THIS IS THE TWELFTH AND LAST OF OUR BEST OF 23 REVIEW OF INTERVIEWS: There aren’t too many actors who have appeared in productions of West Side Story, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Follies and A Little Night Music. Not many can also hold the distinction of originating a role in Company. One person who has done all five shows is Tony Award-winner Donna McKechnie.

She was the original Kathy in Company – one of the trio of women who sing “You Could Drive a Person Crazy.” As for her Tony Award, she originated the role of Cassie in A Chorus Line.

Company was, of course, written by Stephen Sondheim. As were Forum, Follies and A Little Night Music. Leonard Bernstein wrote the music for West Side Story and the lyrics were Sondheim’s.

After earning rave reviews for her show Take Me to the World: The Songs of Stephen Sondheim at 54 Below in New York, McKechnie is bringing the show to Los Angeles for two performances this week at Catalina Jazz Club. She will also perform at the Purple Room in Palm Springs on January 13th and January 14th. Next week she’ll bring the show to Feinsteins At The Nikko in San Francisco.

Last week I spoke with McKechnie who was in her apartment on the Upper West Side of New York City. We spoke about her career, her relationship with Sondheim, the joy in singing his music and, of course, A Chorus Line. What follows are excerpts from our conversation that have been edited for length and clarity.

For those who know you were in the original Broadway cast of Company, they might think that was your first introduction to Stephen Sondheim. But if my research is correct, you were actually in a touring production of West Side Story.

Oh my God. Yes, you’re right. Wow.

But when you auditioned for the the touring production of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum that was the first time you sang… 

It was my first singing audition and Stephen – that’s the first time I ever met him. Of course, I barely remember anything because I was so nervous. I was so nervous that I could not control my hand from shaking when I read for George Abbott, the director. I couldn’t find my timing. I kept losing my way and inadvertently it made him laugh so much. He actually fell off the chair.

Can you imagine my first time out in a role, coming from the chorus of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, to be in that? First of all, it took me a whole year on the road practically to find those laughs again because I didn’t know what I was doing. But what a great way to learn from the best people; a great cast. And a great way, when you’re 19, 20 years old, to see the country. 

Do you remember the moment where an awareness clicked in with you that what Stephen Sondheim did was different?

It was so sophisticated – as much as I could be sophisticated in those days. It was clever, witty, funny. It was very edgy. I appreciated all of that. I mean, the show was fantastic and this was his first Broadway show, of course, where he wrote both lyrics and music. It was great. They cast it very well and including me, I think. I did learn on the job. I had a great time. 

When you do a Sondheim show does it give you a skill set that is different than it might have been had you done other shows? 

I was lucky to work with so many great composers. But, any time I do a Sondheim show, it always makes me feel I’m a better singer and I’m a better actor because of really digging in to that material. Because that’s how he writes. He writes from a character-driven point-of-view and there’s so much finesse in it. I always improve. 

I heard him say over the years that he was always looking for actors who could sing versus singers who could act. If you are approaching your career as a singer/dancer does a vote of confidence from someone like Sondheim make you think there is more to me as an actor than perhaps I imagined?

I’ve always acted. It’s always been my basis for anything. Many years ago it pushed me into a place of resenting being labeled as a dancer/singer because everything I did had that acting. I studied. I was a professional student. My first chorus job, my only one, really, How to Succeed... I had never seen anything like a roomful of people telling a story with music and movement. I thought I have a job now. If I go to acting class and voice lessons I can learn how to sing and act. Then I can have a career perhaps longer than a dancer’s life. That was the whole plan.

Naturally I had to really work. But there was always an affinity for connecting with the character. That’s why I love Sondheim so much and and so many people. Michael Bennett was all character-driven. As was Jerome Robbins. We’re telling stories in a very specific way.

You’re someone who has sung the music and lyrics of Marvin Hamlisch, Edward Kleban, Cy Coleman, Dorothy Fields, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter. The list goes on and on. But when you sing Stephen Sondheim what resonates most with you as a person when you’re singing his songs? 

I just relate to it so much because he is so clear and decisive. There’s so much clarity in his work. He doesn’t want it to be a cookie cutter of any idealized performance, some imagined performance. He wants you to bring yourself to it completely and fully and bring it alive. He wrote it for actors to do that. There’s not just one way to do it. The new revival of Company had his blessing and it was totally changed. Very different but quite fantastic to hear that score again.

Did you like the production if you saw it? 

I did. I went opening night. It was thrilling and it was very different. I decided to just give myself over to that world and let them take me. And they did. And it was just fantastic. The ghosts of the past would come on stage and I would have to kind of live dually with them.

Another project you did put you on the stage of the Shubert Theater in March of 1973, which was Sondheim: A Musical Tribute. Basically anybody who was anyone who had been in a Sondheim show was involved. You were also the choreographer of that event. So you’re working with all these people who have performed his work. What do you remember most about that March evening? 

The last number of the show. We’re at the dress rehearsal and Bert Shevelove (librettist of A Funny Thing…) is the director. He’s asking all the stars on stage to gather around the piano. It’s like they’re in Steve’s living room. There’s Angela Lansbury and there’s Chita Rivera and Jack Cassidy, Dorothy Collins, Alexis Smith, and Larry Kert. That time is one of the most exciting times of my life because of all of these people; the collaborative effort that went into it and and working with Angela. With Chita who said, “Well, what do you got for me?” And I went, “Oh, God, what are we going to do?” And I showed it to her in a very timid way. And she went, “Oh, yeah. Don’t you know that actors ask why, but dancers just do it.” She’s adorable. Love her.

Working with Angela was intimidating, and I learned a lot from her. I had this incredible very busy dance going on while she sang her big number. I was out of breath when I showed it to her. I finished and I looked at her and she looked at me and said, “I think I’ll just stand here and sing, if you don’t mind.” I didn’t mind. What a mistake I made giving her so much to do. She was so generous and kind. I learned a great lesson that sometimes the power is to just stand there and sing.

Two years later the Shubert Theater became a very important home for you because that’s where A Chorus Line played when it opened on Broadway. In your Tony Award acceptance speech you called A Chorus Line “a personal experience that taught me so much about performing and about people and humanity.” What has doing the work of Stephen Sondheim and his various collaborators taught you? 

