Chorus Line Revival- Page 3

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 12/16/04 at 3:49pm

And by the way, Bennett's choreography for the show is only easy if the musical tempos are slowed waaay down, as they often are in regional and amateur productions of the show. When finding two dozen truly Broadway caliber dancers is difficult, the directors, choreographers and musical directors will just slow everything down so the steps are much easier for the dancers to execute.

For example, the running time of the Papermill production of the show from a few years ago was just under two hours and twenty-five minutes (due to VERY slow tempos). In contrast, the Broadway production always ran precisely two hours (give or take two or three minutes). Dance those opening combinations at that speed and I defy you to say it's "easy." I had a few friends who were in the Broadway production over the years and while I can remember them growing bored with doing the overall show (understandable after doing it for months/years) and complaining about the number of non-English speakers in the audience most shows (in the last years of the Broadway run, foreign tourists had come to make up a large percentage of the audience and they often didn't "get" the jokes, which friends of mine found frustrating), these same friends all used to say that that opening was always exhausting to get through and was still challenging no matter how many years they'd been in the show (Baayork Lee said Bennett made the steps especially hard on purpose, so, even though he was using the best dancers on Broadway, it would never look perfect and always have the feel of an audition). Danced at the tempos they maintained at the Shubert Theatre (which were even faster than the tempos on the OBC album), the opening could be a killer.

[morosco]

Posted: 12/16/04 at 3:51pm

I've heard that Bennett designed the jazz combination choreoghraphy (I HOPE I GET IT) to be extremely difficult for a dancer to execute flawlessly on a routine basis. He wanted even the best dancers to look as though they had just learned the combo. Any flaws or technical errors would work with the show and make it look more realistic.

EDIT:
(Oh Margo...I didn't see that you had already discussed this.) Updated On: 12/16/04 at 03:51 PM

[morosco]

Posted: 12/16/04 at 3:54pm

Thanks for the info on Aldredge Margo. I must have been thinking about Barbara Matera (of Barbara Matera, LTD. a famous costume shop of the past). Perhaps it was Matera who talked about the recent revival of FOLLIES being her and her shops last show. (Matera died shortly after retirement in September of 2001.)

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 12/16/04 at 4:10pm

The matter is moot anyway. Bob Avian is NOT changing the choreography for the great masterpiece that he created with Bennett. He was Bennett's best friend and zealously protects and guards his legacy, so you can just forget about him chaning so much as a single scissor kick.

And I totally disagree that the choreography wouldn't still impressive-looking to today's audiences. I'm frankly hard-pressed to name a show in the last 30 years with MORE eye-popping choreography and staging than A Chorus Line (aside, perhaps, for Dreamgirls, another Bennett masterpiece).

In terms of competing with spectacle shows, ACL did just fine at the box office for all those years competing against Cats, Starlight Express, Phantom, Les Miz, La Cage, Evita, et al (some of the biggest spectacles Broadway has ever seen), so I don't see why it would have any trouble in today's marketplace (which includes several other long-running, non-spectacle shows like Chicago, Avenue Q, Movin Out, Rent, and Wonderful Town).

Updated On: 12/16/04 at 04:10 PM

Posted: 12/16/04 at 4:14pm

Thank you ALL for this fabulous thread!

Every once in awhile this site jumps up and justifies itself completely (thanks, too, to Craig and Rob )

My small two cents - I'd selfishly like it to be faithfully reproduced, as it represents a large portion of my coming of age.

And I think the gay content is unfortunately still VERY viable, and perhaps more necessary now than ever - as sad as that is.

[morosco]

Posted: 12/16/04 at 4:21pm

The scenery of the original still strikes me as one of the most artistically brilliant designs ever. (Second only to DREAMGIRLS, same team.) Talk about collaboration. These guys (Michael Bennett, Bob Avian, Robin Wagner, Tharon Musser, and Theoni V. Aldredge) were unbelievable in what they could accomplish on a stage! And it was so theatrical. I miss that team and I can only imagine where they would have taken us if Bennett were still alive.

[bjivie2]

Posted: 12/16/04 at 5:47pm

There's a lot of problems the doing a revival of A Chorus Line. First, there's the entire 70's thing. I've heard that they wanted to update it, which is why they had Mary J. Blige singing "What I Did For Love" at the Tonys this year. (too bad she sucked) And the other thing is whether or not they would be using the entire same staging.

In my opinion, I'm not a big fan of recreating original staging. A revival means to do a new production of something. If they just want to recreate the Chorus Line material, why didn't they just keep the show running? If someone wanted to recreate the original in 30 more years or so, that would be wonderful, because not many people would remember it. I understand in the case of Dreamgirls where the book was based around Michael Bennett's staging (not exactly his choreography, but his staging). I say if you're going to do a revival, REVIVE it. Don't just remount the original. While exciting, what's really fantastic about theatre is when you do something new and original. They just need to find the people that are driven and creative enough to do it.

Posted: 12/16/04 at 6:49pm

Playign Devil's advocate why would Avian never change the choreography? I know it was different circumstances but he did when he choreographed Follies in London (I assume)

E