Ned Wayburn

Ned Wayburn (né Edward Claudius Weyburn; 30 March 1874 – 2 September 1942) was an American choreographer.

Career

Edward Claudius Weyburn was born on March 30, 1874 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to Elbert Delos Weyburn and his wife, Harriet Landon Beach. He spent much of his childhood in Chicago where he studied theatre and classical piano. At the age of 21, he abandoned his family's tradition of manufacturing for a teaching position at the Hart Conway School of Acting in Chicago. There, faculty members C.H. Jacobsen, Colonel Thomas Hoyer Monstery and elocutionist Ida Simpson-Serven, disciples of François Delsarte, influenced him and inspired his growing interest in dance and movement.

After leaving the school, Wayburn spent many years in theater staging shows for producers Oscar Hammerstein I and his son William Hammerstein, and the theatrical booking agency Klaw and Erlanger. In 1906, he began his own management group called the Headline Vaudeville Production Company. Through his own firm he staged many feature acts, while collaborating with other producers such as Lew Fields, Florenz Ziegfeld and the Shuberts. In 1915, he began working with Ziegfeld and became the main choreographer of the Ziegfeld Follies.

Wayburn’s choreography was based on five techniques: musical comedy, tapping and stepping, acrobatic work, toe specialties, and exhibition ballroom. As a child, he was captivated by Minstrel shows and recreated them in many of his works. Formation symmetry was common in minstrel shows, as well as parade. Wayburn used Minstrel style costumes and makeup in his show Minstrel Misses (1903).