I worked on all of this material at a very difficult time when we were going through COVID. He found the most beautiful and poetic expression of every experience and the human condition. There’s so much and it’s rich. When I do Losing My Mind, as much as I did it in [Follies], I’m still finding deeper ways to go. I’m unearthing different things and different feelings. You hope that is communicated to the audience, but the response has been really great. It’s a very wonderful thing to be able to do especially since losing him.

I feel his presence so much because of the material that I’m doing and I’m associated with. But it’s just to keep him alive in that way. He worked and loved his work so much and was so generous. He was also a great teacher and a friend. He cared so much about, not just his work, but everyone’s work and making it better. It’s all there; the human frailty. He doesn’t skip over things very easily. Sometimes when I’m working on the material, I go, How did he know that?

As for Follies, you played Sally at Paper Mill Playhouse in 1998. You then played Carlotta in 2005 at Barrington Stage Company. I looked up then New York Times critic Ben Brantley‘s review of the 2005 production. He said, “In superb voice, McKechnie endows her solo with a warm and even elation, as well as a truthfulness that suggests her Carlotta has not just survived, but enjoyed the bumpy road that is her life.”

Have you enjoyed the bumpy road that is your life? 

Yes. Mostly, yes. Because I appreciated that that’s what it was going to be. I loved being given the chance to do what I love. I’m able to pass it on to younger students of theater. I say, “You’re going to get rejected a lot.” You’re set up for it. So you have to really love what you’re doing. And the humor you have to have. Sometimes I get it after the fact. I’m going through something and it’s kind of it feels traumatic and chaotic. Then after you think about what happened it’s hilarious. So I’m more easy with things now.

Sammy Williams (the original Paul in A Chorus Line) told me that actress Celeste Holm said to him after he won his Tony Award for A Chorus Line to understand that this was not the peak of your career, this was just a moment in your career. And to expect those bumps and to expect highs and lows. I’m assuming you agree with her advice. 

Especially after you get an award! You go, “Okay, where are they?” The work doesn’t always happen that way. You always have to keep creating the demand. It’s really hard not to worry about it when you don’t have a set future. Now I have more work than I ever expected. 

Send in the Clowns is in your setlist for Take Me to the World. How does that song resonate with you now 22 years after you performed it in the context of the show? 

It seems actually perfect. I’m that much older and living a completely different kind of life. I’m not really that different, actually, but different in my head. It just fits perfectly because I find the personal connections in it that I relate to. If you think of it you could do that song so many different ways about so many different situations. But it is a woman dealing with the irony of what she was expecting, what she experienced. When you look at yourself and have an honest moment with yourself. It’s tough and it goes through all of these different changes. It’s touching. It’s funny. It’s sad. It can be anything as long as your truth is there.

That’s such an important word. That was very true with any company of A Chorus Line, too. Baayork Lee (the original Connie in A Chorus Line) who’s taken it all over the place, if she had a chance to give one note it would be just play the truth of your character.

Has your relationship with A Chorus Line changed? 

Oh, yes. It makes me appreciate it even more – if that’s possible. Having the great opportunity to go back in the show ten years later at 45. Not just getting back into shape and doing the show, but also emotionally and with a different perception. It was very gratifying. I had a better time.

The first time around it was Chorus Line fever. It was so hard and we were tired. We were very happy for the success, but we were just spinning. To be able to take a break and come back to it and really experience it and what everybody did, what everybody contributed, it was great.

I think a lot of people who are fans of A Chorus Line know that it took actress Marsha Mason to say Cassie needs to be cast in the show just before the finale. Do you think the show would have been successful had Michael Bennett not taken that advice?

It would not have been successful. He was smart enough to see that immediately. Don’t forget, we were locked in this little black box of a theater. He and Bob Avian, they’re there every day and you lose objectivity. You would invite your friends, your savvy friends. He invited Neil Simon and Marsha and a lot of people. Sondheim, Hal Prince, they would all come and give their feedback. Only people that he really respected and could trust. As soon as it was brought up he immediately went, “Oh yeah.”

He couldn’t see that if you don’t give any anyone any hope…In other words, if Zach doesn’t give her the job, he didn’t see it yet that she was the symbol for second chances. He was trying to be true to what would really happen, I think. He did the same thing with Promises, Promises, to try to make it to realistic. He had to raise the the heightened reality a little bit.

We’re now just a little bit over two years away from the 50th anniversary of A Chorus Line. What are your hopes, not just for this 50th anniversary, but how the show will be considered in another 50 years?

It’s bigger than any one of us. It’s bigger than the theater. It’s human beings connecting in such an artful, positive way and over generations. The lives it saved. The people it’s inspired. It’s even inspired some people not to get into the business. It looks so rough there. It has given so much. It’s the gift that keeps giving and I love it.

You told Playbill in 2010, on the occasion of Stephen Sondheim’s 80th birthday, that the highest compliment he ever gave to you was when he said, “Tonight I saw the actress and the character come together.” If Steve were able to have been at 54 Below last year or was able to be in Los Angeles to see Take Me to the World, what do you think his response would be and why do you think he’d have that response to the way you’re celebrating his work?

You just made me cry. I would hope that he would approve and like the way I was doing it. I have a feeling he would and I think he would appreciate the fact that there’s so much love and really good arrangements servicing his music and his intent. And doing a different interpretation, perhaps. I feel proud that he might really approve. I would love it if he would give me notes because his notes are so great. 

Photo: Donna McKechnie (Courtesy Chris Isaacson Presents)

The post Bo23: Donna McKechnie: The Music and No Mirror appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

If Cilento’s name sounds familiar to you it is perhaps because you know him as the original “Mike” in A Chorus Line or as the choreographer of the musical Wicked.

His latest role is as Director and Musical Stager of a revival of Dancin’ which now has the name Bob Fosse’s Dancin’. The show is running at The Old Globe in San Diego through June 5th. The production has already announced it will open on Broadway at a theatre and on a date yet to be determined.

Cilento appeared in the original production of Fosse’s dance-musical Dancin’. The show ran for 1,774 performances and was nominated for seven Tony Awards including two for Fosse (he won Best Choreography) and one for Cliento as Best Featured Actor in a Musical.

Recreating Fosse’s work and bringing into a 21st-century focus was an enormous undertaking for Cilento as he revealed when we spoke via Zoom earlier this month. What follows are excerpts from that conversation that have been edited for length and clarity. To see the full interview, please go to our YouTube channel.

