Dance-heavy 'A Chorus Line' on stage now through Saturday

It was July 25, 1975, when "A Chorus Line" opened on Broadway, letting audiences know there was still life to be lived by big musicals. This big musical paid tribute to the thousands of chorus dancers called "gypsies" roaming New York City's cast calls. \nThe IU Department of Theatre & Drama's season finale is a show about dancers trying to get a job in a dance chorus. The production opened Friday at the Ruth N. Halls Theatre with additional performances to be held at 7:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday.\nRunning more than 6,000 performances on Broadway, "A Chorus Line" began as a workshop. A group of dancers met after rehearsals for other shows to talk about their personal and professional lives. The sessions were tape-recorded, written down and a musical libretto was pieced together. Playwright/novelist James Kirkwood and a former dancer assembled the book. Marvin Hamlisch composed the music and Edward Kleban wrote the lyrics. Playwright Neil Simon was called in to do some unaccredited book doctoring and their combined work was closely guided by director and choreographer Michael Bennett.\nBut a skillfully crafted musical is only done justice by a skillfully crafted rehearsal process reaching into the hundreds of man hours with rehearsals devoted to music and choreography thrown in on top of an orchestra, and mixed in with the inevitable stops and starts. \n"The trick is to find a good balance between dance rehearsals and music rehearsals," said Adam Burnette, one of the show's two music directors. "This show is obviously a dance-heavy show, so it's important to get the actors moving. But just like choreography, the actors must have equal muscle memory in their singing. It really depends on the situation to say how long this show needs to really get polished and good."\n"A Chorus Line" has a "staging scheme," rather than normal narrative. It's set at an audition for an upcoming Broadway production and a director and choreography assistant choose 17 dancers. The director tells them he is looking for a strong dancing chorus of four boys and four girls, and he wants to learn more about them. They are then told to talk about themselves. The audience finds out one chorus hopeful used ballet classes to hide from a bad home life. Another dancer says if George Hamilton can be a movie star, so can he. And another dancer who's a little long in the tooth wants one last part. \nThe show's characters are introduced through a series of episodic introductions overlapping each other like cinematic jump-cuts. These introductions give a glimpse into the personalities of the performers and the choreographer as they describe the events that have shaped their lives and their decisions to become dancers. Highlights include the songs "One," "Nothing," "The Music and the Mirror" and "What I Did For Love."\n"This is not your regular 'boom-chuck' Rodgers and Hammerstein kind of show," Burnette said. "The effect is whimsical and very charming, capturing the various stories of all the actors with lots of energy. It's one of the hardest moments I've ever encountered in a musical to pull off well."\nPart of the show is called "Montage." Burnette said this is the most difficult part of the show for him because the effect happens with quick shifts and mixed meters. But the choreography is no less intricate, making a delicate balance in dividing up the rehearsal time. \n"A Chorus Line" held the distinction of being the longest-running show on Broadway until "CATS" surpassed it in 1997 and "The Phantom of the Opera" in 2006.