A Chorus Line

One of my best friends in high school was Christopher Patrick Mullen.  He was then and is now an actor (he is performing in Cinderella at People's Light & Theatre through January 4).  Back in high school he was of course very interested in Broadway, and spoke often about shows that he had seen and was interested in.

One of these shows was A Chorus Line.  Chris infected another friend of mine, Gerry, with excitement about the show.  Gerry bought the original cast album (which you can still find on Amazon, though now you have to buy it as a CD and not as an LP).  I remember Gerry excitedly showing me this album just after he got it.  Now, my memory gets a little fuzzy here - I'm not sure whether I borrowed the album, or made a cassette recording of it -  but I remember listening to this album.  A lot.  I loved the music, and the songs became pretty familiar to me.

Friday night I saw A Chorus Line with Kathie in Philadelphia at the Forrest Theater, and all the joy of that music came rushing back to me.  Of course, I loved the jokes, and the dancing was sparkling, and I enjoyed cheering for our own Jessica Latshaw Copeland as much as possible.  But hearing those songs performed live is what gave me goose bumps.  Take, for instance, the song One - the curtain call song of the musical, and the big production number of the musical within the musical.  It is one of those hokey, over-the-top, woman-on-a-pedestal numbers that thankfully went out of fashion sixty years ago. But there is something about the fantastic melody and grand production that make the eye-rolling lyrics work.  I loved it - in fact, I got annoyed that the audience was clapping so much because I wanted to better hear the singing at the end!  I have been singing that song (and, for some reason, Hello Twelve, Hello Thirteen, Hello Love) ever since Friday night.


I really enjoyed the show Friday night.  The ticket was expensive, but I am glad that I went.  Jessica was great, and very funny during her song.

I have to tell on her, though.  I caught her, toward the end, shifting her weight on her feet - probably because her shoes were hurting her.  And we did hear her voice above the others for about two measures in the first rendition of One.  Nothing bad, mind you - most people probably wouldn't have caught it.  We were actually glad that we got to hear her really sing, instead of act like she can't sing as she does in her song Sing! (make sense?)

But one thing that I really enjoyed was seeing Jessica after the show. You see, we were there the night a large group from the Delaware Dance Company was there. At one point after the show I looked across at Jessica, surrounded by all these girls from the Company. She was smiling and talking with them in her very animated way. And it was just sweet to see the way that she was so gracious and generous with them.  She really looked to be in her element speaking with them, as much as she looked to be in her element while she was dancing during the show. I'm glad that she is finding success.

Reminder: A Chorus Line is pretty much R-rated, for language and thematic elements. If you need a flavor of what you will run into, listen to some of the samples of the soundtrack album available at Amazon.