For seventeen years Fosse’s daughter, Nicole, has been trying to get a revival of Dancin’ off the ground. Why did all the pieces come together now?

I think maybe it’s probably the best time after the pandemic; celebrating him in a different way. My whole approach was getting him back out there the way he was as a dancer, what inspired him and what drove him to create what he created. So I did a lot of research and I went back. I know that Dancin’ was something that was out of the ordinary in 1978. He did it in a dance format, three acts, which was unheard of. There was no plot and no storyline and no particular reason to do it. But he wanted to explore and express different styles of choreography and music. I have to hand it to him. It’s a rough thing to do.

If anyone could do something like that it could only have been Bob Fosse.

Exactly. He was always pushing the envelope. Always looking for something new and fresh and innovative; pushing buttons, politically, socially, whatever. Just do it.

Even though you were in the original production, re-assembling his work from 44 years ago must have been an enormous challenge.

I can’t tell you how complicated it is. The big thing with this show was reconstructing Bob’s work. And it wasn’t about me as a choreographer or anyone as a choreographer filling in pieces and making the show work. It needed to come from Bob’s work and I was adamant about that.

Without any complete film of the original production to rely upon, how much did your own personal muscle memory allow you to recall what you had done before?

I was in every number in Dancin‘. It was very complicated. But there’s parts of my body that will just fall right into it. I didn’t do Crunchy Granola, so I have no body awareness. I sang it so I knew what I did up on the ladder, on the sides. I did Percussion, too, so I know what that was. I didn’t know the specific steps. Christine Colby [Jacques], who was in the original company, helped reconstruct all of the dancing material.

Then there’s a whole other part of this show that I wanted to insert viewers in this 21st century kind of world. So we can update it and lift it up into a place where, if Bob was doing this today, what would he do? So that was going on in my head. Corinne McFadden Herrera is my associate and Lauren Cannon is the assistant dance captain/assistant choreographer. They got into it and did the reconstruction, like looking at film work and looking at pieces of choreography and figuring it out. It’s such a long process. So first you have to identify what we want to reconstruct.

Did Fosse leave behind any archives with material you could access?

No. We’d identify the pieces that I wanted to dig into. The girls went and they pulled out the work and started. Then we started picking out pieces of the choreography or steps from the pieces of choreography that we want to string together to represent the number without doing the whole number. Needless to say it’s a very complicated job to take on. But when it’s done correctly, it’s completely rewarding because it’s the essence of him and the essence of his work as a choreographer and as a performer. I hope I managed to capture that and put it on the stage.

The original production was notorious for how strenuous it was on the dancers. There were countless stories of injuries. Is Bob Fosse’s Dancin’ just as difficult to do as the original?

I didn’t water down the the project at all. But the choreography is the choreography. And the dancers today are amazing in their training. They’re so rounded in technique: street dancing and hip hop and all of that stuff. I think their capability of picking up stuff is a little bit faster and easier for them. It’s just the specific style that slows them down because he’s very unique. He had a posture. He was very technical, but yet he wasn’t turned out like a ballet dancer. He was turned in. He wore a hat. He wore his head down, which brought you his vocabulary. He was a little bit hunched over, so it rounded off his shoulders. He had a built in mechanism that kind of like identified his style. It depended how far he wanted explode and how far he wanted to really pull it in.

The revival of Chicago has been running for so long, is there a built-in expectation amongst dancers that what that show presents is textbook Fosse?

It’s very successful and Annie [Reinking] did a really great job. But again, her building was in the style of Bob Fosse. Does that mean that’s Bob Fosse? Kind of, but not really. I think she created a format and a style within Bob’s style. And it became very specific. And I think the derbies and the black clothes and very exaggerated, beautiful body posture moves and stuff like that became iconic in itself. I think it misled a lot of people in thinking, oh, that’s Bob Fosse. This is what he does. And yes, he does that. But he also does 100 other things. And he’s an explosive dancer that wants to fly and he flies. And that’s a complete contradiction to what you see in Chicago. Everything’s very still, very isolated, very perfect. It’s beautiful, but that’s a different part of him.

If A Chorus Line gave an identity to the dancers in a Broadway show who heretofore didn’t have much of an identity, what did Dancin’ do? 

What Michael [Bennett] did was an idea from dancers that I danced with like Tony Stephens and Michon Peacock. They were at a point where they were disgusted that we as ensemble dancers in the show do production numbers, the thing that is carrying the show forward. It could be a horrible show, but the choreography could be amazing. So they wanted to do a show about dancers and they got Michael involved with that to get some dancers in a room. And I think he did an amazing job, too. To have dancers have a voice and a life and a history; where we were coming from and how we got to Broadway and were auditioning on the line.

I think what Bob did with Dancin’ was he made 16 of us principal dancers that were going to do an evening of dance. And we did everything. We sang, we read, we danced. We held the whole show together. So he put us up on another level. When Annie [Reinking] and I got a Tony nomination for Best Supporting Actors in a musical that was completely unheard of. But that’s what he did. He made the world recognize that we were as talented as principals in Broadway shows. We were a principal in a Broadway show, so he really pushed it over the edge for us.

I urge you to watch the full interview to hear stories of how Wayne Cilento got cast by Fosse in Dancin’, the big name star (and former collaborator with Fosse) whom he left to join the show, his experiences performing one of the most emotional parts of Dancin’ – “Mr. Bojangles” and how he chose to reinterpret that number for the new production. It’s a thoroughly enjoyable conversation.

Main photo: The company of Bob Fosse’s Dancin’ (Photo by Julieta Cervantes/Courtesy The Old Globe)

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How many people get reviews like this? In 1981, Frank Rich of the New York Times called her performance, “one of the most powerful theatrical coups to be found in a Broadway musical since Ethel Merman sang ‘Everything’s Coming Up Roses’ at the end of Act I of Gypsy.” 40 years later Jesse Green in the same paper said the best moment of the 2021 Tony Awards was her performance of the same song Rich raved about. So it goes for Tony Award-winner Jennifer Holliday (Dreamgirls) who will be performing on Saturday at The Wallis in Beverly Hills. (She’ll probably be booking a lot more dates after the overwhelming acclaim she received after the Tony Awards.)

If you’ve never seen her perform And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going (which I was lucky enough to see her perform twice at the Shubert Theatre in Century City), take a look here.

