The dancing must not only be perfect, but also infused with the personality traits of each character. The show also raised the question for me: what is a triple threat? It requires tremendous skill to be in A Chorus Line.
They sound like we imagine our parents may have once when they were our age. Unlike Rent, however, that speaks so strongly about social issues, A Chorus Line doesn’t seem to have the same power as it used to simply because the characters don’t speak our language. Was I supposed to believe that this musical dramatized the plight and experience of young American performers in New York right now who are the same age as me? Or was I supposed to find it striking how difficult it must have been for young homosexual dancers to feel accepted in the early 1970s or for young women to strike out on their own without husbands or fathers to provide for them? Or was I supposed to make a connection between the experience of these young people and the young people I encounter in my daily life in the theatre? I think I can understand why this musical spoke so strongly to the public in 1975 because, like Rent in 1996, the show had young people speaking to their peers through music in their own language about their own experience. I found that the musical was significantly dated- and while I am not opposed to historical pieces being revived in the least- I found that director Bob Avian’s choice to not root the show in any specific time created a sort of unclear wishy-washiness. It is clear that this musical was written at a specific time and place about seventeen very specific people who were all products of the time in which they lived and grew up. It ran for 6,137 performances, until Ap(the longest-running production in Broadway history up to that time), won nine Tony Awards, and had a successful revival on October 5, 2006.
and Nicholas Dante, opened first at the Public Theatre and the run sold out immediately so it moved to the Schubert Theatre on Broadway July 25, 1975. A Chorus Line, directed and choreographed by Michael Bennett, with music by Marvin Hamlisch, lyrics by Edward Kleban and a book by James Kirkwood Jr. Michael Bennett was invited to join the group and quickly took over most of the proceedings and became instrumental in turning these workshops into a successful Broadway show. The musical was originally conceived by dancers Michon Peacock and Tony Stevens and took the form of several taped workshop sessions with Broadway dancers, including eight who eventually appeared in the original Broadway cast. The director, Zach, lines the seventeen of them up and gets them to give glimpses into their personalities and personal stories of their experiences and relationship to the stage through monologue and song. The show hinges on seventeen dancers who are competing for eight roles in the chorus of a Broadway show. There is one thing that I know for sure after seeing A Chorus Line, the American touring production that plays at the Cannon Theatre until November 30 th, 2008, it’s that I am damn glad that I never have to get through a Broadway dance call.
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