Two Little Girls in Blue Donahue, Jack performer Fairbanks Twins performer Fairbanks, Madeleine performer Fairbanks, Marion performer Theatrical Performance 1921-05-03 George M. Cohan Theater Produced by A.L. Erlanger at the George M. Cohan Theatre in New York, music by Ira Gershwin (his first show) stage direction by Ned Wayburn, features the Fairbanks Twins (Madeleine and Marion) doing the ultimate tandem dance in mirroring and shadowing each other (in mirror work dancers reflect each other's movement as if each were looking into an imaginary mirror; in shadow work dancers stand in front of one another while executing identical movements simultaneously). Wayburn included both real and illusionary numbers, devising a traditional mirror, a real mirror act (performed by one of the twins with a genuine reflecting glass while the other twin was offstage), and finally, a dance for both sisters performed in a room filled with mirrors. The number had tap work in it so that, in addition to reflecting each other's movements, the dancers had to achieve absolute precision in the timing of their steps. Wayburn devised shadow numbers as well for the male Towson Twins, who played the ship's stewards. He also choreographed short specialty numbers in the show for Evelyn Law, Vanda Hoff, and the tap dancer Jack Donahue. Solo specialty dances were acts that Wayburn most frequently inserted into shows and were the easiest to interpolate; most were standard routines performed in the "eccentric" mode of one of Wayburn's codified techniques (musical comedy, tap and stepping, acrobatics, and modern Americanized ballet). Performing Arts Encyclopedia http://www.loc.gov/performingarts Stratyner, Barbara: Ned Wayburn and the Dance Routine: From Vaudeville to the Ziegfeld Follies. Studies in Dance History, no. 13 (1996). Tap Dance America http://lcweb2.loc.gov/diglib/ihas/html/tda/tda-home.html Jack Donahue (biography) loc.music.tdabio.74 tda IHAS 151216 loc.music.tda.1535