Now Fran, you were the original rehearsal pianist?
That's right.
So you worked with Marvin Hamlisch, the composer?
I was his assistant on the show.
So do you think your life will be the same now that the show is closing?
It's been changed by it, that's for sure.
Good or bad?
For the better.
I met my husband there.
I have a little boy who's five.
And it's like family, you know.
It's more than just a show.
It sure is, more than just a show.
Now in a chorus line, just like in a real audition, the dancers are asked by the director
to do more than sing and dance.
They have to tell the director all about themselves and often how they became dancers.
Now here is Mike Peterson, Matt Peterson playing Mike.
Okay Mike, I'll start with you.
Why did you start dancing?
Because of my sister, Rosalie.
See, I come from this big Italian family.
My grandmother's always hanging out of a window, leaning on a little pillow.
That's what Italian grandmothers do, hang out of windows.
Anyway, I was the last of 12.
I was an accident.
That's what my sister said.
Well, that was her sister, Rosalie.
She was the one who started taking dance lessons.
My mother would take her every Saturday and she used to take me along.
How old were you?
Four.
And I'd sit there all perky and I'm watching Sis go pit a pat.
Said, I can do that.
I can do that.
Knew every step right off the bat.
Said I can do that.
I can do that.
One morning Sis won't go to dance class.
I grabbed her shoes and tights and all, but my foot's too small so I stuffed her shoes
with extra socks.
Run seven blocks and nothing's flat.
Well, I can do that.
I can do that.
I got to class and had it made and so I stayed the rest of my life.
Oh, that's the best.
Now married at bat.
Said I can do this.
I got to dance.
Oh, that's the best.
Oh, that's the best.
And she said, I can do that.
Oh, that's the best.
Oh, that's the best.
Oh, that's the best.
The Singular Sensation, a chorus line, a tribute to the longest running show in Broadway history.
And it continues after this.
A tribute to A Chorus Line.
Donna, I remember when in 1983, A Chorus Line passed Greece and became the longest running musical in history.
You came back, you the original Cassie came back, as did all the Ava 10 companies that were out there.
But the reason I bring that up is it's how your life seems to parallel the life of Cassie, the part that you played.
You know, you were, Cassie was a big star, comes back, needs to get a job.
I didn't intend it to be this way, but it would seem that way.
But really, it's not.
I guess because it's about show business, that's the, you know, the subject matter.
It's the contour of everyone's career, you know, that this happens.
But I mean, I always used to say, if we wrote about a secretarial pool, would it be the same thing?
I keep getting this.
But yeah, after the fact, I live in California.
And I think the thing that's really different about my life, of course, much of it is different.
That character was a composite.
Is that I'm, you know, not trying to get back in the chorus.
I'm doing very well on my own, really.
So is that an answer to your question?
But did this, Priscilla, did the show have everything that you hoped it would?
For you and your personal life?
Well, it just, well, yes, almost.
I did lose out on one thing.
I didn't get the Tony.
I was nominated for the Tony, but I lost out to my good friend, Kelly Bishop.
So one of us had to lose.
Actually, I really wanted both of us to win.
That would have been the perfect ending to the perfect story tied up in a bow.
But it didn't.
So if there was any down moment for me, that was the only one.
How did it touch your life?
How did it affect you from the moment you left the performance?
How has your life affected?
From the show?
Yeah.
Well, it allowed me to compete on a higher level.
That's all.
I mean, it doesn't ever mean that you stop competing.
You know, that's something about this business.
You work and you work, and people assume that you get to certain levels and everything's just fine.
And it's not.
You're just on a more difficult level to compete with, you know, on another level.
So you're always competing.
It just allowed me to have visibility, to make people aware of who I was,
and to allow me to get into circles that I was not at that point into.
I had opened way to Los Angeles and television shows and talk shows.
I mean, suddenly people wanted to talk to me and find out about, you know, chorus line in my life.
And so it just brought a lot of attention to me and allowed me to take another step.
