The curtain falls for Sam Viverito

Apr. 15—A stellar dancer. A choreographer who gets what he wants from a show. A man who cared for everyone like they were his best friend.

Those are some of the ways Sam Viverito's friends and colleagues described him, as the Niagara Falls native passed away at his home in Manhattan on March 30. He was 68 and had been suffering from thyroid cancer. Viverito's career on the stage saw him play a part in some of Broadway's most recognizable musicals while creating art he was very passionate about.

"My feeling was he did not get his due," said noted Broadway actress Joanna Glushak, one of Viverito's collaborators. "In this business, you have to sell yourself. That's not who he was. If he was, he would have been huge."

Viverito's dance journey started at age 11 when he started taking lessons from Beverly Fletcher Bellegia at Miss Bev's Dance Studio in Niagara Falls with his sister, Patti Cungin-Cook, starting before he did. Along with owner Beverly Pletcher's daughter, Robin Bishara, they were also part of Pletcher's touring dance company Am-Dance, doing tap and jazz dancing throughout the country.

"He always had a natural talent," Bishara said. "At the time, there were not a lot of males in dance. It was a bit of an advantage to be a strong male dancer at the time."

That was how Stephen Mancuso, then a teenage dancer from Buffalo, met Viverito when his own dance instructor told him to go watch a class of his.

"When I first met him, I thought, 'Wow, another Italian short guy like me,' " Mancuso said. "Then I watched him once. He was perfection."

Am-Dance was how Viverito met Tom Ralabate, who went on to become the professor emeritus of dance at the University at Buffalo. The two were dance partners for different works since they were the same size. The two would go on to UB for its dance program, which would eventually lead to Ralabate meeting the director of the school's Zodiaque Dance Company, the director of the program asking if he wanted to teach there in the future, and a 47-year career at the institution.

It was at UB that Michael Bennett, another Niagara Falls native and another of Miss Bev's proteges, had spotted Viverito and offered him the role of Mike in the first national tour of his musical, "A Chorus Line," to take place in 1976. After getting the role of Paul and serving as the dance captain, he became a member of the Broadway cast performing the roles of Paul and Doug.

The original Broadway run of "A Chorus Line" ran for 6,137 performances, then the longest-running production in Broadway history. Viverito himself would be one of nine Pauls featured at a 1983 gala celebrating the show's record-breaking 3,389th performance. He was also front and center in a show poster of the cast seen around the world.

After leaving "A Chorus Line," Viverito was a dancer for an Emmy Awards telecast where he was spotted by famed actress Rita Moreno and became part of her touring nightclub act for two years. Other celebrities he got to work with over the years include Liza Minnelli, Betty White, Bebe Neuwirth, Chita Rivera and Kate Mulgrew.

While part of a national tour for "Evita" in 1982, Viverito met set designer Michael Hotopp, who would go on to be his life partner and they eventually were married in February 2017. Hotopp died in 2020.

Glushak, the Broadway actress, also met Viverito while on that tour, with him eventually becoming her go-to person whenever she would do a show and could not figure out what the choreographer or directed wanted.

"I did a musical of the Brothers Karamazov, and I got him to become the choreographer because the man they hired didn't know anything about musical theater," Glushak said, who also appeared in Viverito's local productions of "Cabaret" at Artpark and Galileo at Studio Arena. "He knew what he wanted to do when he came to rehearsal. It was so much easier to do a show."

As a dancer, Viverito's movements were described so sharp that he had to stand out, yet he had so much personality. Ralabate said that he was so clear and concise with his movement, standing alongside him made all the other dancers better. It certainly pushed him to be a better dancer.

Another collaborator of his, Wendy Biller, first saw him dance at the University of Buffalo, saying it was unbelievable how sharp his movements were and her work was elevated with him performing it.

"It's very hard to find that," Biller said. "You see it and like 'Wow.' He really brought the work to a new level."

