Dogs on Broadway

Sandy was not the first dog on a New York stage. Even Bill Berloni concedes that. He trained Sandy for “Annie” back in 1977, and, this season, Tana June for “Gypsy” (along with her understudy Indy) and both Honey and Charlie for “Left on Tenth.” There have been dozens of dogs on Broadway In the half century in-between, some of whom are pictured below.  

But show dogs in New York go way back, as I learned on a visit to “Pets and the City,” an exhibition that explores New Yorkers and their animal companions over the last two and a half centuries, which is being presented at the New-York Historical Society through April 20.  

Bill Berloni at 20 with the first Sandy; Audra McDonald with Tana June as Chowsie; Peter Gallagher and Julianna Margulies with Charlie as Charlotte

There have been show dogs since the first Westminster Kennel Club Show in 1877, which is the second-oldest continuously held sporting event in the country after the Kentucky Derby. “Considered the Oscars for dogs, it is held annual in the New York metropolitan area.”

Why the Oscars? Why not the Tonys?

Photographer William Wegman would agree, judging from his photograph from 2002 in the exhibition starring Batty, “outfitted in the guise of an iconic Broadway usher.” Wegman has made a career out of theatrical depictions of his dogs; Batty, we’re told, is an offspring of his second dog, Fay Ray, the successor to this original Weimaraner, Man Ray.

More than a century earlier, Napoleon Sarony, who was known for his photographic portraits of theater people, took this playful picture of actor Alf Fisher with a pug.

We don’t know if they were in a show together. But we do know that, yes, there were dogs on stage long before “Annie.” As Berloni himself has explained: “Until then, animals in live theater had only really been used as props. Since 1977, I’ve been training animals to be characters. I think the profession of turning dogs into actors is one I created.” Below are some of the dogs he trained after rescuing from shelters — Clockwise from upper left: Trixie, a Pomeranian in Bullets Over Broadway: first Chico as Bruiser and then Chloe as Rufus in Legally Blond the Musical; Sarah Jessica Parker in Annie: and one of the 21 puppies, mostly golden retrievers, under the care of animal trainer, Lydia  DesRoche, in “A Curious Incident of The Dog In The Night-Time.”

“Gypsy” is not Audra McDonald’s first time with a canine co-star as she explains in a brief view on CBS Sunday Morning.

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