21st Century - A New Millennium On Ice

The 20th Century was coming to an end with an avid new audience that knew its skating and was hooked on the thrill of triple jumps by gold standard superstars. In 1990 producer/choreographer Sandra Bezic responded with “Skating” created around Olympic stars Brian Boitano and Katarina Witt - a ground breaking touring production with no lavish set, chorus girls, Smurfs, or skating comics. The new “spectacle” was superb skating presented as theatre by a handful of certified champions. Toller Cranston and John Curry had set the stage in 1977 - followed by Robin Cousins in’83 - when each formed his own distinctly different pared-down skating company for theatre performances.  Reviewers welcomed the innovative new approach and heralded the skaters as artists. In 1985 ice dance legends Torvill & Dean created an artistic skating company for the first of their world tours.

In the new millennium theatrical skating is greatly changed yet remains as wonderfully diverse as ever. “Holiday On Ice” and “Disney On Ice” continue touring their spectacular revues and lavish fantasy stories around the world; smaller group performances such as “Art On Ice” are seen annually in Europe; Russia’s “St. Petersburg Ice Ballet,”  and “Bobrin Ice Theatre” are traveling the globe; while small artistic ensembles like “Ice Theatre of New York,” “The Next Ice Age” in Baltimore, and “Angels On Ice” in Los Angeles continue to develop. But three major theatrical skating players have emerged in the vast North American market: Tom Collins, Scott Hamilton, and Willy Bietak. Happily each is a former skater with the old hands-on, love-of-show-business style of the pioneering ice impresarios.

Tom Collins is a Canadian miner’s son who learned his show biz smarts in “Holiday On Ice” by working his way up from wide-eyed chorus skater to star. His interest in also learning how a big tour operates led eventually to becoming the company vice-president and general manager. Collins teamed with “Holiday On Ice” boss Morris Chalfen in 1969 to arrange brief exhibition tours by newly crowned amateur champions after World Figure Skating Championships were held in North America. Chalfen soon bowed out thinking the enterprise had no future but Collins wisely realized that audiences, increasingly drawn to figure skating by television, would grow. His “Tour of World Figure Skating Champions” was bare bones in the beginning, a logo banner for the bangboard, a tape recorder plugged in to the arena sound system, and cast of young skaters sometimes in costumes their mothers had made. But subsequent World and Olympic competitions were held in North America and ticket sales soared. They absolutely skyrocketed from the 1994 Harding/Kerrigan scandal. The itinerary grew from 43 cities in 1993 to 85 cities in 2002.

New young champions eagerly await an invitation to join “Tommy’s tour” to prove they’ve made it. Fans are thrilled to see their favorite ice idols, so familiar from television, performing live as entertainers free from the restrictions and nerves of competition. Collins often mixes legendary professionals with the up-and-coming new kids so there’s great skating history out on the ice. For over twenty-five years Tom Collins, who renamed his show “Champions On Ice” in 1998, has presented the world’s greatest figure skaters. He has the distinction of being inducted into the United States, Canadian, and Professional Figure Skating Halls of Fame.

NOTE: In November of 2006 Tom Collins sold his “Champions On Ice” show to AEG (Anschutz Entertainment Group) but was retained to operate the tour as President. After a year of poor business, the retirement of many of the best-known skaters, and a bleak forecast for the U.S. economy AEG cancelled the 2008 tour. After 29 years of presenting the world’s greatest skaters to eager American audiences and years of sold-out arenas during figure skating’s go-go years in the 1990s, “Champions On Ice” has come to an end. 

Audiences have turned their attention to “American Idol” and “Dancing With the Stars” for the entertainment, thrills, and exciting personalities that made skating so enormously popular. Those elements still exist but it will take time for the new crop of skaters to become household names and build their box office appeal. The negative mode of current economics is a huge factor. It’s boom or bust and I’ll be waiting for the next boom to bring a New Faces tour of “Champions On Ice” to see who will be the next Michelle Kwan, Brian Boitano, and Berezhnaya & Sikharulidze…and the next Tom Collins.

