He can do that.

Wayne Cilento has a dream. Or, to be more precise, a Dream. The feisty, athletic dancer-choreographer, who shone in musicals such as A Chorus Line (his big number: "I Can Do That") and Dancin', is trying his hand at directing, as well as choreographing, a Broadway musical. The revue-style Dream, celebrating Johnny Mercer's lyrics, opens at the Royale Theater next month. For Cilento, now forty-five and a winner of the Tony, Drama Desk, and Astaire awards for his work on Tommy, the opportunity came in a roundabout way. While talking to producers Louise Westergaard and Mark Schwartz about choreographing Dream, he inquired who the director was. "They rather surprised me by asking if I'd like to take on the job," he says.

The idea for Dream had been kicking around for a couple of years, going nowhere before Cilento stepped in. Based on an idea drafted by Westergaard and Jack Wrangler, the musical retrospective and celebration of Mercer had been worked on by various choreographers, including tap veteran Henry LeTang. One by one they had dropped out.

When Cilento took over he immediately visualized a "big dance concert" with a bare stage that would be inhabited by the dream characters and situations of Mercer's songs. Of course, it didn't hurt that Mercer's collaborators had included Harold Arlen ("Blues in the Night"), Hoagy Carmichael ("Lazy Bones"), Harry Warren ("You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby"), and Jerome Kern ("I'm Old Fashioned"), not to mention Henry Mancini, Arthur Schwartz, Duke Ellington, and Billy Strayhorn--the music of all these composers is featured in the show. With underwriting help from the Tennessee Performing Arts Center in Nashville, Dream tried out at the Center's Tennessee Repertory Theatre last September. Essentially a series of numbers based on Mercer's telling lyrics, the show spans a period from the 1920s through the 1960s. "In addition to our stars, we needed a strong cast of singer-dancers," says Cilento. Headliners include Lesley Ann Warren, jazz guitarist John Pizzarelli, vocalist Margaret Whiting (a close friend of Mercer's and something of an icon when it comes to pitching a beloved pop standard), and Broadway dancer Scott Wise, a 1994 Astaire award winner who was recently featured in Damn Yankees and State Fair

Choreographing and directing for a widely varied cast took time and research, according to Cilento. "For example, when I knew that Lesley Ann Warren was to be one of the stars," he says, "I realized from viewing some of her movies that she's a very well-trained dancer with a quirky personality and lots of sex appeal. We introduce her with the number `Pardon My Southern Accent' in the Savannah section of the show and go on to the more sophisticated image of her as an older Hollywood star singing `Blues in the Night' when we get to `The Age of Decadence.'" He also exercised his skill as a talent spotter, signing Darcie Roberts, a twenty-three-year-old he describes as "an adult Shirley Temple," who he believes will make it big.

Asked if he had tried to develop a specific choreographic style, Cilento says that "when people see my work, they say, `That looks like Wayne's.' I try to stay on top of what's happening today contemporary trends, MTV. I went to Los Angeles and studied with the so-called video choreographers, and I've been lucky to take from many of the great theatrical choreographers, like Michael Bennett and Bob Fosse, who gave me a strong background. I never relied on any one particular teacher. I think that my choreography is sharp, aggressive, incorporating all that theatricality I learned. I didn't want to lose a contemporary edge, but Dream has brought out the Hollywood MGM musical side that I've never really used before, the style you see in old movie musicals, very strong ballet with jazz and a soft-shoe, stylized kind of tap--that's what this show calls for. It goes from the twenties through the thirties, forties, and fifties, and I guess because Mercer wrote for Hollywood, it led me to that kind of movie choreography.

"I bought a bunch of videos like Singin in in the Rain; all of the Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, Donald O'Connor films; and those with choreography by Michael Kidd, Hermes Pan, and Jack Cole--Cole because he choreographed for Marilyn Monroe, Jane Russell, and other big female stars. There's a section of the show, a segue into the Rainbow Room, with a Marge and Gower Champion kind of thing that typifies the romantic image I wanted."

For his "Carol Haney," Cilento picked Susan Misner, a tall, willowy blonde from A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum who moves elegantly in "Satin Doll." He says, "And at one point I do a little straw-hat tip to Fosse, which I'm sure everyone will recognize. I just hope they won't say, `He's robbing Bob.'"

There was one unavoidable hurdle to be cleared. "Waiting for a theater to come free was quite a cliffhanger," he continues, referring to the theater crunch that has left several musicals waiting in the wings for Broadway houses. "I've finished painting our house and run out of odd jobs." (Cilento lives in Mamaroneck, New York, with wife, Cathy, and sons Brian, Keith, and Doug.) Last fall he devoted some time to shooting a Mercedes industrial commercial in Las Vegas. "But mainly I focused on keeping the Dream cast hopeful and in shape. Perhaps if I'd just choreographed the show, I would have been tempted to float around. But as its director, it's my baby come rain or come shine," says Cilento, with a smile and a nod to his favorite--as of now--songwriter.

Hilary Ostlere is a senior editor of Dance Magazine.