An Apple (Tree) for the teacher: Blankenbuehler gets his break.

When Andy Blankenbuehler decided to pursue a choreography career on Broadway six years ago, he knew it would be tough. He saw two pathways: He could leave New York, where he'd worked steadily for seven years as a show dancer, and get jobs choreographing in regional theater, or he could stay and work his way up the ladder while supporting himself as a teacher.

Then 30, he decided to stay. "Choreographing for Broadway is a very different business from choreographing anywhere else," he says. "You may struggle a little longer to get established in New York. But once you are, the improvement rate is drastic. I knew my learning curve would be 10 times quicker if I stayed here than if I worked out of town rehearsing shows for two weeks. Being with the big boys in the Broadway community is very stressful, but very necessary."

The stress has paid off for him with The Apple Tree, the Roundabout Theater's new production of the 1966 musical by Jerry Book and Sheldon Harnick. Originally meant to showcase the adorableness of Barbara Harris, and now revived to do the same for Kristin Chenoweth, it's an anthology of three one-act musicals based on short stories by Mark Twain ("The Diary of Adam and Eve"), Frank R. Stockton ("The Lady or the Tiger?") and Jules Feiffer ("Passionella"). The running theme is love, and the roots of the show are evident in the pithy storytelling.

"The main thing in this show is not to over-choreograph it," Blankenbuehler says. "This isn't one of those shows where the dance illustrates the lyrics. There are no dance breaks. It's a streamlined machine, and the challenge is making the choreography blend into it."

Dance that blends in is not often high on the wish list of choreographers making their Broadway debuts. But Blankenbuehler has a different take. The Apple Tree began as one of those quick, learn-on-the-job gigs he was getting as he circled toward Broadway. It was revived for the invaluable "Encores" series, which presents three unduly neglected musicals in semi-staged form at City Center each year. When the Roundabout decided to give the production a full Broadway run, Blankenbuehler went along for the ride.

"Oftentimes choreographers get their first Broadway show because all the A-list people have passed on it," he says. "They get saddled with a piece that's a no-win situation. So it's good to be associated with a very, very solid show for my first time. Also, to have a career as a Broadway choreographer, I need to be known as somebody who can tell a story. And this show is not about fluff or extraneous movement. Producers and directors will say, 'I can trust him with my story.'"

There's yet another advantage to making his Broadway debut with The Apple Tree, he says: He's working with seasoned pros. "At this point, I don't want to be the smartest person in the room. I want to be in the room with people who are gonna push me to grow."

Determined and, by his own admission, impatient, Blankenbuehler has clearly thought through his career path. He began teaching when he was 22, and has always loved it, he says. But now he uses the professional classes he gives at Broadway Dance Center as a tool for refining his choreographic ideas. "Teaching has gotten my name out to people. I can send out my reel and my resume. But if a producer hears from people in the trenches, 'He runs a really efficient room,' that's even better. And I unapologetically go in to class and teach dancers my choreography and the theory that goes into my choices, and that helps them in their performance."

It also, he says, forces him to prove himself. "I'm the first person to know when my work is bull," he says. "Teaching gives me the opportunity to analyze my own work."

Also to that end, three years ago, Blankenbuehler took the step of renting himself a studio. "Mia Michaels can walk into a room and choreograph right on the dancers. I can't do that--I have to spend hours on preproduction. I need to have something choreographed when I walk into rehearsal. Sometimes I've gone several days working out one phrase."

He recoups some of the cost--$1,800 a month--by renting the studio out to friends. But he sees the financial sacrifice as well worth it. "In the past three years," he says, "my choreography has improved vastly. And I'm not dancing at home in front of the living room mirror."

Some of the career choices he has made--like staying in New York, and renting a studio--have been strictly about advancing in the field. Others, like the teaching tours he does with New York City Dance Alliance, have been about his refusal to settle for the poverty that most dancers accept as an inescapable fact of life. "Having grown up in Cincinnati," he says, "I decided that as an adult I didn't want to share an apartment with three other dancers. I wanted a lifestyle that was agreeable to me. So from the time I was 20, I was moonlighting so I could have a really great place."

It helped that his first job after quitring the Southern Methodist University dance program--"I liked school, hut it wasn't my path," he says--was dancing with Disney in Florida and Japan. "That gave me a head start financially," he says. He bought his first apartment at 26, and laughs that the one he now shares with his wife has him "married to a mortgage."

Artistically, though, he's married to nothing. "My calling card is that I'm versatile," he says. "I just want to do good work." He danced in Fosse and loved the style, but Jerome Robbins is his idol. "All his shows are vastly different," he says. He mentions that he has friends whose distinctive choreography he finds extraordinary. "But they can only do maybe a handful of shows. I don't have a god complex. I want a career."

Sylviane Gold has written on theater for Newsday and The New York Times.