A Chorus Line
- This article is about the stage production. For the 1985 film adaptation, see A Chorus Line.
| A Chorus Line | |
|---|---|
 Original Broadway Windowcard | |
| Music | Marvin Hamlisch |
| Lyrics | Edward Kleban |
| Book | James Kirkwood Nicholas Dante |
| Productions | 1975 Off-Broadway 1975 Broadway 1976 West End 1977 Sydney 2006 San Francisco 2006 Broadway Revival 2007 Belgrade |
| Awards | Tony Award for Best Musical Tony Award for Best Book Tony Award for Best Score 1976 Pulitzer Prize for Drama Olivier Award for Best Musical |
 | This article needs additional citations for verification. (January 2008) |
A Chorus Line is a musical with a book by James Kirkwood, Jr. and Nicholas Dante, lyrics by Edward Kleban, and music by Marvin Hamlisch.
The original Broadway production was an unprecedented box office and critical hit, receiving 12 Tony Award nominations and winning nine of them, in addition to the 1976 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. It ran for 6,137 performances, becoming the longest-running production in Broadway history up to that time. The show has enjoyed many successful productions worldwide and was revived on Broadway in 2006.
Background and productions
The musical was derived from several taped workshop sessions with Broadway dancers, known as "gypsies," including eight who eventually appeared in the original cast. With nineteen main characters, it is set on the bare stage of a Broadway theatre during an audition for chorus line members 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. During the workshop sessions, random characters would be chosen at the end for the chorus jobs, resulting in genuine surprise among the cast. Subsequent productions, however, have the same set of characters winning the slots.[1]
A Chorus Line opened off-Broadway at The Public Theater on May 21 1975. Advance word had created such a demand for tickets that the entire run sold out immediately. Producer Joseph Papp decided to move the production uptown, and on July 25 it opened at the Shubert Theatre, where it ran for 6,137 performances. It held the distinction of being the longest running show in Broadway history until its record was surpassed by Les Miserables followed by Cats on June 19, 1997 and then The Phantom of the Opera in 2006.
The show was directed and co-choreographed (with Bob Avian) by Michael Bennett. The original cast starred Scott Allen, Kelly Bishop, Robert Lupone, Wayne Cilento, Ronald Dennis, Baayork Lee, Priscilla Lopez, Donna McKechnie, Thommie Walsh, Nancy Lane, Kay Cole, Ron Kuhlman, Rick Mason, Don Percassi, Renee Baughman, Pamela Blair, Sammy Williams, Clive Clerk, and Trish Garland.
A Chorus Line received 12 Tony Award nominations, winning nine: Best Musical, Best Actress (McKechnie), Best Featured Actor (Sammy Williams), Best Featured Actress (Bishop), Best Director, Best Musical Book, Best Score (Hamlisch and Kleban), Best Lighting Design, and Best Choreography. 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. The show 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 the Laurence Olivier Award as Best Musical of the Year 1976, the first year in which the awards were presented. An unsuccessful film adaptation was released in 1985.
In 1990, original cast members Baayork Lee and Thommie Walsh collaborated with Robert Viagas on the book On the Line: The Creation of A Chorus Line, which chronicles the musical's origins and evolution and includes interviews with the entire original cast. Among other things, the book revealed that the project actually had been conceived by dancers Michon Peacock and Tony Stevens, who had organized the first taped all-night session at the Nickolaus Exercise Center on January 26 1974 in the hope it would result in the formation of a professional dance company designed to develop workshops specifically for Broadway ensemble players. Bennett was invited to join the group primarily as an observer, but quickly took control of the proceedings. In later years, his claim that A Chorus Line had been his brainchild, his dismissal of many of the major contributions made by the participants (particularly Nicholas Dante) in the sessions from which it evolved, and his exclusion of Peacock and Stevens from the early workshops, resulted in not only hard feelings but a number of lawsuits as well.
