A Chorus Line – 50 years old today
On 25th July 1975, exactly fifty years ago as I write this article A Chorus Line opened on Broadway. A two hour show on a bare stage with no interval and not too much in the way of a plot to speak of; Broadway had never seen its like before. The musical was conceived by Michael Bennett who had a few years earlier scored big successes in his choreography and co-direction of both Sondheim’s Company and Follies. The music was by Marvin Hamlisch, lyrics by Edward Kleban and a book by James Kirkwood and Nicholas Dante.
A Chorus Line had an Off-Broadway run before opening at the Shubert Theatre, where it ran for 6137 performances until April 1990. It held the record for the longest running Broadway production until Cats surpassed it later in the 90s. At the 1976 Tony Awards it won nine awards including Best Musical. The show toured extensively and was a huge international hit too first coming to London’s West End in 1976. The film version of A Chorus Line was released in 1985. It was directed by Richard Attenborough with Michael Douglas playing Zach and Alyson Reed as Cassie.
A Chorus Line deserves to be remembered as a very special Broadway show, a defining moment in the development of the musical form. The seventeen hopeful dancers who we see come through the initial selection cuts gradually become real living characters as Zach probes into the past, their present and what makes them special. We feel close to each one through their stories and the music is wonderful. Cassie, who has danced and portrayed starry roles in the past and has had a relationship with Zach is different but in the end like all the others she is just part of the line. Only four boys and four girls can make it though. The final One (reprise) where they become assimilated with the full company is moving. Each gradually loses their identity, their uniqueness as they become part of the ensemble, by the end we cannot tell them apart anymore.
Today, the 50th anniversary of the musical’s first night on Broadway I am listening to the original Broadway cast recording. You can do the same on YouTube quite easily. It was the summer that Jaws made such a splash at the movies. I prefer the lovely Priscilla Lopez in “What I did for Love”. Happy 50th anniversary to all those who have been part of the line.
Philip Harrison