Four days before she made mincemeat of the roof of the Winter Garden Theater, Holliday and I spoke by phone. She was in New York for Tony rehearsals. What follows are excerpts from our conversation that have been edited for length and clarity.

When you when you first started out, could you imagine having a career that would go over 40 years? And what does it mean to you that you have. 

No, I couldn’t have imagined it. I really was not trying to be in show business. That was not my goal. I discovered singing in the church choir. My first show was Your Arms Too Short to Box with God because I was just doing that for a little while and then I’d come back home. But I went up to audition when Michael Bennett saw me for Dreamgirls. I was like, oh, OK. Unfortunately I never did get to college. So that’s that’s the only drawback. 

During rehearsals for Dreamgirls, director Michael Bennett gave you videos of Barbra Streisand performing to watch. How much of what you learned during that production has stayed with you and remains part of how you perform today?

A great deal of it. First of all, I taught myself how to hold my notes long like she did. Because I don’t have a trained voice and I don’t think she does either. I would be so curious, like, how is she holding that note so long? [Streisand] was the first. I had never seen anybody like her. I never knew who she was. And so a lot of that just stayed with me.

And then I incorporated it. And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going that was not a part of the original kind of feeling of it. And in fact, everybody wanted me to take it out, especially David Geffen with the record company. [He] said “Why you got to hold that note so long. You’ll never get any radio play with that. Nobody’s going to listen to that if it’s soft like that in the middle, you know?” And I was like, well, I don’t know. But Michael Bennett agreed with me, said, “Well, we’re not really talking about records right now. She likes it and I like it.“

Thank God I still have the lilt in my voice and the belt. Even though I don’t sing as high as I used to sing, I still get pretty good pretty much up there.

Other actors who worked with Michael Bennett have talked about how cruel he could be. (See how his collaborator, the late Bob Avian, talked about that cruelty here.) What was your experience and how do you look back on that time with him?

I actually had a different experience with Michael Bennett. I’ll be honest with you. This is the part that I haven’t really discussed at all. The only thing I felt that he was cruel towards me is that he inserted himself as a Svengali. So him being a gay man and me being a young woman kind of made me foolishly believe that he actually loved me. And I thought that was cruel because that was not ever going to be anything like that, but I really was young. I didn’t know, you know what I’m saying? So that’s the only thing. I didn’t see that then and boy did I care back then. 

You did a television interview that I saw from 1981 and you were asked where do you get the pain that you put into your singing voice as it relates to And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going. And you said it was the experience of being on the road and leaving home at eighteen. Forty years later you still maintain that pain in every performance I’ve ever seen. What’s the source of that pain today?

I think that I have suffered greatly with depression, clinical depression, pretty much my entire adult life. And so I think that there is balancing that is there. And, you know, still the loneliness, even after all of these years, you know, of being on the road and traveling and doing all these things. And so to me, it’s still there. So I think that’s kind of in my voice. What I usually try to do now is balance my concerns now with something that speaks of joy and that I can still think of love and all that does, that kind of thing and not be concerned about it.

What I’ve learned now, which I didn’t know, is that there is no time limit or cut off time for growth. You can still grow and mature and change and become the person you want to be and just keep learning.

That growth was apparent in a 2013 interview you did with NPR. You told them your perspective on life was “Don’t try to figure out the ending of the movie. Stay to see it. Don’t don’t try to figure out how to play it because it takes different twists and turns.”

It really does. And especially with show business, it’s so up and down. It’s really a hard business. And sometimes, you know, you just kind of go, “I want to give up, I want to do whatever.” Because you just feel like you’re not making anything in this. So that’s that kind of thing. You got to just stay for the whole movie. It’s a slow movie, but, you’ve got to stay. 

At what at what point did you come to the realization that that was the best way to deal with both the highs and the lows of doing what you do? 

Unfortunately, late in life. Finally I felt like I had found a way to cope with my heartaches and setbacks and disappointments. This is a rough business and people make so many promises that just never come, you know? So you waste a lot of time with a lot of people sometimes who just say they’re going to do things for you. They probably have good intentions, but some things just don’t manifest.

And so when I was turning 50 and I was like, OK, I’m not really anywhere right now and I don’t really know what’s going to become of my career or anything. And I said, but for the first time, I’m not going to be trying to call around and see what’s going to happen or make anything happen. I’m just going to feel this. Things could turn around. That’s when I really felt that I had learned a lot about my own self. I was beginning to learn how to love my own self.

I knew that I had preserved my instrument, my voice…if I could just hold on. A lot of times in show business it is later in life that you get your just reward, you know? And I just ask God. I said, if I could just live long enough to get that third act. So to me, I feel like I’m on the verge of my third act, especially here coming full circle with returning to the Tony Awards to do my number. To feel Effie, Michael Bennett and all of the people. I feel like I’ll they’ll all be with me Sunday, you know? OK, this is going to be your third act and what will be a new beginning. 

For tickets to see Jennifer Holliday at The Wallis in Beverly Hills, please go here.

All photographs of Jennifer Holliday courtesy Jennifer Holliday and The Wallis

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So this column is dedicated to anyone who might want to go on Jeopardy! one day, or anyone who wants to deepen their knowledge of musicals, musical-comedy and the men and women who have created them.

Option #1 is The Contemporary Broadway Musical being offered by the Pasadena Playhouse.

This is a ten-class series presented by Broadway producer Adam Epstein. He’s a five-time Tony Award nominee who took home the trophy for Best Musical when Hairspray won in 2003.

Here is the schedule for the ten classes:

February 22nd: High Flying Adored: Eva Peron delivers a Broadway coup de thé·â·tre; Gower Champion dies

March 1st: Michael Bennett’s Dreamgirls vs. Tommy Tune’s Nine

March 8th: The Empire Strikes Back: Andrew Lloyd Webber, Cameron Mackintosh and the “colonization” of Broadway: Cats, Les Miserables, The Phantom of the Opera and Miss Saigon

March 15th: La Cage Aux Folles and Into the Woods

March 22nd: Americans vanquish the British (again!): City of Angels, Crazy for You, and the return of the musical comedy

March 29th: Falsettos: William Finn and his Tight Knit Family move uptown

April 5th: Broadway in the 1990’s: Disney conquers Broadway; Rent and Ragtime conquer hearts

April 12th: From Celluloid to Greasepaint: The Producers, Hairspray and the changing face of Broadway in the 21st century

April 19th: Avenue Q and Wicked: a theatrical tale of David and Goliath

April 26th: Hamilton, Dear Evan Hansen, and the future of Broadway musicals

All of the dates above are the live presentation of each week’s topic. However, those who sign up for the classes can catch up even if you start halfway through the series. The classes will remain available to you beginning 24 hours after the conclusion of each live class. The 10-series course costs $179. (Members at Pasadena Playhouse receive at 20% discount).

