Michael "Wayne" Lamb (October 24, 1920 – June 5, 2001) was a Broadway dancer, choreographer, theatre director and professor of dance.

[2] He left college to tour with Earl Carroll's Vanities, playing five shows a day on the movie circuit for three months.

He spent the next three years in an Army uniform, chauffeuring officers and the occasional entertainer – such as Marlene Dietrich and Dinah Shore – around Europe.

[3] He served in France, Belgium, Holland, England and Germany as a staff sergeant, and earned the Bronze Star.

[1] After his discharge and the GI bill,[4] he went to New York City,[5] where he immediately enrolled at the former Alviene School for the Dramatic Arts,[6] where Fred Astaire studied.

[2] Jack Ragotzy recalls a story that Lamb told about choreographing a poem for Doris Humphrey: "After the piece was presented," he said, "she gave me the best advice of my life.

Writer/Director Joe Stockdale recalls Jack Ragotsy's first impression of Lamb in Call Me Mister in Chicago: "As a young dancer he had an animal grace that was electric in its force and energy.

"[7] He also worked with actress Vivian Blaine, writer Mel Brooks, director George S. Kaufman and comedian Imogene Coca.

[12][5] Wayne himself declared that he was the first one to wear a dance belt on television in an early version of The Burl Ives Show.

[5] He provided choreography for Annie Get Your Gun, The Boy Friend, Damn Yankees, Kiss Me Kate, West Side Story, My Fair Lady, Gypsy, The Me Nobody Knows, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Once Upon a Mattress, A Midsummer Night's Dream (twice), Bury the Dead and Guys and Dolls.

[citation needed] He provided direction and choreography for Irma la Douce, Oliver!, Marat/Sade, Leave It to Jane, The Owl and the Pussycat, Man of La Mancha, The Killing of Sister George, Light Up the Sky, A Flea in Her Ear, George M, The Amorous Flea, Fiddler on the Roof, Our Town, Tobacco Road, The Music Man and Carousel, all with musical direction by longtime theatre colleague Dorothy Runk Mennen.

[18] At the new Pao Hall for the Performing Arts on the Purdue University campus, the Wayne Lamb Lobby was dedicated soon after the center's opening.