“A Chorus Line” is one of the most popular Broadway musicals of all time, as well as one of the most distinctive. Yet Goodspeed Musicals, the theater company dedicated to the glories and legacy of American musical theater, has never done a production of this exhilarating exploration of the emotions of a group of dancers as they compete for jobs in the chorus line of a Broadway show.
For the 50th anniversary of the legendary musical’s Broadway premiere in the summer of 1975, that’s about to change.
The director of the new production, running at the Goodspeed Opera House from Sept. 5 through Oct. 26, is Rob Ruggiero, the frequent Goodspeed director who is also the producing artistic director of TheaterWorks Hartford. Ruggiero insists that this “A Chorus Line” is intended to mark the show’s anniversary and also pay tribute to its main creator, Michael Bennett. He’s not looking to reinterpret or recontextualize this classic work, which turns the tables on what most big Broadway musicals do by making the lives and stories of its vulnerable hopeful performers the main event.
“For people who have never seen ‘A Chorus Line,’ they will be seeing ‘A Chorus Line,’” Ruggiero said. “I’ve seen productions that have tried to update it or change it, and they usually don’t work,”
To some degree “A Chorus Line” defies reinterpretation, Ruggiero said. “The staging is built into the lyrics” with the dancer characters being instructed on where and how to move by the show-within-the-show’s director Zach and its dance captain Larry. “It also has to be set in the 1970s. There are too many references in the lyrics you’d have to change. It’s a fabulous, timeless score, but there are so many specific references to that time.”
A rehearsal of “A Chorus Line” at Goodspeed Musicals, with Travante S. Baker at far right as Larry the dance captain. (Diane Sobolewski)
When the Goodspeed initially announced plans to produce “A Chorus Line,” Ruggiero said he immediately asked if he could direct it. He understood that it wasn’t a common request. Going back to Bennett’s original production, the musical has generally been staged by directors who are also choreographers. Ruggiero was asking for those duties to be separate, while also suggesting that Bennett’s work be honored.
“I only wanted to do this if it was the original Michael Bennett staging and choreography,” he said. Goodspeed’s artist director Donna Lynn Hilton agreed. Ruggiero got the gig, with choreographic duties going to Parker Esse.
Not only have Ruggiero and Esse worked together before — for the Goodspeed Opera House productions of “Fiddler on the Roof” and “Rags,” as well as shows at another major regional theater that specializes in musicals, The Muny in St. Louis, Missouri — but Esse was a protégé of the dancer/director/choreographer Baayork Lee, who, after Bennett himself, is the artist most closely associated with “A Chorus Line” today. Lee was one of the dancers Bennett interviewed when he first developed the show. They had worked together on the Broadway musicals “A Joyful Noise,” “Henry, Sweet Henry” and “Promises, Promises.” She had made her Broadway debut at the age of 5 in “The King & I” in 1951, and also appeared in such noteworthy hits as Irving Berlin’s “Mr. President” and the Sammy Davis Jr.-starring “Golden Boy.”
The character of Connie Wong in “A Chorus Line” was largely based on Lee’s life and her experiences as a Broadway dancer, and Lee played Connie in the original Broadway production. Lee continued to work closely with Bennett until his death in 1987 at the age of 44. She then became the primary standard-bearer and keeper of the flame regarding “A Chorus Line. She directed or consulted on numerous productions of the show and co-wrote the book “On the Line: The Creation of ‘A Chorus Line’” with fellow original cast member Thommie Walsh and theater journalist (and former New Haven Register theater critic) Robert Viagas. Lee restaged Bennett and Bob Avian’s original choreography for “A Chorus Line” in its 2006 Broadway revival.
When Esse was unexpectedly called away from rehearsals last month at Goodspeed, the theater arranged for Lee to come to East Haddam, work with the cast and share her insights into “A Chorus Line.”
“The link is from Michael Bennett to Baayork Lee to us,” Ruggiero said. “She is the passionate keeper of the legacy. She came in with her associates. We got every piece of Michael Bennett’s staging, everything. It was a master class in ‘A Chorus Line.’”
The cast of “A Chorus Line” in rehearsal at Goodspeed Musicals. The show, at the Goodspeed Opera House, honors the 50th anniversary of this landmark musical. (Diane Sobolewski)
Ruggiero argued that dividing the directorial and choreographic duties helps him focus on elements of “A Chorus Line” that came from Bennett’s other collaborators. Bennett not only directed and co-choreographed (with Avian) the original production, he conceived the show and workshopped it by interviewing Broadway dancers he knew. James Kirkwood and Nicholas Dante wrote the musical’s book, Marvin Hamlisch composed the score and Edward Kleban did the lyrics. All those people won Tony Awards for their work on “A Chorus Line,” and the show also won for Best Musical.
In insisting on a reverent, historically accurate production of “A Chorus Line,” Goodspeed Musicals is acknowledging that there’s an element of “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” that figures in any attempt to do this half-century old classic. After all, the original Broadway production ran virtually unchanged — except for its cast, of course — from 1975 until it closed in 1990, maintaining its mid-1970s sensibility throughout the 1980s. The show toured internationally for decades.