The Broadway revival opened at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theater on October 5 2006 following a run in San Francisco. The production was directed by Bob Avian, with the choreography reconstructed by the show's original Connie Wong, Baayork Lee. The opening night cast included Brad Anderson, Michael Berresse, Natalie Cortez, Charlotte d'Amboise, Mara Davi, Heather Parcells, Alisan Porter, and Chryssie Whitehead. The production received two Tony Award nominations, but no wins.
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
At an audition for an upcoming Broadway production, director Zach and his assistant choreographer Larry put the gypsies through their paces. Every dancer is desperate for work ("I Hope I Get It"). After the first selection, 17 dancers remain. Zach 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 reluctance, they reveal their pasts. The stories generally progress chronologically from early life experiences through adulthood to the end of a career.
The first candidate, Mike, explains that he is the youngest of 12 children. He recalls his first experience with dance, watching his sister's dance class when he was a pre-schooler ("I Can Do That"). Mike took her place one day when she refused to go to class – and he stayed. Bobby tries to hide the unhappiness of his childhood by making jokes. As he 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 is angered when he feels that the streetwise Sheila is not taking the audition seriously. Opening up, she 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, as she was not a beautiful child, she was also drawn to ballet, where she could feel beautiful. At the ballet, notes Maggie, someone is always there, unlike the father she has never had ("At the Ballet").
The scatter-brained Kristine is tone-deaf, and her lament that she could never "Sing!" is interrupted by her husband Al finishing her phrases. Mark, the youngest of the dancers relates his first experiences with pictures of the female anatomy and his first wet dream, and the other dancers share memories of adolescence ("Hello Twelve, Hello Thirteen, Hello Love"). 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. Finally, the newly-buxom Val explains that talent doesn't count for everything with casting directors, and silicone can really help ("Dance: Ten; Looks: Three").
The dancers go downstairs to learn a song for the next section of the audition, but Cassie stays onstage to talk to Zach. She is a veteran gypsy who has had some notable successes as a soloist. They have a history together: Zach had cast her in a featured part previously, and they had lived together for several years. Zach tells Cassie that she is too good for the chorus and shouldn't be at this audition. But she hasn't been able to find solo work and is willing to "come home" to the chorus where she can at least express her passion for dance ("The Music and the Mirror"). Zach sends her downstairs to learn the dance combination.
Zach calls Paul on stage, and he emotionally relives his early career in a drag act, coming to terms with his manhood, homosexuality and sense of self. Cassie and Zach's complex relationship resurfaces ("One"). Zach confronts her, feeling that she is "dancing down," and they rehash 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!" During a tap sequence, Paul 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. Whatever happens, they reply, they will be free of regret ("What I Did For Love"). 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.[2]
Musical numbers
- "I Hope I Get It" (Zach, Paul and Company)
- "I Can Do That" (Mike)
- "And..." (Bobby, Richie, Val and Judy)
- "At the Ballet" (Sheila, Bebe and Maggie)
- "Sing!" (Kristine, Al and Company)
- "Montage Part 1: Hello Twelve, Hello Thirteen, Hello Love" (Mark, Connie and Company)
- "Montage Part 2: Nothing" (Diana)
- "Montage Part 3: Mother" (Don, Judy and Company)
- "Montage Part 4: Gimme The Ball" (Greg, Richie and Company)
- "Dance: Ten; Looks: Three " (Val)
- "The Music and the Mirror" (Cassie)
- "One" (Company)
- "The Tap Combination" (Company)
- "What I Did for Love" (Diana and Company)
- "One" (Reprise) (Company)
A Chorus Line in other media
- In Lea Salonga's live performance The Broadway Concert, the Filipina Tony Award winner prefaces "Nothing" with: "To all those who said I couldn't make it; to all those who said I'd never get this far; and to all those who said I was better-off not trying, this one's for you!"
