Talk about a singular sensation.
When A Chorus Line debuted in 1975, it broke all the rules for what a Broadway musical is supposed to be. There are no elaborate sets or scene changes; it all takes place on a bare rehearsal stage with one mirrored wall. Playing out in more or less real time, with no intermission, the storyline—you couldn't call it a plot, exactly—concerns a score of young dancers auditioning for the chorus of a Broadway show. Costumes? The kind of practice clothes every dancer has in his or her wardrobe. It also presents various gay and ethnically diverse characters in frankly sympathetic terms.
But everything that was supposed to be wrong with the show was evidently right on—it won nine Tonys, numerous Drama Desk and Obie Awards, and a Pulitzer Prize. It also ran on Broadway for 19 years.
Cabrillo Stage veteran Janie Scott was a young dancer in 1977 when she won a place in one of the first touring companies of A Chorus Line, cast by the show's original director and choreographer, the legendary Michael Bennett. And now she recaptures the stripped-down, no-frills, emotionally exposed vibe of the original show as director-choreographer of her own vivid production of A Chorus Line, the flagship event in the 2012 Cabrillo Stage summer musical season. (Read more)
(Photo: Jana Marcus)
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