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BARBARA L. FREDRICKSENThe award-winning musical A Chorus Line will enjoy an eight-week run at Hudson's Show Palace Dinner Theatre.
Many people consider A Chorus Line to be Broadway's perfect musical. The script is smart, Marvin Hamlisch's music superb and the lyrics go from sassy to sentimental to searing. For dramatic purists, it observes Aristotle's unities of time, place and action, with everything happening in one place on one day.
A Chorus Line opened in 1975 and won 10 Tony Awards, including best musical, best book and best original score. It also won a Pulitzer Prize for drama and 27 special awards in the Theatre World Awards. In 1984, A Chorus Line was given a Tony Gold Award for being Broadway's longest-running musical. The show was still selling out when it closed in 1990 after 6,137 performances.
The Show Palace Dinner Theatre opens its version Oct. 3 for an eight-week run, only the second show in the Show Palace's history to run that long. (The other was Carousel in March 2001.)
A Chorus Line is a series of vignettes told by 21 of the anonymous, unheralded dancers who toil in the chorus line. The script and songs were based on a series of interviews with real "gypsies," the name given to the dancers, and the show itself is set during an audition.
It's a true ensemble piece, with every actor having his or her turn in the spotlight.
The story is anchored by the auditioning director, Zach, and his erstwhile live-in girlfriend, Cassie, who is back in New York after failing at a try for Hollywood stardom. Cassie wants back in the chorus line, but Zach can't get past their relationship to see that's where she belongs.
Zach sits in the back of the theater, pulling the stories out of the dancers one at a time and wrestling with his own emotions over Cassie. It's an effective unifying device for both for the story and the performers.
The 17 speaking roles demand top-notch singer/dancer/actors, and Show Palace artistic director John Leggio has brought in eight newcomers with extensive resumes to join 15 veteran Show Palace performers for this production. Leggio himself plays the dramatically-charged role of Paul, the only character who gives his monologue alone on the stage. It's his first major role at the Show Palace. Earlier, he danced on Broadway in Cats and My Fair Lady, had lead roles in national touring companies and was choreographer for the company at Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center.
Playing Zach will be Robert St. Germain, who played Billy Bigelow in Carousel, Pharaoh in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and Lancelot in Camelot at theaters in New England. He recently wound up back-to-back engagements with Royal Caribbean International Cruise Lines.
Playing Cassie is Katie Kerwin, who was Annie in Annie Get Your Gun and has a pivotal role in the current production of The World Goes 'Round. She played Cassie in an earlier production at another theater and was host of the MTV show, Singled Out Live!, among other accomplishments.
Jillian Johnson plays Val, the saucy dancer who sings Dance: Ten, Looks: Three, otherwise known as the "t-s and a-" song. Ms. Johnson directed and choreographed Damn Yankees at the Show Palace and will do the same for this show.
In the role of Diana is Carmen Keels, who is wrapping up a stint in The World Goes 'Round, was in Broadway Palm West's Ragtime and once played Lucy in Snoopy the Musical and Snoopy in You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown. Her character sings the poignant What I Did for Love and the cynical Nothing.
Newcomer Aimee Turner, a veteran of Broadway tours, film and television, plays Sheila, the sarcastic pessimist who knows her "maturity" isn't a plus in these particular auditions.
Also in the cast are returning Show Palace favorites Laura Lynne Tapper (Sugar in Some Like It Hot, Julie in Carousel) as Maggie; Joel Kipper (Damn Yankees, The World Goes 'Round) as Mike; and Troy LaFon (La Cage aux Folles, Some Like It Hot, Hello, Dolly, Crazy for You) as Greg.
WHAT: A Chorus Line
WHERE: Show Palace Dinner Theatre, 16128 U.S. 19, Hudson
WHEN: Oct. 3-Nov. 22. Shows are at 8 p.m. Fridays, Saturdays and Oct. 22 and 30; 3 p.m. Sundays; and 1:30 p.m. Oct. 18 and 22. Doors open two hours before each show for buffet and full cash bar.
TICKETS: Dinner and show, $38.50; show only, $27.45, all plus tax and tip. Call 863-7949 in west Pasco; toll-free elsewhere 1-888-655-7469.