Is this "A Chorus Line" anecdote true?

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 9/14/09 at 11:42am

I stumbled across this today, and I have to say, I have never heard this story recounted anywhere else. It seems a little too dramatic to be true. I know there were money issues and know that's what drove Kelly Bishop to leave the show, but can anyone confirm if she did this?

After almost a year and a half in the show, Kelly asked the producers for a raise, which they refused. Colleague Justin Ross said: "It was nothing unreasonable; she had been doing the show a long time and just wanted a perk. They refused her, and she became preoccupied with it. She stepped forward to begin her monologue, and suddenly said, 'Zach, I have to leave. I can't talk to you any longer. I'm sorry.' Joe Bennett, who was playing Zach, said, 'Sheila, if the light's bothering you, we can change it,' to try to get her back into the lines. She paused at the proscenium and said, 'I have to go. I'm sorry,' and exited. Thommie Walsh, who was close to Kelly on and offstage, said, 'Zach, I think I better check on Sheila,' which left two gaping holes next to each other on the line. No one had any idea that this was going to happen, including Kelly. Zach cut to Kristine, skipping 'At the Ballet,' and you could hear pages flipping wildly in the pit. After that, Sheila didn't exist, and some of her lines were given to other people.
Kelly Bishop - An Unoffical Website

[Gothampc]

Posted: 9/14/09 at 12:26pm

I don't think this happened. It would have ended her career and she would have been brought up on serious charges at Equity by the producers. In addition, Michael Bennett would have gone nuts and killed her.

Plus "almost a year and a half in the show" didn't 95% of the original cast move to LA to do the show there? I think Michael Bennett convinced everyone to move but Cameron Mason.

Posted: 9/14/09 at 12:27pm

Bizarre. It seems like we would have heard this before- I mean, walking off in the midst of a show is almost as bad as being seen outside the stage door smoking in costume.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 9/14/09 at 12:32pm

Goth, I know Bishop did refuse to go to LA and that it did have to do with money (at least that that's what most books on the making of the show say). She, Rick Mason, and just a few others... I want to say Ron Dennis as well, but I could be wrong, stayed in NYC. I also know she was the first person to leave the Broadway cast (not including those who left to go to LA). I agree that it just sounds too apocryphal to be true. I mean - they skip her song, and start divvying up her lines during the performance? A performance of a show with no intermission.

I had a hunch it wasn't true, but I thought I'd see if anyone here had ever heard this.

[Gothampc]

Posted: 9/14/09 at 12:39pm

Oh, I didn't realize she didn't go to LA.

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 9/14/09 at 1:27pm

Yes its true.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 9/14/09 at 2:29pm

From the horse's mouth. ;-}

[Pgenre]

Posted: 9/14/09 at 2:33pm

I've heard this story, almost to the letter, before. I doubt they actually "took over" her lines but maybe a few of them used her retorts to Zach here and there? I dunno how that sort of thing works in an intermissionless show where the entire cast is onstage the whole time.

I think the story is also in that horrendously dishy and catty Kevin Kelley bio of Bennett that I've read FAR too many times.

P

[morosco]

Posted: 9/14/09 at 2:35pm

I think in the original production there was a plan of action if someone was injured and couldn't finish the show. Certain lines would be assigned to certain others.

[best12bars]

Posted: 9/14/09 at 2:57pm

The handful of dancers cut from the opening number never left the theatre. Not only were they the understudies and swings, they were required to sing off-stage for all the group numbers. That's why the endings of Hello, Twelve, Sing!, and the full number of "One" sound so strong inside the theatre. The primary cast was on-stage, dancing their butts off, and they had eight off-stage singers helping them out with the big sound.

(A trick later used and improved upon in "Cats," when they hired four permanent off-stage mic'd singers, known as the "Cats chorus.")

If anyone crucial on stage was injured, these off-stage singers/understudies could easily and quickly replace them. I'm sure the stage manager would make the decision whether to "cut around" their characters, as you say, with lines being taken over, or to have another actor come out and replace them mid-performance.

Updated On: 9/14/09 at 02:57 PM

[best12bars]

Posted: 9/14/09 at 3:15pm

I should add that I've known a few OBC members from A Chorus Line over the years. Some of them went through a very tough time acclimating after the show became such a mega-hit and they became recognized and associated with it as individual actors. Many of them had trouble adjusting emotionally to career downturns or the idea that this musical wasn't going to bounce them to "principle actor" either on stage or in Hollywood.

A lot of that frustration and anger was aimed at Michael Bennett, and I have to say that much of it wasn't justified.

Bennett didn't hate these dancers, and he wasn't out to screw them over or "get" them. They all got much better deals than any dancer or performer ever would in another show. Even if they didn't get a major piece of the pie. They didn't write or create A Chorus Line. None of it. Bennett and the creative team did. The dancers talked into a tape recorder. They were interviewed, but they didn't make the "art" out of these interviews. They didn't shape it into a musical.

I actually found it kind of sad. But it's a rare circumstance, and none of them (Bennett or the dancers) were prepared for how to deal with the success, either from a business standpoint or an emotional one.

I think ultimately he was fair with them, but I also think he was harsh. Feelings got in the way many times. It was his show. That's the bottom line.

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 9/14/09 at 3:36pm

True Best, but a lot of the anger was because Bennett essentially fed the idea that these dancers would become stars, he used it as a dangling carrot to get most of the OBC out to Los Angeles to premiere the show there. I think Bennett was all too ready handle (or at least take on) success, and unfortunately wasn't afraid to use the somewhat naive dancers in his companies to achieve that...

