![]() ![]() Their showbiz dreams haven’t thus far amounted to much, but director Zach, a taskmaster with what may or may not be a heart of gold, represents a slim window of hope. The characters are dancers at a Broadway audition, desperate for paying jobs and a chance to strut their stuff on the Great White Way. This space will soon be filled with beautiful bodies in motion. The show starts before the curtain rises, thanks to a mid-’70s Manhattan soundscape and George Benson’s version of “On Broadway.” The stage is bare, with what turn out to be seven periaktoi, rotating triangular prisms, comprising the upstage wall. It played for three performances before the COVID-19 pandemic forced it on ice. There are 26 people in the cast, and each needs to be a true triple threat yet somehow director and choreographer Eric Clausell managed to get this show beautifully right at Tacoma Little Theatre (TLT). So why don’t community theaters produce it more often? The answer’s simple: It’s bloody hard to get right. Not only was it a critical darling, it ran for 6,137 performances, the most till Cats finally surpassed it in 1997. Throw in eight Drama Desk awards, a special Theatre World Award and a Pulitzer Prize. It didn’t just win best musical, it won pretty much everything there was to win: best book, score, leading actress, featured actor and actress, direction, choreography (Bob Avian and director Michael Bennett), costumes, lighting. Worthy shows all, to be sure, but none landed with the impact of A Chorus Line in 1975. In the early 1970s, Tony Award winners for best musical included Applause, based on All About Eve Company and A Little Night Music by Sondheim Two Gentlemen of Verona Raisin (as in “in the Sun”) and The Wiz. A Chorus Line, interrupted for two years but now revived at TLT, is truly one singular sensation. ![]()
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