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A Chorus Line

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For the 1985 movie of the same title, see A Chorus Line (film).
A Chorus Line
MusicMarvin Hamlisch
LyricsEdward Kleban
BookJames Kirkwood and Nicholas Dante

A Chorus Line is a Broadway musical that opened at the Shubert Theatre on July 25, 1975 and closed on April 28, 1990 after 6,137 performances. It held the distinction of being the longest running show on Broadway until it was surpassed by Cats in 1997 and The Phantom of the Opera in 2006. It currently holds the record for the second longest running American musical, after The Fantasticks and the fifth longest-running musical, after The Fantasticks, The Phantom of the Opera, Cats and Les Misérables (in that order).

The musical is based on several taped sessions with Broadway dancers, aka "gypsies," including eight of the actors/actresses of the original Broadway cast. The show was conceived, directed and choreographed by Michael Bennett, with music by Marvin Hamlisch and lyrics by Edward Kleban. The book was assembled by James Kirkwood, Jr. and Nicholas Dante. It had a successful Off-Broadway run at the Public Theater before opening on Broadway.

A Chorus Line also toured successfully, including a run at the Pantages Theatre in Hollywood. A production mounted at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane in London's West End won a Laurence Olivier Award as Best Musical of the Year 1976, the first year in which the awards were presented.

The first Broadway revival of A Chorus Line opened at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre on October 5, 2006.

With 19 main characters, the setting is a Broadway theater where young dancers audition for the part in the chorus line of a musical. The show gives a glimpse into the personalities of the performers and the choreographer as they describe the events that have shaped their lives and their decisions to become dancers. Highlights include the songs "One"," "Nothing," "Dance: Ten; Looks: Three," "The Music and the Mirror" and "What I Did For Love."

A Chorus Line received 12 nominations for the Tony Awards in 1975, winning nine: Best Musical, Best Actress (Donna McKechnie), Best Featured Actor (Sammy Williams), Best Featured Actress (Carole Bishop), Best Director (Michael Bennett), Best Musical Book (Dante and Kirkwood), Best Score (Hamlisch and Kleban), Best Lighting Design (Tharon Musser) and Best Choreography (Michael Bennett and Bob Avian). It also won the 1976 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, one of the few musicals ever to receive this honor, and the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best Play of the season.

Since its inception, the show's many worldwide productions, both professional and amateur, have been a major source of income for The Public Theater.

Synopsis

Template:Spoilers At an audition for an upcoming Broadway production, a director and a choreographer assistant put the gypsies through their paces. Every dancer is desperate for work, and in "I Hope I Get It" they try to do their best. After the first selection, 17 dancers remain: Al, Bobby, Bebe, Connie, Diana, Don, Greg, Judy, Kristine, Maggie, Mark, Mike, Paul, Richie, Sheila, Val and Cassie (the only dancer without a number). Zach, the director, tells them he is looking for a strong dancing chorus of four boys and four girls. He wants to learn more about them, so he tells them to introduce themselves.

With great reluctance they reveal their pasts. In order to get this job, they must put themselves on the line. While the show uses different characters to move through the audition, the overall pattern of stories progresses chronologically from early life experiences through adulthood to the end of a career.

The first candidate is Mike, who explains he is the youngest of twelve children. In "I Can Do That", Mike recalls his first experience with dance, watching his sister's dance class when he was a pre-schooler. Certain he could do it too, he took her place one day when she refused to go to class – and he stayed the rest of his life. As Bobby, who tries to hide the unhappiness of his childhood by making jokes, speaks, the 17 dancers have misgivings about this strange audition process and debate what they should reveal to Zach ("And..."), but since they all need the job, the session continues.

Zach starts to question the streetwise Sheila and becomes angry, since he thinks that she is not taking the audition seriously. She starts to open up and reveals that her mother married at a young age and her father neither loved nor cared for them. When she was six, she realized that ballet was a relief from her family life. Bebe adds that she likes ballet as she was not beautiful as a child and everything in ballet seems beautiful. Maggie admits another connection to the Ballet: she loves ballet because in the ballet someone is always there, unlike the father she has never had. They sing "At The Ballet," which is a poignant tribute to the escape Sheila, Bebe, and Maggie found in the beauty of ballet.

Kristine is up next, supported by her husband Al. The scatter-brained Kristine is tone-deaf, and her lament that she could never "Sing!" is perpetually interrupted by Al finishing her phrases. Zach moves on to Mark, the youngest of the dancers who is more than eager to be on Broadway. His story about his first experiences with pictures of the female anatomy and his first wet dream lead into "Hello Twelve, Hello Thirteen, Hello Love," a montage sequence in which all of the dancers share memories of adolescence. Gregory speaks about his discovery of his homosexuality, and Diana recollects her horrible high school acting class ("Nothing"). Don remembers his first job at a nightclub, Richie recounts how he nearly became a kindergarten teacher, Judy reflects on her problematic childhood, and the 4'10" tall Connie rants on the problems of being short.

