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    A Study Guide for Michael Bennett's "A Chorus Line"
    A Study Guide for Michael Bennett's "A Chorus Line"
    A Study Guide for Michael Bennett's "A Chorus Line"
    Ebook43 pages34 minutes

    A Study Guide for Michael Bennett's "A Chorus Line"

    By Gale and Cengage

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    About this ebook

    A Study Guide for Michael Bennett's "Chorus Line, A", excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Drama for Students.This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Drama for Students for all of your research needs.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCengage Learning - Gale
    Release dateMay 15, 2018
    ISBN9781410393623
    A Study Guide for Michael Bennett's "A Chorus Line"

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      Book preview

      A Study Guide for Michael Bennett's "A Chorus Line" - Gale

      16

      A Chorus Line

      Michael Bennett

      1975

      Introduction

      A Chorus Line was a long-running Broadway musical that was first presented by the New York Shakespeare Festival at the Newman Theater, New York City, on April 16, 1975. It ran there for 101 performances. It then transferred to the Sam S. Shubert Theatre, New York City, where it played 6,137 performances before closing in late April 1990. The original show was choreographed and directed by Michael Bennett, with music by Marvin Hamlisch, lyrics by Edward Kleban, and the book (the nonmusical parts of the story) by James Kirkwood and Nicholas Dante.

      A Chorus Line is based on real Broadway dancers' stories, as told to Bennett at a meeting he had with twenty-four dancers (known on Broadway as gypsies because they move around from show to show) in January 1974, in which they discussed the rewards and frustrations of their jobs. The conversation was tape-recorded, and the material was then developed in two five-week workshops. The resulting show takes place on a bare stage at a generic Broadway theater in 1975, where a group of dancers are auditioning for a place in the chorus of an upcoming musical. There is almost no plot, the story consisting for the most part of the stories the dancers tell about their lives. An immediate hit with critics and public alike, the show won nine Tony Awards, including best musical, best choreography, best book, and best score. The show also won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the New York Drama Critics Circle Award.

      Author Biography

      Theater Director And Choreographer Michael Bennett Was Born On April 8, 1943, In Buffalo, New York. He Started Taking Dance Lessons At The Age Of Three And By The Age Of Twelve Was Well Schooled In A Variety Of Dances, Including Tap, Ballet, Modern, And Folk Dancing. At The Age Of Sixteen, He Dropped Out Of High School And Joined A Touring Company Of West Side Story, which took him to Europe as well as many locations in the United States. In the early 1960s, he danced in choruses for several Broadway shows, and by the late 1960s he had emerged as a choreographer, winning Tony nominations for the musicals Henry, Sweet Henry in 1967; Neil Simon's Promises, Promises, which ran from 1968 to 1971; André Previn and Alan Jay Lerner's Coco, which ran for three hundred performances beginning in 1969; and Stephen Sondheim and George Furth's Company, which opened in 1970. In 1971, Bennett won his first Tony Awards, as choreographer and codirector, with Harold Prince, of Sondheim and James Goldman's Follies, which opened in April

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