See, with many of us, too, I think that this will always come up with us
because so many of us have gone off and have other careers.
I mean, we're still doing what we've always done and always love to do with any project, as you know.
It's always a baby, a new beginning.
So you're constantly proving yourself, if not in an audition, in a new production, right, Joe?
Is that why the Universal Appeal, you know, because most of the six and a half million people who have seen it
have no real personal involvement in show business, but everyone has gone for a job.
Everyone has been tested. Everyone has had to compete.
I think the job factor is certainly one of the most instrumental things in having people identify with the show.
I think, but mostly it's so well put together and it was always so well done.
I mean, you can want to say anything with the show, but unless it's done in a remarkable way,
the show would not work. But there's no question that was universal.
And the homosexual factor, the young guy who grew up gay and his story was also a very strong emotional base
of this show that I think made it accessible to lots of people.
I'm a big fan of A Chorus Line. I've seen the show three times and it's my favorite musical and I love it.
And then about five years ago, I think, the movie came out, A Chorus Line.
And I hated the movie. And it seems to me that the only people that liked the movie
were the people that never saw the show.
I was wondering if any of you had ever seen the movie and your thoughts on it.
Well, we went together as a group.
We went on mass, holding hands.
Now, can I say something? I hate to interrupt, but I had the experience of doing the first
English speaking company in France in 1987.
And the thing is, the movie, first of all, you can't compare it to the play.
It's very different. They've changed too much.
Don't be too diplomatic here.
Well, I'm trying to say that the positive thing, it's not our show.
I mean, it's not. All the values are different.
But in London, the positive, I mean, in Paris, the positive thing is that it paved the way.
It was so successful over there that we were finally able to get our show over there.
The story with that actually was that we had nothing to do with making that movie.
We wanted to make the movie.
Michael was in a deal with Universal to make that movie originally,
but they didn't get on too well and I can understand why.
Tinselland doesn't really fit Michael Bennett.
So they never worked it out.
And we gave them every opportunity to have people who know the show do the film.
If Michael had been around, and he was around at that time to do the show,
he would have had a different film. It was a Hollywood film.
It had really nothing to do with the smell of grease paint.
Do I take it that you were not a fan of it either?
Oh, certainly I was not a fan of it.
I wanted to succeed because there was a lot of money to be made on it had the film succeeded.
On the other hand, I wasn't pleased with the film at all.
Mr. Papp, I would like to personally thank you for bringing Shakespeare to New York.
And I would like to ask you, with the impending budget cuts,
will there still be Shakespeare in New York this summer?
Right, there will be and some surprising...
Free theater, Joseph Papp has put on for years.
Ten-hundredths of thousands of New Yorkers.
First, I would like to congratulate, to congratulate and salute each one of you for your fine job.
I have a question that's kind of eating me up.
With all of the unemployment here today and people on the street, how do you feel unemployed today?
How do we feel unemployed?
Was anyone unemployed? I don't know.
We have to go out of business.
Oh, these were the original cast members. I don't know if they'll be unemployed.
Well, presently, thank God, I'm not unemployed.
I'm doing a wonderful off-Broadway show called Other People's Money,
which you were all invited to come see.
But being an actress is something, unemployment is something that you deal with every day.
It's right here. You never know when a show is going to close.
You never know when you're going to get your next job.
So it's something that is built into the mechanism of working in this business.
And you learn to deal with it. Otherwise, you can't exist.
I'm going to ask one more question.
Sure.
Is there a fear, do you have a fear of going broke?
Every day I have that fear.
But that's part of acting, is auditioning is part of your life.
Isn't it? You're constantly putting yourself out there to be rejected or accepted.
Well, no, you're constantly putting yourself out there to get a job, not to be rejected, because that's not fun.
And I hate to audition for anything I don't want.
You know, when the agents used to say, well, go for the experience, I said, I don't need any experience doing that.
You know, if I want something. And then I worked very hard at the audition to get the job.
But, well, I seen the original show 14 and a half years ago,
and I would like to know how long Donna was married to Michael Bennett.