Option #2: What Makes It Great?

Gershwin. Berlin. Arlen. Rodgers. Bernstein. You don’t need to add first names to the list of composers in this title. They are all legends whose work has catapulted them to the upper echelon of composers.

Rob Kapilow, the author of Listening For America: Inside the Great American Songbook from Gershwin to Sondheim, is conducting a five-episode series of classes called What Makes It Great? Celebrating the Great American Songbook beginning on February 23rd and running through March 30th.

Kapilow has teamed up with the Kaufman Music Center and JCC Thurnauer School of Music to lead explorations of these five men and their work. The classes stream on Tuesdays at 7:00 PM EST/4:00 PM PST and include a live Q&A afterwards. For those for whom that schedule doesn’t work, the classes will remain available through April 15th.

Here is What Makes It Great‘s line-up:

February 23rd: George Gershwin

March 2nd: Irving Berlin

March 9th: Harold Arlen

March 23rd: Richard Rodgers

March 30th: Leonard Bernstein

Tickets for the five classes are $50.

There is a bonus attraction on April 6th. Kapilow will be joined by Nikki Renée Daniels (the upcoming revival of Company) and Michael Winther (the upcoming Flying Over Sunset) for a performance called What Makes It Great? Stephen Sondheim. Tickets for that show are $15 and will allow ticket purchasers to watch the show through the middle of April.

With either or both of these classes, I assure you you’ll not just learn about musicals. You’ll also improve your trivia games, impress your friends who thought you knew nothing about the subject and more importantly you’ll know the difference between August Wilson and Stephen Sondheim when it’s your turn to play Jeopardy!

Photo: Broadway’s Shubert Alley (Photo by Christopher Firth/Courtesy New York Public Library Archives)

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Hair – 1969 Tony Awards

Nominated for Best Musical and Best Direction of a Musical, Hair opened on Broadway at the Biltmore Theatre and ran for 1,750 performances. The show, directed by Tom O’Horgan, did not win any Tonys. Amongst the original cast members were two of its creators Gerome Ragni and James Rado, Diane Keaton and Paul Jabara. The 2009 revival of the musical won the Tony Award for Best Revival.

Purlie – 1970 Tony Awards

Purlie was nominated for five Tony Awards including Best Musical. Cleavon Little and Melba Moore won Tony Awards for their performances. The show, directed by Philip Rose who co-wrote the book, first opened at the Broadway Theater and later moved to the Winter Garden and the ANTA Playhouse.

Chicago – 1976 Tony Awards

The original production of Kander and Ebb’s musical Chicago was nominated for 11 Tony Awards. It won none of them. Directed by Bob Fosse and starring Gwen Verdon, Chita Rivera and Jerry Orbach, the show ran for 936 performances at the 42nd Street Theatre.

A Chorus Line – 1976 Tony Awards

This is the reason Chicago didn’t win any Tony Awards. Michael Bennett’s show, with music and lyrics by Marvin Hamlisch and Edward Kleban, was nominated for 12 Tony Awards and won nine of them. Its run of 6,137 performances made it the longest running Broadway musical. It is now number six on that list. Ironically, the revival of Chicago, still running in New York, is currently number two on that list with 9,692 performances so far.

The Act – 1978 Tony Awards

This is also a Kander and Ebb musical with the unique distinction of being the only Broadway show directed by Martin Scorsese. The show received six Tony nominations with the only win being for Liza Minnelli. The Act played at the Majestic Theatre and played for 233 performances.

Sweeney Todd – 1979 Tony Awards (though I have no idea who is sitting in as Sweeney)

Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler’s musical was nominated for nine Tony Awards. The show won eight of them including Best Musical, Best Actress for Angela Lansbury and Best Actor for Len Cariou. Directed by Harold Prince, Sweeney Todd played at the Uris Theatre (later renamed The Gershwin Theatre) for 557 performances.

Evita – 1980 Tony Awards

Evita, written by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, was nominated for 11 Tony Awards. The show won seven including Best Musical, Best Actress for Patti LuPone and Best Featured Actor for Mandy Patinkin. Directed by Harold Prince, Evita played at the Broadway Theatre and ran for 1,567 performances.

Dreamgirls – 1982 Tony Awards

Dreamgirls was nominated for 13 Tony Awards and won six of them. The show, directed by Michael Bennett, played the Imperial Theatre and ran for 1,521 performances. The Henry Krieger and Tom Eyen musical featured the staggering Tony-winning performance by Jennifer Holliday as “Effie White.”

Cats – 1983 Tony Awards

Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical inspired by T.S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats was nominated for 11 Tony Awards and won seven including Best Musical. Trevor Nunn directed Cats which played the Winter Garden Theatre. The musical broke A Chorus Line‘s record for longest-running Broadway show with 7,485 performances. Betty Buckley won a Tony Award for her performance as Grizabella who sings the show’s best-known song.

Angela Lansbury and Bea Arthur – 1988 Tony Awards

Jerry Herman’s musical Mame opened in 1966 and was nominated for eight Tony Awards. Amongst the three winners were co-stars Angela Lansbury (as Mame Dennis) and Bea Arthur (as Vera Charles). 22 years later they reunited on the 1988 Tony Awards and performed their classic duet from the show. (This was the year The Phantom of the Opera won Best Musical.)

Grand Hotel – 1990 Tony Awards

Grand Hotel was nominated for 12 Tony Awards and won five including two for director and choreographer Tommy Tune and one for Michael Jeter as Otto Kringelein. The show opened at the Martin Beck Theatre and later transferred to the Gershwin Theatre. Grand Hotel ran for a total of 1,017 performances

Kiss of the Spider Woman – 1993 Tony Awards

Kander and Ebb won yet another Tony Award for this musical based on Manuel Puig’s novel (which also inspired the Academy Award-winning film.) Kiss of the Spider Woman received 11 Tony nominations winning seven of them including Terrence McNally for Best Book of a Musical and for the performances by Chita Rivera as “Spider Woman/Aurora,” Brent Carver as “Molina” and Anthony Crivello as “Valentin.” The musical, directed by Harold Prince, opened at the Broadhurst Theatre and ran for a total of 904 performances.