"Dance: Ten; Looks: Three" follows, with the newly-buxom Val's explanation that talent doesn't count for everything with casting directors and silicone can really help.

The dancers go downstairs to learn a song for the next section of the audition, but Cassie stays onstage. She is a terrific veteran "gypsy" who has had some notable successes as a soloist. It emerges they have a history together; he cast her in a featured part in a former show and they had lived together for several years before breaking up. Zach tells Cassie that she is too good for the chorus and shouldn't be there at the audition - she should be out dancing solos. But she hasn't been able to find work and is attempting to "come home" to the chorus and start again. "The Music and the Mirror" tells of Cassie's passion for dance.

After Cassie's plea, Zach agrees to allow her to go downstairs and learn the combination with the rest of "the kids." Zach calls Paul back on stage and what follows is a monologue in which the emotionally vulnerable Paul comes to terms with his early career in a drag act, manhood, homosexuality and sense of self.

Cassie and Zach's complex relationship resurfaces in the first rendition of "One." Cassie, due to her talent, is standing out. When she starts "dancing down" Zach runs up on stage and confronts her, and the argument develops to delving into what went wrong in their relationship and her career. Zach points to the good-but-not-great dancing of the rest of the cast, the gypsies who will probably never get out of the line. Cassie replies, "I'll take chorus, if you'll take me!"

Suddenly, during a tap sequence, Paul, the best dancer in the group, falls injured and is carried off to the hospital: his career is over. Zach asks the remaining dancers what they will do when they can no longer dance. "What I Did For Love" expresses the emotional drive that keeps these dancers focused, ever hopeful and free of regrets. This number fades into the final elimination process as the final eight dancers are selected: Cassie, Bobby, Diana, Judy, Val, Mike, Mark and Richie.

"One" (reprise/finale) begins with an individual bow for each of the 19 characters, their hodgepodge rehearsal clothes replaced by identical spangled gold costumes. As each dancer joins the group, it is suddenly difficult to distinguish one from the other. Ironically, each character who was an individual to the audience is now an anonymous member of an ensemble. Template:Endspoiler

Musical numbers

  • "I Hope I Get It" (Company)
  • "I Can Do That" (Mike)
  • "And..." (Bobby, Richie, Val and Judy)
  • "At the Ballet" (Sheila, Bebe and Maggie)
  • "Sing!" (Kristine, Al and cast)
  • "Montage Part 1: Hello Twelve, Hello Thirteen, Hello Love" (Company)
  • "Montage Part 2: Nothing" (Diana)
  • "Montage Part 3: Mother" (Company)
  • "Montage Part 4: Gimme The Ball" (Company)
  • "Dance: Ten; Looks: Three (Tits and Ass)" (Val)
  • "The Music and the Mirror" (Cassie)
  • "One" (Cast)
  • "The Tap Combination" (Company)
  • "What I Did for Love" (Diana and Company)
  • "One" (Reprise) (Company)

1985 film

See A Chorus Line (film)

2006 revival

The first Broadway revival of the show opened at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theater on October 4, after a San Francisco run which ran from July 23 to September 2. The show was directed by the show's original co-choreographer, Bob Avian, with the choreography reconstructed by the show's original Connie Wong, Baayork Lee. The opening night cast included Ken Alan as Bobby, Brad Anderson as Don, Michael Berresse as Zach, Natalie Cortez as Diana, Charlotte d'Amboise as Cassie, Mara Davi as Maggie, Jessica Lee Goldyn as Val, Deidre Goodwin as Sheila, Tyler Hanes as Larry, James T. Lane as Richie, Paul McGill as Mark, Heather Parcells as Judy, Michael Paternostro as Greg, Alisan Porter as Bebe, Jeffrey Schecter as Mike, Yuka Takara as Connie, Jason Tam as Paul, Chryssie Whitehead as Kristine, and Tony Yazbeck as Al.

A CHORUS LINE in other media

  • In an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond, Debra becomes upset at Ray for suggesting that she and Ray's brother's girlfriend are competing for his mother's favor. She pretends she is in a show and twirls an imaginary baton while singing "One".
  • In the recent fantasy novel, Changeling, the main characters Neef and Changeling travel to Between Broadway, looking for tickets to Peter Pan, and they bump into the original cast of A Chorus Line (the final 8), who become very helpful in their quest.
  • In an episode of Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, Salem is doing karate moves, when Sabrina says, "Let me guess, they're doing A Chorus Line, and you're Cassie."
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