"A Chorus Line" Offers Audiences a Glimpse Behind the Scenes of Showbiz

With its upcoming production of the musical “A Chorus Line,” the is showing audiences an intimate, personal look at the audition process for performers with a large-scale production.

“'A Chorus Line' is the classic, iconic show that really sort of changed the course of Broadway musicals in general,” said Anthony Rodriguez, the show's producer. First performed in 1975, it was the first musical about dancers – “their loves, their fears, their trepidations as they take on this career,” Rodriguez said.

Rodriguez has performed in “A Chorus Line” before, at Hilton Head Playhouse, and the show helped inspire him to become an artist, he said.

“It was a chance to be a part of a musical I had grown up with and felt very connected to,” he said.

This time, he will play the role of Zach, the director in the show for whom the other characters will audition. Just like when he does real-life auditions for the Aurora Theatre, his character Zach gets to talk to and interview actors while deciding who to cast in the show.

One of those characters is Cassie, played by Pamela Gold.

“She's a dancer who, you find out, has been in a relationship with a director in the musical you're coming to see. She's kind of down on her luck and needs a job,” Gold said. “She has come to realize that her passion is to dance. The status or the fame she achieves doesn't matter; she just needs to dance.”

By showing the audition process, “A Chorus Line” deglamorizes the world of the theatre, Gold said.

“It's wonderful. It's like a drug,” she said. “But you really do see what actors go through to get a job.”

And although the show can be somewhat autobiographical for performers, Gold said the characters' stories are universal.

“The personal stories that these characters relate and the struggles they're going through are completely relatable to everyone in the audience,” she said.

Like Rodriguez, Gold has performed in other productions of “A Chorus Line” – this will be her fourth time.

“It's exciting to come back to a piece that's so close to my heart and hopefully bring something new to it,” she said. “Each cast of actors makes the show its own.”

With 26 actors and 10 band members, “A Chorus Line” is the largest musical ever performed at the Aurora Theatre. Although the show began with the stories of dancers, its music and dance numbers are also ambitious, said musical director Ann-Carol Pence.

“The show was created off Broadway dancers' real interviews,” Pence said. “Once they told their stories, the music was kind of put under that.”

The show lasts two hours without an intermission, and the band plays for almost all of that time, Pence said. “A Chorus Line” includes several well-known songs – “What I Did For Love”, “At The Ballet” and “One! (Singular Sensation)”.

“It really is a revolutionary musical,” Pence said. “It's just a blank stage with some mirrors. The director is kind of disembodied from the group, and that's how it feels in an audition.”

The realistic setup makes it easy for characters to incorporate their own experiences into their characters.

“I'm just trying to draw from my own life this time around,” Gold said. “I think I have a more realistic view of life, and I have the same appreciation for being able to do what I love as Cassie does.”

"A Chorus Line" at the Aurora Theatre

August 4 - September 4

Wednesday - Saturday at 8 p.m.

Saturday and Sunday at 2:30 p.m.

Tickets $16-35