Bennett was certainly not someone afraid to sacrifice anyone for personal ambition.
Updated On: 9/14/09 at 03:36 PM

[roquat]

Posted: 9/14/09 at 3:42pm

Back to the anecdote--I can't really believe that Bishop would have been asked to participate in the CHORUS LINE reunion show if this had actually happened.

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 9/14/09 at 3:45pm

Oh, please. Theatre Companies (especially one like the OBC of A CHORUS LINE) are family. Families fight. Bennett probably respected Bishop for being one of the few dancers to stand up to him.

[roquat]

Posted: 9/14/09 at 3:47pm

As far as onstage injuries--Bebe Neuwirth spoke in an interview about a time when she was swinging in CHORUS LINE, and the actress playing Cassie injured her foot during the opening number. When the cast backed up to the mirrors during the intro to "At the Ballet", Cassie inched off the stage in a sideways crab-walk, and Neuwirth inched out to take her place in the line. The show continued as scripted.

Posted: 9/14/09 at 3:55pm

Would you say that a dancer who just "Talked into a tape recorder" had more or less to do with the creation of Chorus Line than Maria Augusta Trapp did with the creation of The Sound of Music? Who do you think got a better "Piece of the Pie"?

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 9/14/09 at 4:00pm

Well, Von Trap wrote a book that was sold to a German motion picture company; R&H rebought her book AND the rights to the German motion picture, so Maria got paid twice. I'd say she got the better slice of the pie by a long shot.

Posted: 9/14/09 at 4:08pm

Yeah that's what I thought, too, even though her story was changed significantly for the stage version. Did you know she wasn't ever a governess for the Trapps and that Georg had lost all his money long before the Nazis came to power and they were a popular local singing group for three years before they fled? Oh, and they were married for 11 years and had two children of their own before that happened!

I've heard dancers say that their stories were used word-for-word in Chorus Line. Maria was paid $500,000 by Rogers & Hammerstein for her story (which they changed significantly). Weird, huh?

Updated On: 9/14/09 at 04:08 PM

[PalJoey]

Posted: 9/14/09 at 4:10pm

The level of drama and psychodrama among the members of not only the first cast, but the casts of the first 5 or so years was ridiculously high. It really WAS like a family--with all the dysfunctions.

I had two ex-bfs and lots of acquaintances appearing the early national tours who were promoted up to the Broadway show. They lived in fear of Michael coming to see the show and firing everyone the next day--a manipulative trick he inherited from Jerry Robbins.

I had never heard that story, but it's similar to the level of passion that existed with that show, pretty much up until Michael died.

[best12bars]

Posted: 9/14/09 at 4:17pm

Joe, if they were telling "The Kelly (Carole) Bishop Story," then I'd say you were right. But the interview sessions were only the basic skeletal foundation for a fictional story about an audition. A line of dialogue for one character here, a line given to a different character there. These were consolidations and interpretations of those interviews. It was never the Kelly Bishop Story. Or anyone else's in the OBC. Several of "Sheila's" memorable one-liners sprang from the (show-doctoring) pen of Neil Simon. They didn't come from a session at all.

And Maria Von Trapp had little to do with the creation of the musical. They took a lot of liberties with her story, too. For example, making her a sweet, sincere, headstrong nun. She was more Mama Rose in real life than Fraulein Maria. Shrewd and shrill. And the Captain was docile and subservient, especially where she was concerned. And she was already a baroness in real life from birth. Many, many liberties taken. Did she get paid a royalty for the use of her "life story?" Sure! Did she "create" The Sound of Music? No, she did not.

Updated On: 9/14/09 at 04:17 PM

[Gothampc]

Posted: 9/14/09 at 4:21pm

Since we're talking changed stories, check out that Anna Leonowens chick. "The King & I" Snort! More like "The King and 20 teachers" (the king had 39 wives and 89 children, all of whom were to get a western education.).

And btw, Maria von Trapp got a walk-by role in the move The Sound of Music

[best12bars]

Posted: 9/14/09 at 4:28pm

She did, Goth. She's behind Julie Andrews in the opening of "I Have Confidence," but you can barely see her walking by.

The Anna Leonowens story is fascinating! They bought the rights to her (highly romanticized) life story for the non-musical "Anna and the King of Siam." Used both the book and the Fox movie screenplay as a basis for their musical.

But, oh, the tales she told! There is a wonderful documentary on the DVD for "Anna and the King of Siam" all about the real Anna.

She made everything up! I really wish that someone would produce her "true" life story, because it's actually even more fascinating than what we see in the King & I. I was hoping the Jodie Foster remake was going to do that. But, sadly, no.

Anna was poor and broke in England. Her husband wasn't a naval officer. He was a sailor named Leon Owens who left her one day and never came back. She made up her own fictional backstory and sailed to Siam, changing her name to Anna Leonowens. And that's only the beginning.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 9/14/09 at 4:41pm

Wait--you mean there was no "Tom"?

When I think of Tom.
I think of a night,
When the earth smelled of summer
And the sky was streaked with white,
And the soft mist of England
Was sleeping on a hill.

I remember this,
And I always will...

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 9/14/09 at 8:02pm

About half the cast went to LA. The other half stayed in NYC.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 9/14/09 at 9:59pm

According to On the Line, Thommie Walsh, Wayne Cilento, Cameron Mason, Clive Clerk and Kelly Bishop were the only ones who stayed in New York.