Passion – 1994 Tony Awards

The film Passione d’Amore by Ettore Scola was the inspiration for this Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine musical. The musical opened at the Plymouth Theatre near the end of Tony season and ran for only 280 performances. Donna Murphy, Jere Shea and Marin Mazzie starred in Passion. All three were amongst the 10 Tony nominations the show received with Murphy taking the Tony for Best Performance by an Actress. The musical won Best Score, Best Book and also Best Musical.

The Wild Party – 2000 Tony Awards

Composers Michael John LaChiusa and Andrew Lippa wrote musicals called The Wild Party. Both were based on Joseph Moncure March’s poem of the same name and both were produced the same year. LaChiusa’s show, directed by George C. Wolfe, made it to Broadway’s Virginia Theatre where it was nominated for seven Tony Awards. It did not win any and closed after a run of only 68 performances. The cast featured Toni Collette, Mandy Patinkin and Eartha Kitt.

Caroline, Or Change – 2004 Tony Awards

Playwright Tony Kushner (Angels in America) and composer Jeanine Tesori teamed up for this 2004 musical (also directed by George C. Wolfe) that received six Tony Award nominations. Anika Noni Rose was the sole winner for her performance as “Emmie Thibodeaux.” Caroline, or Change was scheduled to have a revival this season, but those plans have been postponed until next season. For anyone who saw the show at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre during its brief 136 performance run, Tonya Pinkins‘ performance of “Lot’s Wife” will stand as one of the greatest performances in modern Broadway history.

Fela! – 2010 Tony Awards

Fela! electrified audiences when it opened at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre in 2009. The musical was nominated for 11 Tony Awards and won three (including Best Choreography by Bill T. Jones). Jim Lewis collaborated with Jones (who also directed) on the book of this musical about legendary Nigerian musician Fela Kuti. The show ran for 463 performances.

Hedwig and the Angry Inch – 2014 Tony Awards

It took 16 years for this Stephen Trask and John Cameron Mitchell musical to finally make it to Broadway. The show began its life off-Broadway at the Jane Street Theatre in 1998. Directed by Michael Mayer and starring Neil Patrick Harris and Lena Hall, the show was nominated for eight Tony Awards. Harris and Hall both won and Hedwig and the Angry Inch was awarded the Tony for Best Revival of a Musical. The show ran for 507 performances at the Belasco Theatre.

The Color Purple – 2016 Tony Awards

Alice Walker’s novel inspired this musical by playwright Marsha Norman and composers/lyricists Brenda Russell, Allee Willis and Stephen Bray. This revival, directed by John Doyle, opened at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre and was nominated for four Tony Awards. It won for Best Revival of a Musical and for Cynthia Erivo’s performance as Celie. The Color Purple ran for 450 performances.

Hamilton – 2016 Tony Awards

Much like A Chorus Line (which also began its life at The Public Theater), Hamilton was the juggernaut at the Tony Awards that couldn’t be beaten. Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical was nominated for 16 Tony Awards and won 11 of them. The show, directed by Thomas Kail, is still running at the Richard Rodgers Theatre with 1,919 performances so far.

What makes this performance particular emotional is that the Tony Awards took place just after the mass shooting at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando. Given the recent events the cast opted not to use the prop guns that are usually seen in the show.

Those are 18 of my favorite Tony Awards performances. Let me know what your favorites are by posting your thoughts in our comments.

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“I love it! Someone in the cast started it and it just went like a snowball,” he said by phone last week. “They were doing it for their own amusement and it just caught on. I was so proud of them.”

The popularity of the video only mirrors the passion people have for A Chorus Line. The timing for Avian couldn’t be better as his memoir, Dancing Man: A Broadway Choreographer’s Journey, was recently published.

It was while dancing in a production of West Side Story that Avian met the man who would become his best friend and collaborator, Michael Bennett. Together they would work on such landmark shows as Company, Follies, Promises, Promises, A Chorus Line, Ballroom and Dreamgirls. After Bennett passed away in 1987, Avian would continue working on musicals including Miss Saigon, Putting It Together, Sunset Boulevard and ultimately directing that revival of A Chorus Line.

We began our conversation by talking about that iconic choreography that opens A Chorus Line. Here are edited excerpts from the interview. Comments have been edited for clarity and length.

“I Hope I Get It” has such a distinctive style. What inspired that choreography and why do you think that opening remains as vital today as it was in 1975?

What makes it special is Marvin’s [Hamlisch] music because it’s in 6 not 8. Most dance combos you count in 8. Being in six gives it a curve that’s subliminal. The attack is different and you feel it in your gut. I think that’s the root of what makes it so special. Michael did that.

You say in the book that at the age of 10 or 11, even without training, you knew you could dance. Was there one moment that made you come to that realization? Your own “I Can Do That?”

Being home alone and putting on a record player of the things I liked best and I would start dancing around and see where it took me. Being alone you have that freedom. You didn’t know what you were going to do and you let it pour out of your soul. Luckily we had a big living room. My life was concealed because I was gay and my parents were ethnic and it was a big no no. When I put on the music and closed the door and was my myself, I could be who I was and not have any censors around me.

Follies at one point had two men in drag during “Buddy’s Blues.” In 1971 that must have been played as a stereotype. What is the process where ideas like that find their way into a show and as a gay man how did you feel about it?

When we went into the show a lot of the score hadn’t been written yet. Stephen Sondheim needs to see things first. He writes his best showstoppers when he’s out of town. Whether “I’m Still Here” or “Send in the Clowns” or “Being Alive,” it’s because he sees the show. That’s part of his process. I don’t know. It just comes and you roll with it and you do the best you can.

When you and Michael accepted the Tony Award for Best Choreography for A Chorus Line, you said, “This is the professional high point of my life.” Michael said, “Michael Bennett is Bob Avian.” What meant more to you in that moment, winning the award or Michael’s acknowledgement of the importance of your contributions?

Michael and I were so close. We were brothers, never lovers. Everything we did we did together almost 24 hours a day. We were on the phone when we weren’t in the rehearsal studio. It was his ultimate compliment to say, “I love you Bobby.” It’s so much easier and nicer to share success and failure with someone.