After that "Evita" tour ended, Viverito decided he was done being a dancer on the stage and went on the other side of the table, becoming a choreographer and director. He became regarded as the foremost authority of the original "A Chorus Line" staging as he directed regional productions, tours, and 25th anniversary productions. He also had a hand in national tours for "Man of La Mancha," "Spamalot" and "Gypsy."

"If I could go, I did," Cugnin-Cook said, seeing many of her brother's shows.

Some of the regional productions Viverito helped put on included "La Cage aux Folles" with Larry Kept and Harvey Evans, "Annie" with Sally Struthers, "Funny Girl," "42nd Street," "Guys and Dolls," "Sweet Charity," "Broadway Bound," the Shoji Tabuchi show in Branson, Missouri, and shows for the Council of Stock Theaters. Internationally, Viverito directed and choreographed productions in Canada, England, Australia, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, and the United Arab Emirates.

Mancuso would come across him again when he auditioned for "La Cage aux Folles." The first time he auditioned for Viverito was for the national tour of "A Chorus Line," which he did not end up making. This time, he wound up making the show.

Even though Ralabate stayed behind at UB, and he would never work with Viverito on stage again, he would receive calls when Sam doing a show and needed to do research about anything historic with dance. The last time Ralabate saw him in person was when Bev died in 2009 and he and came back to the area for the wake and funeral.

Back in New York, Viverito would direct and/or choreograph nearly a dozen Off-Broadway musicals, plays, and cabaret revues, including "An Intolerant Vaudeville" which he helped create with Biller.

"He was obsessed and determined to do a piece that had to do with prejudice," Biller said, which was inspired in part by trips to the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, with the performance done in a traditional vaudeville structure. "When I used him as a performer, he elevated the work to new levels."

Outside of theater, Viverito would also have a part in choreographing music videos shown on MTV, corporate productions for large companies like McDonald's, Pepsi, New York Life, IBM, and many car brands, and various television specials.

On the personal side, Viverito and Hotopp became known for their generosity toward other Broadway performers, always inviting people over for parties at their apartment in Manhattan or their house in Kingston. During the holiday season, they would host dinners so performers would have something to eat in between shows, Bishara describing them as a power couple in the community.

"He did so many things for so many people," Cugnin-Cook said. "He was generous with his time and friends. He looked out for everyone."

While Bishara would remain in contact on and off with Viverito, visiting each other when one or the other was in town, she would become a nurse to him when he received his cancer diagnosis. That came at a very tough time for him as Hotopp had died six months beforehand and issues with his Manhattan landlord ultimately forced him to sell his Kingston home, living in Manhattan full time.

"He faced his illness with such bravery, such determination," Bishara said. "He would still laugh and have a good time through all his struggles."

Now working as a hair and makeup person for advertising and television productions in Atlanta, Mancuso got back in contact with Viverito during the pandemic, when a series of Zoom calls started between Bev's old dance students. Those took place on Wednesday nights while they would have their own Zoom talks on Sundays.

"These last three years amazed me," Mancuso said, calling him his hero during that time. "He dealt with all this with such grace and laughter. He didn't want a thousand people calling saying how sorry they were. Normally, people would have called apart with just one of those things."

Biller wanted to work with Viverito for a piece she had planned as part of a residency. Despite dealing with cancer at the time, he was still so spirited through it all.

There was an email group going on with Viverito's friends across the country as he provided updates no matter how brutal they were, reassuring them all it was okay. He would also send funny pictures of himself in his gown and socks, which his friends responded to by sending him pairs of funny socks to be featured in more photos.

"We all thought he would kick it," Biller said, finding the connection all these people had with Viverito beautiful. "That's the kind of human being he was. Everyone is shocked he's gone. He had so many things he wanted to do. That's what's tragic about it."

In addition to Cugnin-Cook and her husband Jack, Sam is survived by his brother Michael, cousins, godchildren and legions of friends. He has requested that in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the Michael Hotopp Scholarship Fund at NYU.