While Lincoln Center Plaza is home to the real American Ballet Theatre, it will now also be home to a fictional ballet company in the upcoming ballet drama series “Étoile.”
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The Metropolitan Opera House building served as the backdrop for a hot, busy day of filming on Monday. Additional scenes are expected to be shot somewhere in Manhattan on Tuesday, according to a Backstage casting call, and the cast and crew are scheduled to film on 74th and Amsterdam Avenue on Wednesday, according to @OLV.
Étoile is directed by multiple Emmy-award-winning husband and wife team Daniel Palladino and Amy Sherman-Palladino. The duo’s producing and writing credits include “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” Gilmore Girls, and the ballet series Bunheads.
It’s no surprise that ballet is such a riveting subject matter for Sherman-Palladino, a classically trained ballet dancer herself. The eight-episode original series has a two-season order from Amazon Prime, but no scheduled release date as of yet.
According to IMDB, the story is set in both New York City and Paris and revolves around “the dancers and artistic staff of two world-renowned ballet companies [who] embark on an ambitious gambit to save their storied institutions by swapping their most talented stars.” “Étoile” is French for star, and in ballet, a danseur étoile (male) or danseuse étoile (female), is a “star dancer” within the company.
The Monday production appeared to be filming early scenes of the series when the institutions decided to trade their most prolific dancers. The set was designed to mimic a press conference where a panel addressed a small crowd, flanked by American and French flags.
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American-Canadian actor Luke Kirby will star in the series, who many will recognize as Lenny Bruce from “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.” Other notable cast members include British-French actress Charlotte Gainsbourg (Nymphomaniac, Melancholia), who will play the head of a Parisian ballet company; Simon Callow (“Outlander,” Four Weddings and a Funeral); Gideon Glick (Maestro, White Noise); and Yanic Truesdale (“Gilmore Girls,” “The Fixer”).
Left: Luke Kirby c/o David Shankbone. Right: Charlotte Gainsbourg c/o Harald Krichel
In a press release announcing the series, Jennifer Salke, head of Amazon and MGM Studios, said “We’re incredibly excited for Étoile, as we have no doubt Amy, Dan, and their team will continue to produce incredible and impactful event television that we can’t wait to share with our global Prime audiences.”