Both Sammy Williams (who originated the role of Paul in A Chorus Line) and Baayork Lee (who originated the role of Connie in the same show) told me stories about how cruel Michael could be.

If you are successful and you are working on a multimillion dollar musical the pressure is enormous. You have to have strong shoulders to handle this. The one fear you have is are they going to fire me.

In many cases it’s about their anger in themselves. I find myself getting so angry at a dancer or a group of dancers when I’m unhappy with myself. It’s aimed at me, but it comes out of my mouth and at them. It’s like using the wrong color on a canvas.

Miss Saigon, Sunset Boulevard, the London revival of Follies and many more are part of your post-Michael Bennett career. Some artists say they don’t choose the work, the work chooses them. Is that your point of view?

Well it happens to me. I had no idea what was going to happen when Michael died. He talked me into doing Follies in London on his deathbed. I didn’t want to do it again. I kept saying it’ll never be the original production. What it gave me was Cameron Mackintosh. He just took to me and globbed onto me and dictated the rest of my career.

Michael was clearly so important to you. What do you think he’d say if he could see what you’ve done with your life and career since his passing?

Our respect for each other was so honest and so real. We exposed all our inner souls to each other. I was lucky to have that relationship. I think he would say, “Well done, Bobby.”

Photo of Bob Avian and Julie Andrews courtesy of Bob Avian

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Blues in the Night uses primarily blues songs to tell the story of three women (Cason, Bryce Charles and Paulette Ivory) who have one snake of a man in common (Chester Gregory.) Amongst the songs heard in the show are “Wild Women Have the Blues,” “Reckless Blues,” “Lush Life” and “Rough and Ready Man.”

I spoke by phone with Cason about the show, the timeliness of this production and if she’s a lady who sings the blues herself.

Are you a wild woman and do you ever have the blues?

I can be a wild woman within the parameters of the people I feel most comfortable and safe with. And I do have the blues sometimes. I think most women do, people do. I don’t stay in that place very long.

Your character is called “The Lady from the Road.” What can you tell me about these women in the show?

We’re all going through some sort of blues: we’ve been in love, love is gone, love gone wrong, love lost. My particular character has seen better days. She had a nice time traveling around doing what she loves to do. Now she’s in a cheap hotel with these other tenants who come and go. She’s got a lot of memories that are both good and bad.

One of the things that intrigues me about this show is the vast number of songs written by women like Bessie Smith, ida Fox, Ann Ronnell, Leola and Wesley Wilson, Alberta Hunter and more. Do women understand the blues more than men?

That’s a good question. I don’t want to say one knows more or less than the other. I think the blues for a man may be different than blues for a woman. What men have to do in their world as opposed to what we do as women; my blues are different than my husband’s blues. They are blues nonetheless. I could be selfish and say we got more blues. [She then lets out an infectious laugh.] We’re mothers and wives. But men have to go out and make that dollar and take care of the family.

As for the songs, Sheldon has been so smart. He conceived the piece so he knows these women. He knows the music, the period. He’s just really smart and brings so much that is helpful to the actor for our journey.

Does singing this material challenge you in ways that singing other types of music doesn’t?

It takes you to some places that you may not particularly want to go; things you don’t want to think about. The women who were singing the blues back in the day, their lives were very different in so many different ways in terms of segregation and not having the type of celebrity they should have had. For them to sing the blues they were living the blues. I don’t live the blues. My life is pretty peachy. When I think about Bessie Smith and the other women, it was rough. And you can hear it in their singing and how they interpret the songs.

Do you think the timing of a show about female empowerment happening at the same time as the #MeToo movement is a coincidence?

Let’s be honest. Metoo, you can hashtag whatever you want. It’s not new. What makes it new is we have the power of social media, the camera and all the other things. This has been going on longer than you and I were part of this world. I think women are empowered and they have a voice and use it and when we have shows like this we get to use it in an entertaining kind of way. It’s very timely.

You were Jennifer Holliday’s understudy for Dreamgirls. I guess you went on a lot. What’s your best memory of doing that show?

I did. [Her laugh returns for a moment.] Dreamgirls was my first theatrical show and first show on Broadway. I think working with Michael Bennett and Michael Peters and Henry Krieger. We’ve lost a lot of cast members unfortunately. My best memory was to be there with the creators of the show.

Kendrick Lamar wins a Pulitzer. Moonlight wins the Oscar.  Black Panther rules at the box office. Beyoncé towers over everyone at Coachella. As an African-American woman, how do you reconcile those achievements versus the day-to-day struglges like the recent Starbucks situation that others face?

I’m not going to boycott Starbucks. That’s not a Starbucks problem. That’s a woman who made a decision based on fear. I’m mad at her and the police who took the time to entertain her situation. It’s not everybody. It’s just individual people and all these individuals make up a lot of people. People are people are people. There are bad seeds in every ethnicity. I just want you to come 100% as much as you can. Be real, have good character, have integrity. That’s what I’m teaching my child. What matters is how do you make people feel. We’re a society of so much and we lose site of the goodness and the real stuff.

Jimi Hendrix said “Blues is easy to play, but hard to feel.” Do you agree with him?

I don’t know. I somewhat agree. It’s easy to feel the blues. It depends on where you are in your life. I think you can play it and I think you can feel it. When you listen to Bessie or Billie Holiday – that is nothing but pure pain coming. That’s the blues. I have to access it because I’m not living that life, but I know how to get it. I can think about things that are happening right now or my ancestors. But I’m not living it. I hate to disagree with Jimi, ‘cause I love Jimi. I would love to have that conversation with him. Who knows, maybe he could sway me. Look at him and his life. He was singing the blues.

Photo Credit for all production photos: Lawrence K. Ho

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Tommy Tune won his first Tony Award in 1974 for the Broadway musical Seesaw. He won for Best Featured Performance by an Actor in a Musical. The show was directed by Michael Bennett (who won a Tony that night for Best Choreography before going on to do a little show called A Chorus Line.)

Tune won subsequent Tony Awards for A Day in Hollywood/A Night in the Ukraine (Best Choreography), Nine (Best Director of a Musical), My One and Only (Best Actor in a Musical, Best Choreography), Grand Hotel (Best Director of a Musical, Best Choreography) and The Will Rogers Follies (Best Director of a Musical, Best Choreography). To even things out he received a Special Tony Award in 2015 for Lifetime Achievement.

