A Chorus Line (Broadway Across America Portland)

[July 23rd, 2008] If you think regular job hunting is stressful, try showing up at a 300-person interview each week wearing a leotard. A Chorus Line, a musical about the employment woes of Broadway dancers, began in the early ’70s with tape-recordings of real dancers describing their lives, culled by choreographer Michael Bennett and composer Marvin Hamlisch. Ironically, their finished product gave generations of dancers steady work; the show ran on Broadway from 1975 to 1990 and closed after a whopping 6,137 performances. Its 2005 revival led to a touring production, which arrives in Portland this week.

Which got us to wondering: What makes this show resonate with the non-performing public? Is it the increasingly relevant themes of job instability and living on the edge, or the infectiously funny and bittersweet songs that address said themes? We asked cast members Denis Lambert (Gregory), Hollie Howard (Maggie), John Carroll (Larry) and Colt Prattes (Alan) to take us behind the music.

THE HORROR OF AUDITIONS

Howard: “I have been on more than a thousand auditions…I have heard of situations where a musical director doesn’t want to work with you because he has a crush on you and gets nervous around you. I have also heard of the most talented person not getting the job because they reminded the director of his ex-wife.”

Lambert: “I’ve been to hundreds of auditions, more than I can count. I got very lucky early on and booked, incredibly, my first, second and third professional auditions. But later on I went for six months not booking anything (and going to approximately three auditions a week during that time). That was tough.... You don’t get jobs because you’re too tall, too short, too fat, too thin, too old, too young. But of course these are some of the same reasons that you do end up booking jobs. Your talent is only part of the equation.”

Carroll: “I must have gone in about eight times before I got the role of Larry. I also went in for the Broadway revival company and got cut right away!”

Prattes: “At an audition for this show I saw someone do a tumbling pass into a table.”

WHAT IT’S LIKE TO LOSE YOURSELF

IN THE CROWD

Lambert: “Throughout the evening you fall in love with individuals, and then at the end we’re all the same. Everyone is dressed the same and dancing in perfect unison. It’s inspiring because it’s an incredible, spectacular, beautifully choreographed number to watch and you know from watching the show that these dancers love this more than anything, that they would give anything to do this. But you also can’t help but think, ‘They went through all that drama for this?’ Because as wonderful as being in the chorus is, it allows no room for individuality and seeing those individuals lost in that gold line is sad.”

WHY WE ALL KEEP

COMING BACK FOR MORE

Prattes: “There is so much more to this show than the audition. It’s about pushing and being pushed and how much you can take, and people, and going after what you wanted and never looking back. This is a show about people.”

Carroll: “The show has heart. Anyone can relate to passion, love, dreams, sacrifice and hard work. No matter if you’re a firefighter, nurse or dancer, the themes in this show are universal.”

Lambert: “It’s not a show about dance. It’s a show that uses dance and the world of dancers to explore universal themes—acceptance and rejection, being an individual and being in a group, putting yourself ‘on the line’ for something you want.”