“A Chorus Line” became the longest running show in Broadway history, a record that stood until 1997 when it was surpassed by “Cats.” With 1,637 performances, “A Chorus Line” currently ranks as the seventh-longest running Broadway musical of all time.
Ruggiero saw the original Broadway production of “A Chorus Line” when he was young. “I remember being up in the balcony, watching a musical that was like no other.” The trick to doing a production today, he feels, is “to honor the movement, the staging and the original intentions but make it live, not harnessed or a museum piece.”
Ruggiero has directed “A Chorus Line” only once before, for a small theater in 1987, when the musical had only been around for a dozen years. It feels very different from helming a 50th anniversary production for a major regional theater that has been wanting to do the show for years.
The theater was given permission to make a few changes by the organization which grants the rights to produce “A Chorus Line,” but the changes were minimal, said Ruggiero. It’s quite different from when he was charged with reworking the massive musical “Show Boat” for the Goodspeed in 2011 (an adaptation later produced in London) and overseeing a full-scale rewrite of “Rags” with its composer Stephen Schwartz for a major revival at the Goodspeed in 2017.
His main issue with “A Chorus Line,” he aid, was how to fit the show into the Goodspeed’s tight stage area. One way he created more space was to have the show’s 14-piece orchestra stationed elsewhere in the building “so we can use every inch of the stage that we can.”
While he is adamant about recreating the feel and style of Bennett’s staging, Ruggiero is not as strict about some of the show’s design elements. “The costumes are not replicas of the original production,” the director said, “though we’re keeping some because they are so iconic.”
“A Chorus Line” is a notoriously difficult show to cast. “You need a lot of triple threats,” Ruggiero said, as in performers who can sing and dance at a level where they’re convincing as auditioners for a big Broadway show. Acting-wise, the musical requires the cast to shift from heart-wrenching confessions to outrageous comedy.
The Goodspeed cast includes Karli Dinardo as Cassie (who sings “The Music and the Mirror”), Mikaela Secada as Diana, Clifton Samuels as the director Zach, Scarlett Walker as Sheila, Ryan Mulvaney as Bobby, Travante S. Baker as Larry, Beatrice Howell as Val (who sings the standout number “Dance Ten, Looks Three”), Patrick Higgins as Mark, Caroline Kane as Judy, Lisa Finegold as Bebe, Mario Rizzi as Mike, Emma X. O’Loughlin as Connie, Jonah Nash as Richie, Liesl Kelly as Maggie, Alex Drost as Al, Diego Guevera as Paul, Haley Bjorn as Kristine, Aaron Patrick Craven as Don and Sammy Schecter as Gregory, with Christian Feliciano, Abbey Friedmann and Erica Peréz-Gotay in the ensemble plus the swing performers Maggie Bergman and Matthew Quintero.
Baker, who plays Larry the dance captain in the show, said he is bringing his own experience as a dancer, dance captain and assistant choreographer to this production and noted that “Larry hasn’t always been played as a Black person, so I bring that to the role as well.” Larry stands apart from nearly all the other characters in “A Chorus Line” since he already has a job with the show that the others are auditioning for, and has a certain control over them. He is not as controlling, however, as the outspoken perfectionist director character Zach.
This is Baker’s first time performing at Goodspeed, or in Connecticut at all. He’s been in major national tours of “Hamilton” and “Wicked,” but not with the companies of those shows that have played The Bushnell or the Oakdale Theatre.
Baker played other roles in “A Chorus Line” when he was younger. “I grew up on this show, he said. “It’s one of the first musical movies I ever saw.” (The 1985 film version of “A Chorus Line,” directed by Richard Attenborough, deviated from the Broadway version in ways that displeased many fans but nevertheless has its defenders.)
He said he is awestruck by the direct line from Bennett’s foundational work on “A Chorus Line” to Lee to this production’s choreographer Esse. Baker added that his own career has found him doing the “Wicked” choreography by Wayne Cilento, who like Lee was an original cast member of “A Chorus Line.” Cilento originated the role of Mike, the optimistic young character who sings “I Can Do That.”
“This production is a legacy on top of a legacy on top of an anniversary,” Baker said. “It so layered. It’s so overwhelmingly enriching. This is a special time to be doing ‘A Chorus Line.’ It’s an honor to step into those shoes.”
“A Chorus Line” runs Sept. 5 through Oct. 26 at the Goodspeed Opera House, 6 Main St., East Haddam. Performances are Wednesdays at 2 and 7:30 p.m. (with no 7:30 p.m. performance on Oct. 29). Thursdays at 7:30 p.m., Fridays at 8 p.m., Saturdays at 3 and 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 and 6:30 p.m., with added Sunday matinees at 2 p.m. on Sept. 7, 14, 21, 28 and Oct. 5 and Thursday matinees at 2 p.m. on Oct. 9, 16 and 23. $35-$101. goodspeed.org.