I recently spoke by phone with the 79-year-old legend who had just completed rehearsals in New York for this week’s performances. We discussed his upcoming shows and his philosophy about life.

You are still rehearsing your show?

It’s my job to keep it fresh. I did 1,500 performances of My One and Only and we didn’t change the material, but that’s the technique. I sit down over tea in the morning and figure out my show. Then I go with the music director and figure out what works and what doesn’t. It’s a constant process. I have to keep changing it up. That’s the director/choreographer in me. If I were just a performer I would be grateful to do the same show every night. I can’t do it that way.

Instead you are on the road doing hundreds of performances a year. What do you do on the road to make each show unique for that audience?

I love being nomadic and going to different cities to do my show. When you are out doing a show, it’s very important I do one new thing every day like go to a museum for forty minutes to look at one painting. You pick up the vibe in the city because every city has its own vibe.  It’s important to take in one new thing.

Cerritos is a big place and then I go to Feinstein’s in San Francisco and I have to reign it in. It’s tricky. It takes a lot of time to perfect this type of entertainment. You aren’t with a company. Your scene partner is your audience.

Does the director in you butt heads with the performer in you?

The director is always butting in! I always have to tell him, “don’t bother me now, I’m on stage. Give me those notes after the show.” The director doesn’t get to come to the show, only the rehearsal. I don’t know anyone else who is a director/choreographer who does this on a regular basis. 

Do these shows satisfy your creative impulses as much as directing and choreographing a Broadway show?

It’s two different things. I’ve spent my life with a row of footlights in between. If you are on the stage those lights are shining on you. If you are on the other side, it’s a whole different thing. When I’m directing a show I’m in, with me playing my part, I’ll put my stand-in in and they do it and I go “That’s all wrong.” It felt so right but it wasn’t from my director’s head. As an actor I felt wrong, but the director was right. It’s like a split personality.

You just turned 79. Can you imagine yourself not dancing or singing or entertaining?

I don’t want to. I’m so grateful that I’m still doing it. Chita Rivera feels the same way. [Tune and Rivera regularly tour together.] Look what we’re doing and the people are enjoying it so much. It’s just a blessing. Chita said, when asked a similar question, “Nobody told me to stop.” It’s in our DNA. We have to do it. It’s an addiction of the very best kind.

You’ve said one reason for your not continuing to work on Broadway is that many members of your regular team of collaborators have passed away and that you feel “obsolete.” Do you still feel that way?

You work with people like Cy Coleman, Betty Comden, Adolph Green, Wally Harper and you develop a shorthand with these people. I live on and they are not alive. It’s generational. I can’t go looking for somebody my age. It’s not happening. I’m 79 for God’s sake. I can’t find people who have experienced what I have. It takes a toll on you.

The key to life is to stay interested. To have a curiosity about it and what’s next. That’s what’s great about touring. You don’t have a chance to get stale.  The good thing about performing is it’s not a contest. The people who see you want you to be good and the helps you be good.

I know you aren’t on social media and don’t rely on modern technology. But recently playwright Paul Rudnick tweeted in response to a football trade announcement, “A gay man’s brain: when I saw the Seahawks’ Michael Bennett was being traded, I assumed it was for Tommy Tune.” Apart from the obvious humor there, what does it mean to you to know that you continue to inspire people?

That’s why we do it. To inspire life. To inspire a good time. To inspire creatively if people work in your field. It’s our purpose, isn’t it? It’s my life’s work. I think I’m using the gifts I’ve been given and I don’t take that lightly. All that is not given is lost. If you don’t give it, you are losing it. I’m happiest when I’m in a permanent state of creativity.

Photo Credit: Franco Lacosta

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Fan-demonium in the pre-Internet era was just as aggressive as it is today
“I don’t know if I enjoyed all the attention—we had to live up to what people expected us to be in every single performance, every single company. I was shopping at Bloomingdale’s, and people were running through the aisles shouting, ‘Connie, Connie!’”

Michael Bennett was inspired by West Side Story director Jerome Robbins and used some of his tricks with the cast of ACL
“Michael was doing certain things in order to get the actors to react in the way he wanted them to. Jerome Robbins did the same thing with West Side Story, and he was Michael’s mentor. [Robbins] kept the Jets and the Sharks away from each other so they’d really be enemies on the stage. I think Michael almost did the same thing with us to keep the feeling of competing for the job.”

Bennett also manipulated the cast’s response to an injury depicted in the show
“The thing I felt was cruel was when Michael had pretended he had injured himself in order to get the accident scene. Suddenly he fell and grabbed his leg. People were running around, ‘Somebody get a doctor!’ Then he got up and said, ‘I want you to remember every single thing you did, because we are going to do that in the accident scene.’ He had a party for us that evening, but I didn’t go because I was so upset with him.”

The stage door experience with ACL was very different than it is today
“We didn’t have the Internet and all of that. We had people writing us letters. We had people waiting outside on our birthdays bringing us presents. It was so weird, but they weren’t stalkers. They were really fans. We had somebody who came to see the show 50 times because they wanted to watch one character all the way through. You had to be on point every performance. The tickets were $8 or $17.50. They can’t see Hamilton like that because it’s $500.”

The show is all about love
“It’s all about love, love, love. Didn’t [Hamilton creator] Lin-Manuel Miranda say that? We did it for love. People understand why we did it because they can see it. It’s not just about dancers. It’s about human beings, and everyone can relate to these stories.”

Though the Hollywood Bowl is massive, the show will still be the same
“I can spread it out just a little bit, but not a lot. We will be doing our show. [Audiences] will be seeing A Chorus Line as done on Broadway. This will be the original production. The orchestra has to be there visually. We aren’t used to that. [Originally] the orchestra was hidden.”

Mario Lopez, who plays Zach (and did so on Broadway), won’t be wearing a sweater, even though that’s how the part has historically been performed
“Bob Avian [director of the revival and co-choreographer of the original production] wanted to see more of [Mario’s] body because he’s very built. He also had a fitness book out, and we wanted to see his arms and all that.”

Photo Credit:  MARIO LOPEZ STARS IN THE NEW PRODUCTION OF “A CHORUS LINE,” OPENING AT THE HOLLYWOOD BOWL JULY 29
PHOTOGRAPH BY DONALD BOWERS/GETTY IMAGES FOR EXTRA

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