The Muny gives a fresh interpretation to ground-breaking ‘Chorus Line’
When “A Chorus Line” opened in 1975, it revolutionized musical theater with its origins (a rap session), its heroes and heroines (the “gypsies” who dance in Broadway ensembles) and its bare-bones, uncompromising visual and emotional style.
At the time it closed 15 years later, with nine Tony awards and a Pulitzer Prize in drama to its credit, it was the longest-running show in Broadway history.
But in the interval, the world it depicted was ravaged by plague, by an illness that nobody had even heard of in 1975. AIDS would claim many of the artists involved with “A Chorus Line,” including the original director and choreographer, Michael Bennett. And it would turn all of them into mourners, during the years when dancers seemed to go to friends’ funerals almost as often as they went to class.