Back in 1986 after starring in “Ice Capades” for two years reigning Olympic champ Scott Hamilton was informed that male skaters don’t sell tickets and shown the door. Scott, a born entertainer, loved performing but found that the standard ice show grind of 12 shows in a different town every week destroys an athlete’s body and soul. Freed from that treadmill he dreamed of heading an all-star troupe of his peers who could also skate together in various combinations and in innovative productions. A year later he led a small company of elite skaters on a successful barnstorming test tour of one-night stands. Thus encouraged and with corporate sponsorship his dream came to fruition in 1987 - the “Discover Card Stars On Ice” show took to the road. With each succeeding year audiences increased as did the tour itinerary.
In 1992 International Management Group, the underwriters of “S.O.I.,” wanted to snag new Olympic gold medalist Kristi Yamaguchi for the show. They bought out the rival Boitano-Witt tour to bring creative genius Bezic aboard as director/choreographer (later, also producer) which also brought them Ms. Yamaguchi for whom Bezic was choreographer.
“Stars” stellar casts have included Paul Wylie, Katarina Witt, Torvill & Dean, Kurt Browning, Tara Lipinski, Ilya Kulik, Berezhnaya & Sikharulidze, and Sale & Pelletier. Fans emotionally followed cast members Meno & Sand’s love story and wedding, wept over Sergei Grinkov’s untimely death and ached for his widowed partner Katia Gordeeva and tiny daughter Daria. They cheered in 1997 when Scott Hamilton triumphantly returned to “Stars On Ice” after successfully battling testicular cancer and expressed great concern in 2004 as he received treatment for a brain tumor. Founding father Scott retired from regularly performing in 2001 but, together with choreographer Christopher Dean and costume designer Jeff Billings, continues to guide “Stars On Ice” into the future.
Willy Bietak, nine-time Austrian pairs champion and twice an Olympian, skated with Peggy Fleming in her 1972 TV special “To Europe With Love” and with partner Cathy Steele in Fleming’s German and U.S. tours of “An Evening On Ice.” Like Tom Collins Willy was a performer who discovered a love of the business side of show business. Beginning in the 1980s he began co-producing such shows as “Concert On Ice” and “Fantasy On Ice,” for elegant showrooms and theatres. Right from the start he insisted on quality and hired top stars Fleming, Scott Hamilton, Dorothy Hamill, Tai Babalonia & Randy Gardner, John Curry, and Charlie Tickner. For five years Bietak co-produced “Ice Capades” including the gala 1990 50th edition, and in Europe he created the “Holiday On ice” productions Colours of Dance and In Concert.
In the 1980s Bietak began creating ice productions for several U.S. theme parks and also at venues in Canada, Mexico, and Japan. His “Broadway On Ice” show, designed and choreographed for proscenium stages, was recently presented with a succession of elite skaters that included Nancy Kerrigan, Rudy Galindo, Tara Lipinski, Tai & Randy, Dorothy Hamill, and Brian Boitano.
Bietak Productions also rents portable rinks that are in high demand year round for projects like Downtown On Ice in L.A., Disney’s TV taping of “Mulan,” a competition in Tokyo, and the highly complex free-form ice surfaces for the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2002 Winter Olympics. Eager to snag the young crowd for his “Hot Ice” show at California’s Magic Mountain theme park in ’04 Bietak won high praise with his excellent youthful cast, surprisingly contemporary music, and the latest high tech electronics. Beginning in 2000 each of the six newest and largest Royal Caribbean Lines cruise ships have been built with an ice rink. Bietak Productions has had great success with the six different shows they’ve created, one performing on each ship, often choreographed by Cathy Bietak, Willy’s wife and former partner.
I can’t wait to see what new and exciting developments and changes the 21st century will bring to the evolution of skating as a theatrical art. Let’s hope we’re only getting started and that hugely talented and wildly creative people will emerge, both on and off the ice, to develop ways of presenting the unique magic of skating that are more amazing than we have ever dreamed.