlfriend Jackie (Cynthia Rhodes) is in. It's not possible to ID the theatre from this photo but it turns out we're at the Philharmonic Auditorium at 5th & Olive in Los Angeles. We'll see a lot of it. The tail end of this show, auditions for another one, and the opening night finale scenes are all done at the Philharmonic.

Offstage right at the Philharmonic Auditorium. Travolta is watching in the wings and becomes enchanted with the female lead, British dancer Laura (Finola Hughes).

Heading upstairs to Laura's 2nd floor stage right dressing room. 

On the second floor dressing room level.  

In Laura's dressing room. She's initially dismissive but later they have a fling. 

Tony auditioning the next day for a new show. Check out the Philharmonic's proscenium. 

Laura comes up a vomitory to the back of the main floor to watch the audition. 

Jesse, the director/choreographer, (Steve Inwood) giving instructions from the back of the main floor.

Tony and Laura get a scene in the 1st balcony lobby.

Jim Davis comments: "Those windows were really doors that during intermission were opened (weather permitting) to encourage smokers to step outside. The (small) outside area was surrounded by a parapet I seem to remember as being about 5 feet high. The level below this was called the mezzanine circle; each of the two main stairways had an entrance to its seating area, but you couldn't get from one side to the other of that level except within the auditorium proper. So there was no hall at that level like we see here."

It's opening night for "Satan's Alley" at the Broadway Theatre in New York City. When we go inside we're still in the Philharmonic Auditorium in Los Angeles.

A look across the steeply raked main floor of the Philharmonic. 

A chorus dressing room.

A corridor offstage right. No wonder everyone was happy when the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion opened in 1964.

Tony in his dressing room. 

A proscenium view at the beginning of the show. 

The enthusiastic audience. 

The big finale of "Satan's Alley." Not quite the way it was choreographed but evidently a triumph nonetheless. Travolta goes strutting after the show.

See the page on the Philharmonic Auditorium for many photos and a history of the building. It opened in 1906 and was demolished in 1985.


A year later:

We take a drive down Broadway for a look at the Orpheum's marquee as Harry Dean Stanton explains the code of the "Repo Man" (Universal, 1984) to Emilio Estevez. "Staying Alive" is playing.

On IMDb: "Staying Alive"