Just about a year.
One year, yeah. No, he passed away in 87. They were married in 76, right?
76, yeah, December.
Would he have agreed with your decision to close the show?
Michael? He was a very practical guy.
And if money wasn't coming in, he would be the first one. In fact, he would call me up and tell me to close the show.
How's business now that you've announced the...
It's going way up, and if people want to see that show, they better buy tickets now,
because we're almost sold out for the entire remaining part of the run. We're closing on March 31st.
But there still are a couple of tickets left.
There are more than a couple. There are four tickets left.
Okay. A Chorus Line, a Tribute. Stay with us. We'll be right back.
A Tribute to a Chorus Line.
One of the questioners asked our panelists how they felt about the peril of being unemployed with the show closing.
Now, they all, fortunately, are not going to be unemployed.
Troy Garza has worked on that show for 14 years. Most of your adult life.
I mean, does that make you insecure now?
Well, sometimes I feel insecure, and usually I don't. I figure that I'll get work.
After 14 years of eight shows a week, working six days a week, I'm ready to take a month off, you know,
and thank Michael Bennett for my house in the country.
Could have been worse.
Yeah, I'm going to go up there and watch 650 irises bloom all summer.
And after that, I'll start looking for a job. Do you need any assistance here?
We do. A dance captain is what you play, right?
Yeah, I can do lots of things, though.
And I can't dance, so hey, let's...
Darn it, how have the fans reacted differently to this particular piece as compared to something else you've done?
I've gotten letters over the years that are quite different from shows like I've done, like Anna, Get Your Gun, or Can Can, let's say,
where they say, we like your show, we love Irving Berlin, you're wonderful, whatever.
And the fan mail from chorus line is profound in that people say, this show has changed my life.
And in talking to people who've seen it, many times it really has.
They've...people who have a sense of hopelessness, perhaps, from all different walks of life and different age groups, you know,
because one executive was dropped after a whole career and had to start over again,
and he was really feeling despair and saw the show and wrote me a letter and said, I was really feeling like the lowest ebb,
and then I saw the show and it gave me encouragement to start a new business, and I want to thank you and your friends.
And, you know, these letters are...that's wonderful. That's the show. That's beyond performing, you know.
What's the record of the most times a person that you know of has seen a chorus line?
Well, I don't know. I don't know. I've lost a few years and then being separated from it,
but at one point there was one little fellow that used to come to the stage door and just was a great fan,
and at one point I said, you're here again? Again, this was like after 40 times.
I don't know where he got the money, but he just said, yes, I just love the show and I'll come back.
And I said, boy, you're really an amazing kind of a fan. He said, yeah, but I saw you fall off your turn tonight.
I said, that's the last time I'm talking to him. He's probably doing it somewhere now.
Joe, I heard tickets are going up for this oncoming, you know, Miss Saigon going up to $100 for some mezzanine seats.
What did you charge when it opened? Eight bucks?
Yes, we had the top price was 15, but you had seats for $8 as well. Times have changed, let's say, the last 15 years.
Movies probably cost a buck then.
Well, movies are up to $7, so there have been increases, but the price is really,
because of the whole economic structure of Broadway, much too high for the average person.
You know, near the end of the show, one of the dancers is injured in the show itself,
and it makes the other dancers wonder why they keep on dancing, why they go on.
I'd like to introduce Roxanne Biggs right now, singing a part as Diana about this injured dancer.
Come on out.
Applause
Kiss today, goodbye, the sweetness and the sorrow.
Wish me luck, the same to you. But I can't regret what I did for love, what I did for love.
Look, my eyes are dry. The gift was ours to borrow. It's as if we always knew.
And I won't forget what I did for love, what I did for love.
Love is never gone. Love is never gone. As we travel on, love's what we'll remember.
Kiss today, goodbye, and point me toward tomorrow. We did what we had to do.
I won't forget, can't regret what I did for love, what I did for love.
What I did for love. Love is never gone. As we travel on, love's what we'll remember.
