Hawthorne Players Celebrate 75 Years

With Classy  A Chorus Line

                                             by Pat Lindsey

Touted by critics as “the best musical–ever,” A Chorus Line has the same appeal for audiences today as it did 47 years ago when it won a Pulitzer and Tony Award for Best Musical on Broadway. With music by the late great Marvin Hamlisch and lyrics by Edward Kleban, it was destined to have      a long, successful lifespan. It is the perfect choice for the Hawthorne Players’ 75th Anniversary season.

A Chorus Line gives the audience an up close and personal view into the lives of 19 dancers whodesperately want to be chosen for one of the eight available places in the chorus line of a Broadway show. They not only need a job to survive, but they need it to fulfill their hopes, dreams and validate their human existence. The concept seems simple, but as director-choreographer Zach (Ken Clark) peers into the dancers’ lives through personal interviews, we soon learn how complex each person is.

The opening scene shows the dancers with their backs to the audience rigorously learning their dance steps for the audition. The cast sings “I Hope I Get It” and Zach’s commanding voice is heard off-stage as he directs the grueling audition process. After the dancers have repeated the routines over and over again, Zach asks them to line up and tell him something about themselves. This creates a great deal of angst for several of the dancers who reluctantly reveal secrets about themselves that probably shocked audiences in 1975. In some cases, the interviews are more like confessions. When Paul (Aaron Kamphoefner) is finally able to tell his story of being an abused gay male, Zach’s toughness softens as he steps on stage to hold Paul and allow him to cry in his arms.

Others confess that they lacked parental love or felt self-conscious about their physical appearance. Bobby (Dylan K. Stanley) mentions more than a couple of times that if Troy Donohue can be a movie star, so can he.

During “The Music and the Mirror,” a standout performance is delivered by Cassie (Abigail Alsmeyer), who was once romantically involved with Zach, failed at achieving stardom in L.A., and now wants to start all over again in the chorus line. Her solo dance among the mirrors is spell-binding and there is no doubt that she should have been a star.

Despite their personal circumstances, every dancer makes it clear that dancing is their true love. Diana (Mia Millican) gave me goosebumps when she sang, “What I Did for Love.” There are many bright spots in this show where individual performers shine, but the entire company singing “One” in gold and white costumes is the show topper. No matter what sad stories have been told earlier, the members of the chorus line join together in a synchronized, joyous finale, where everyone is a star.

Director Mark Lull and Choreographer Kimberly Klick have triumphed with this production of A Chorus Line. It is an amazing feat to take a group of amateur actors with various levels of experience and create an evening of pure enjoyment for an audience that can only dream of having the courage to get on stage and perform for others. Each of them is the reason A Chorus Line has retained its greatness from the past. It’s so much more than “a singular sensation.”

A Chorus Line is being performed at the Florissant Civic Center Theater through Aug. 7.  (Aug. 5 & 6 at 7:30 p.m. and Aug. 7 at 2 p.m.)

For ticket information, call 314-921-5678 or go to https://florissantmo.thundertix.com/events/199112. (There is no intermission for this show.)

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