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Slaughter on Tenth Avenue is the name of a ballet by Richard Rodgers. It was choreographed by George Balanchine. It occurs near the end of Rodgers and Hart's 1936 Broadway musical comedy On Your Toes. Slaughter is the story of a hoofer who falls in love with a dance hall girl, who is then shot and killed by her jealous boyfriend. The hoofer then shoots the boyfriend.

The ballet is integrated into the plotline of the musical by the device of having two gangsters watching it from box seats in the theatre in which it is staged. They have orders to shoot the leading dancer (played by Ray Bolger in the original show). The dancer, who has been warned just in time, evades them by suddenly dancing at full speed even after the ballet actually ends, and finally two police officers enter and arrest the gangsters.

Slaughter on Tenth Avenue was danced by Ray Bolger and Tamara Geva in the original stage production of On Your Toes, and by Eddie Albert and Vera Zorina in the film version. In Words and Music, the 1948 Technicolor film biography of Rodgers and Hart, the ballet was danced by Gene Kelly and Vera-Ellen, with a somewhat revised storyline and new choreography by Kelly.

Slaughter on Tenth Avenue is also the title of a 1957 film noir starring Richard Egan, Jan Sterling and Dan Duryea. The story had nothing to do with the ballet, but Richard Rodgers's music for it was featured in the film.

Slaughter On 10th Ave. by Mick Ronson (May 26th, 1946 - April 29th, 1993)

The title track of the debut solo recording by Mick Ronson, lead guitarist of David Bowie's legendary band, The Spiders From Mars, according to pianist and fellow "Spider", Mike Garson sheet music that they both owned during their childhoods. Garson, a world-class pianist known throughout the Rock and Jazz worlds says that Ronson was quite a good pianist in his own right. "Slaughter..." was apparently a favorite throughout his life. Ronson continued to play the song live the rest of his career.

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