Diana Baffa-Brill obit

Diana Baffa-Brill Dies: Broadway Choreographer, Dancer And Keeper Of The ‘Mame’ Flame Was 81

 

She was not on the list.

Diana Baffa-Brill, a dancer and choreographer who assisted the legendary Mame choreographer Onna White and later re-staged scores of productions of that classic musical, died in Los Angeles on Sunday, October 13, following a long illness. She was 81.

Her death was announced by her family.

With television appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show as part of the Bob DeVoy Trio and on The Jackie Gleason Show as a June Taylor Dancer, Baffa-Brill made her Broadway debut at 18 in 1961 (as Diana Baffa) in 13 Daughters, returning to Broadway in Do I Hear a Waltz? and La Grosse Valise (both 1965).

The following year would bring her longest-lasting association, when in 1966 she became both a performer and the dance captain in Broadway’s Mame starring Angela Lansbury, choreographed by White.

Seventeen years later, in 1983, she would return to Broadway with Lansbury in a Mame revival, this time serving to recreate White’s original choreography. It was a role she would assume for numerous Mame productions and tours. (Lansbury died in 2022.)

Born July 23, 1943 and raised in Long Island, New York, Baffa-Brill, in addition to her Broadway career, taught dance classes, and directed and choreographed productions all over the world, including Israel, Hungary and Argentina.

In addition to Mame, Baffa-Brill directed or choreographed other musicals around the country such as Hello, Dolly!, Funny Girl, The Music Man, Damn Yankees, Singin’ In The Rain, Irma La Douce, Dames At Sea and Little Shop of Horrors, to name a few. She and friends operated an Equity Theatre outside of Philadelphia called Places Please and she was a founder of the Main Street Theatre & Dance Alliance in New York City.

She is survived by son Gregory Brill, daughter Theorna Seraphine, and siblings Jacqueline Jones and Bill Brill.