Gregg Burge

Gregg Burge (November 14, 1957 – July 4, 1998) was an American tap dancer, choreographer, actor, and singer born in New York City and raised on Long Island. His path toward a performance career began at age seven, when watching Sammy Davis Jr. on the Ed Sullivan Show prompted him to ask his parents to enroll him in tap classes at the Red Slipper Dance Studio in Merrick, New York. By age ten he was winning local talent competitions and earned three victories on The Ted Mack Amateur Hour on television. By thirteen, Burge was generating $30,000 a year from his work and also appeared in the Off-Broadway musical Bojangles, where he performed alongside tap veterans including Chuck Green, Rhythm Red, and Mabel Lee, who introduced him to the practice of improvisation rather than rote execution of steps.

Burge graduated from New York's Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Performing Arts in 1975, the same year his Broadway career began, and subsequently won a scholarship to the Juilliard School. His formal training encompassed both ballet and tap, developed through the High School of the Performing Arts and Juilliard. Early in his career he also worked as a regular cast member on the television series The Electric Company.

His Broadway work spanned from 1975 to 1996 and included several notable productions. He played the Scarecrow in The Wiz for four years and appeared in the long-running Sophisticated Ladies. Burge performed the role of Richie in the 1985 film version of A Chorus Line, on which he also served as assistant to choreographer Jeffrey Hornaday, and he reprised that role on Broadway. His performance in Song and Dance earned him a Fred Astaire Award, as did his work in Oh, Kay!, making him a two-time recipient of that honor. The Oh, Kay! production also brought him a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actor in a Musical in 1991. He received a Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Musical in 1986, and the external record indicates he received two Drama Desk nominations in total. Additional Broadway credits include Angela Lansbury – A Celebration.

Beyond the stage, Burge contributed to music video choreography, co-choreographing Michael Jackson's "Bad" video with Jeffrey Daniel and working on a video for the reggae band Steel Pulse. He also operated a dance studio on Long Island. Burge died of a brain tumor in Atlanta on July 4, 1998, at the age of forty.