Kiss today, goodbye, and point me toward tomorrow. We did what we had to do.
I won't forget, can't regret what I did for love, what I did for love.
What I did for love.
Rock Panville, singing the part of Diana. We'll be right back. Beautiful. Just beautiful. Thank you so much.
A tribute to the longest running musical. Priscilla, you know, as Roxanne was singing the Diana, what I did for love, I noticed you were mouthing the words as the original.
Must touch it, isn't it? It does. You know, you always think that I can deal with this. And it always catches me. I'm one of those surprise reactors.
You know, you walk into an elevator and you hear the music and you go, am I saying that song? You know, so it's nice. And she sang it so beautifully. It was really nice.
Any similar sacrifice in your personal life you want to relate to us? Have you done something for love? You married the trombone player.
That was for love. Yeah. I, you know, I think I'm a really lucky person. I don't feel like I've sacrificed a lot of things. I've been able to have a career and a husband and a family.
I have two beautiful children and took time to do that and have come back and I continue to work. And I feel very blessed.
You know, the sacrifice has been maybe when I was younger as a child going to the lessons and I couldn't go to the movies on Saturday and I couldn't play and do all of those childhood things.
I missed some of my childhood, but I was getting something else and I'm glad I did because it helped with the rest of my life.
I was wondering how much practice is involved? Lots. How much is lots?
Hi, yeah, I was wondering where did you all get your schooling? Like how do you go about, you know, getting on Broadway?
Training? Well, I, can I say something? Because I was able to travel around and there's wonderful dance schools all over the country.
And my advice would be to really find a good teacher in what you want to do and really study hard. I mean, in anything you just have to work really hard and you have to really love it.
Because don't be so quick to come to New York. New York will always be here and it's very expensive.
So if you have good training in your hometown, stay with it and get a good education.
I would like to know how you feel to watch somebody else do your song that you originated.
That goes to both of you, actually.
Well, I will. I love to, whenever I can, train people to do the show.
I'm not always able to do it, but with the beautiful Cassie on Broadway now, Laurie Gamache, who is just here, I did a company in Japan and she was the understudy.
And I was able to help her. What you do is you train, but then the person really takes it and makes it their own. And then you feel very proud of being able to do that.
I'd like to know what are your predictions about the next super show to hit Broadway, now that the chorus lines?
There are numbers of super shows already there on Broadway that are selling out. Phantom of the Opera, a few of the others, Les Mis, all that.
What the next American production will be, I think it's still in the wings, but it'll happen.
Is Broadway going to go through a similar doldrum that it was suffering in the mid-70s?
It seems to parallel the decline of New York City, which economically seems in the offing right now.
Well, things seem to be the same, but they're always different in one respect or another. The times are different.
We don't know what's going to happen culturally. Europe in 1992 is going to be one huge continent.
And there's going to be a lot of interplay of cultures and so forth. We have to get into that some more.
Some of the people here have traveled and gone around and played in various countries, have a good sense of that.
I think we're going to be less parochial, less kind of just people who speak one language will speak more than one language.
We have to in order to survive.
You know, just hearing a classic like What I Did for Love makes me think of another show that had a couple of classic tunes, The Fantastics.
And after it had its time in the big spotlight, it went to a small house and it's still playing probably 25 years later.
Why not do that with the Chorus Line? Why not go back to the Public Theater or to some little cabaret down in the village?
Well, first of all, Chorus Line was never thought of as playing in a small theater, even though it started working in a small theater.
Its conception from the very beginning, Michael's conception, was a big Broadway musical that dealt with Broadway dancers.
And I think we've established that we don't want to retreat at this point and it would be impossible to survive down there for any great length of time because of the economics.
You need a decent company. You want to pay decent salaries. You'd have to retrogress.
And I don't think that's the proper thing to do, even if we could do it.
So you'd rather go out big with that. Sold out Broadway.
Absolutely. That's the way to go.
Come in that way as you go out that way.
Okay, Chorus Line, we've got to go out to commercial. Stay with us.