- In the episode "Fireworks" of 30 Rock, Jack asks Kenneth to seduce Will Arnett's character, giving him two tickets to the musical. Later on, Jack asks Kenneth how it went the night before; Kenneth replies, "Well, the curtain opens with a bunch of people standing in a line in ‘70's-type leotards.…" (Jack interrupted him).
- 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 Scrubs episode "My Malpractical Decision", JD pictures malpractice lawyer Neena Broderick dancing down the hallway of the hospital while kicking all the male workers to the tune of the song "One."
- In the Family Guy episode One If by Clam, Two If by Sea, Peter plays "What I Did For Love" on drinking glasses.
- In the episode Road to Rhode Island, Stewie sneaks a carry-on luggage full of weapons through an airport scanner by distracting the guards with a song-and-dance number; his closing comment, "Let's hope Osama bin Laden doesn't know show tunes," is immediately realized on-screen using "I Hope I Get It." This scene was pulled from circulation following the September 11, 2001 attacks.
- In the Full House episode Our Very First Telathon, Danny and Rebecca sing "What I Did For Love."
- In the episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air where Vivian wants to be a dancer, one of the women says that she was in A Chorus Line
- In The Simpsons episode Treehouse of Horror V, the Simpson family, turned inside-out by a mysterious fog, sings to the tune of "One."
- In the Malcolm In The Middle episode "Mini-Bike", Lois' store co-worker Craig is in the bathroom singing to himself "I Hope I Get It" in the hopes of being asked out on a date by her.
- 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."
- In a season one episode of the sitcom Seinfeld entitled "The Robbery," Elaine's waitress-actress roommate is in a dinner-theatre production of A Chorus Line. Elaine makes reference to her by signing a line of "I Hope I Get It", wryly commenting that if she has to hear her rehearse one more time "she's gonna get it right in her..."
- In Shrek the Third, before the big finale, Prince Charming and his gang of villains are dancing to the opening piano chords of "One," complete with Charming in pink legwarmers.
- In An Evening With Diana Ross, her 1977 one-woman Broadway show, Diana Ross covered "Dance: Ten. Looks: Three", poking fun at her lack of curves. The same show was televised on NBC in 1977 as "The Big Event: An Evening With Diana Ross" and the soundtrack was released as "An Evening with Diana Ross" on cassette and LP (1977) and CD (1993).
- In Season 4 of Will & Grace Jack tries to cheer Grace up by singing songs with the word "one" by doing a rendition of One.
- In the Ally McBeal episode "What I'll Never Do for Love Again", Elaine Vassel played by Jane Krakowski sings "The Music and the Mirror" in an audition for A Chorus Line theatre production.
- In The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, Carmen and her mother sing a bit of "Nothing" as they make dinner together.
- In American Dreamz, a character is singing "One" while in the terrorist camp.
- On the television show Eight Is Enough from November 1978, Tom and Abby unknowingly attempt to buy each other tickets to a tour of A Chorus Line. Later, when they miss the show, the kids sing and dance to "One" to make up for it.
Documentary in preparation
Backstage.com reported that James D. Stern and Adam Del Deo are in post-production of a documentary about the musical called Every Little Step: The Journey of A Chorus Line, which will include footage of Michael Bennett and interviews with Hamlisch, Avian, former New York Times theater critic Frank Rich and original cast member Donna McKechnie. The film will show behind-the-scenes footage of the audition, rehearsals and performances of the original and the 2006 Broadway productions. Production of the documentary began in 2005 with the filming of the auditions of 1,700 hopefuls for the revival. The film is expected to debut at the Toronto International Film Festival or the Sundance Film Festival.[3]
References
- ^ "Michael Bennett's A Chorus Line".
- ^ Synopsis adapted from "Michael Bennett's A Chorus Line".
- ^ Backstage article on the documentary
On the Line: The Creation of A Chorus Line by Robert Viagas, Baayork Lee, and Thommie Walsh, published by William Morrow (1990) ISBN 0-688-08429-X