Friday, July 6, through Sunday, July 15
Prospect Park Auditorium, 1584 34th Avenue, Moline IL
Winner of nine Tony Awards, and the rare musical to also win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Broadway's legendary A Chorus Line will enjoy its first-ever Quad City Music Guild presentation July 6 through 15, demonstrating why the 1976 New York production ran a staggering 6,137 performances, and why the New York Times called its debut “a smoke signal to the world that the musical can touch unexpected depths in the human heart.”
Originally conceived, directed, and choreographed by the late Michael Bennett, A Chorus Line opens in the middle of an audition for an upcoming Broadway production. The show's formidable director puts the performers through their paces, with every dancer, from veteran to newcomer, desperate for the job. After a round of cuts, 17 hopefuls remain, with the director telling the assembled talents that he's looking for a strong dancing chorus of four boys and four girls. Before making his decision, however, he wants to learn more about them, and with reluctance – and through the delivery of iconic numbers including “What I Did for Love,” “I Hope I Get It,” and “One” – the dancers reveal both their pasts and their considerable gifts.
An unprecedented critical and box-office hit, Bennett's musical received 12 Tony Award nominations and won in nine categories, among them Best Musical, Direction, Choreography, Score (by Marvin Hamlisch and Edward Kleban) and Book of a Musical (James Kirkwood and Nicholas Dante). During its astounding original run that finally ended on April 28, 1990, A Chorus Line became the longest-running production in Broadway history until it was surpassed by Cats in 1997, and the longest-running Broadway musical originally produced in the United States until it was unseated by Chicago in 2011. At present, A Chorus Line is the sixth-longest-running Broadway show of all time.
Directing Music Guild's latest is Harold Truitt, a longtime veteran of the organization who has appeared many times on-stage and helmed such previous Music Guild productions as The Music Man, Grease, and Joseph & the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Amy Trimble serves as music director, having recently held that position for the Black Box Theatre musicals I Love You Because and Clue: The Musical, and the show is choreographed by Christina Myatt, the owner and artistic director of Center Stage Performing Arts Academy who portrayed Norma Desmond in last summer's Sunset Boulevard. And two dozen talents compose A Chorus Line's ensemble: Melissa Anderson-Clark, Natalie Brown, Susie Carsell-Schaechter, Adam Cerny, Seth Christensen, Hillary Erb, Taylor Gravert, Cole Harksen, Sydney Heller, Nik LaMaack, Joseph Lillian, Drake Mason, Bethany Piotter, Luis Portillo, Joshua Reid, Adam Sanders, Molly Seybert, Haley Teel, Emily Tinsman, Tom Vaccaro, Carolyn Wehr, Sam Whan, Daniel Williams, and Ally Zahringer.
A Chorus Line runs Thursdays through Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m., admission is $11-16, and more information and tickets are available by calling (309)762-6610 or visiting QCMusicGuild.com.