We are back with this singular sensation with Don McEachney, Priscilla Lopez, and Joe Papp.
You know, people are confronted by a series of random chances in their life.
And yours, this one, has worked out so well, not just for yourselves and the Shakespeare Festival, but really for Broadway audiences, millions and millions of people.
Was there, however, ever a time where you thought, Donna, that you didn't want to go through with this, that you wanted to get out?
No, there was never a time that I thought that.
But I have a quick thing to tell you. There was a time when this always wasn't a wonderful play.
You know, in the beginning, the meager beginnings, as I call it, the public theater, we had been working, remember, 14 hours a day.
And without music before, it was four hours. We called it the Towering Inferno, where each person got up and told the most sad childhood story.
After we worked on it, and Marvin Hallish and Ed Kleban came, and we really had something to show, Joe Papp gave us the luxury of having all of his private time and Michael Bennett could work.
And finally, Michael really needed Joe to give him some objectivity.
And so Joe and his staff, I remember the day, came in and saw it for the first time in the public theater, that little black stage.
And afterwards, Michael turned to Joe in great need and said, well, what do you think?
And he said, it's the greatest thing I ever saw.
And so Michael, of course, went, what good are you to me? Get out of this theater. Of course, it wasn't a theater, but that's a true story.
And I'm just so happy to confirm that. I've heard that all these years, and I love that, because this was not always the hit.
It is now, and it's wonderful to see that people stay with something very real and work really hard, and everybody can do it.
Priscilla, should we feel a sense of nostalgia, of passing, of sadness at losing this old friend?
Yes and no, yes, because it is an old friend, and it's, you know, sort of putting it to sleep or letting it go.
But at the same time, it was such a terrific, triumphant friend, and successful and exciting.
And it gave so many people so many wonderful dreams and hopes and jobs and futures that I think we're all very grateful for the experience of what it was and what it is.
And we'll probably still remain anyway in our hearts and companies to come.
The show, as we've known doing it in different times, has always been a star and always had a life of its own. It always created the demand, rather.
It always did, and that's the only way I guess I defend against the sadness. There will always be people that want to see it and will bring it back.
What about that, literally? Will there be a revival?
Oh, without a question, there will be numbers of revivals. In fact, there are performances going on throughout the entire country.
We're still getting royalties on these things, but I'm sure that there will be a tour right after.
And I just got a call from someone who's the head of the National Theatre of Romania that would like to do a chorus line.
Andrei Serban, who's been an American citizen, but now they wanted him to head the National Theatre.
So I just talked to these two ladies about the possibility of one of them directing that in Romania.
So if they're doing it in Romania, they can do it any place in the world, you see, with all due respect to Romania.
They have that one number, and one is what it's called, one singular sensation.
We don't have 20 dancers, but we have five great ones, so let's approximate that wonderful number, one.
["Singular Sensation"]
["Singular Sensation"]
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["Singular Sensation"]
Ah, yes. Dreams come true here, too.
Well, we're on Broadway.
I just want to remind everyone, if you have a chance to be in New York until the 31st of March to see this fabulous show,
there are still, as Joe said, some tickets available.
Come on out. Come on, come on, Joe.
I mean, it really is wonderful. Thank you for being here.
This wonderful show, Chorus Line, the longest-running show in Broadway history.
Unfortunately, it closes at the end of the month, but you still got your chance.
Thanks for being here, everybody.
Joe Pab, Donna McKechnie, Priscilla Lopez, our wonderful Chorus Line, our wonderful ensemble playing here.
And thank you folks in the audience for being here. You folks at home for watching.
We'll see you next time. Bye-bye.
["Singular Sensation"]
Bulletin, bulletin, bulletin. I've just heard from Joe Pab himself that as a result of the tremendous audience response
to the announcement that a Chorus Line was closing at the end of March,
they have decided to extend its run an additional four weeks.
So you have until April 28th. That's April 28th to catch the Singular Sensation.
A Chorus Line through April 28th. It's good news.
["Singular Sensation"]