Customer Reviews

On the Line: The Creation of a Chorus Line

5 star:		(7)
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2 star:		(1)
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Viagas, Lee and Walsh, together with the rest of the original cast have made an insightful book which documents the life of this great musical. Filled with remembrances by the cast and with a good collection of photographs by several photographers their book is a treasure chest of facts and memories of Broadway's "Singular Sensation". It is nice to know that author Baayork Lee continues her association with the show after twenty five years, still directing companies of the show and now opening up a website dedicated to the show... I only hope that some day they will provide an updated version concluding with the gala final performance.

This book captures the show perfectly from people who were there: The Original Cast. This book never ceases to amaze, and move.

The biggest Broadway hit is coming back this Fall, and the book that tells the story of how it was created back in the mid 70s has come back for a revival as well.

The bulk of the book has stayed the same including the black and white photos. It is a collective oral history of the nineteen original cast members of how they got involved with the project, how they labored through the months of workshops that shaped it, and what its success has meant for their lives and careers. The new edition includes an update on the cast and what they have been doing for the past 16 years.

This is a must have for any fan of A Chorus Line.

For those of us who grew up on this show, love it and, like me, have been lucky to be in it (waaaaay off-Broadway), or for any fan of the show, this book is truly a 'treasure trove' of information, trivia and revelations about the making and development of the original production. It also provides information about the members of the original cast and their very mixed feelings about the experience. It is a bittersweet read and I would recomend it especially to those who are fascinated by the backstage stories of this theatrical landmark.

Broadway is always exciting. It's constantly in a state of change with dozens of new shows every year. But it's only once in a while that a supershow comes about, and 'A Chorus Line' was one of those. It was the 'Phantom of the Opera,' the 'Rent,' the 'Wicked' of its day. And it's back. Go see it, but you go to the show, read this book.

This book, originally published in 1990 is about the creation of the show, the actors, the people who put it on, and a bit about why the show was such a tremendous success. The book was expanded and updated for publication in 2006 to reflect what has happened to the people and the show since.

The theme of the show is on a bare stage where casting for a new Broadway musical is almost complete. The field's been narrowed down to just 17 dancers. For these men and women, this audition is the chance of a lifetime. It's what they've worked for -- with every drop of sweat, every hour of training, every day of their lives. It's the one opportunity to do what they've always dreamed of. Not to be the star, but to get the job ... to have the chance to dance and come through.

The show illustrates getting onto Broadway in a better way than I can say. This is how it is, except the book is better, as one of the actors says, he looked around the theater and finally realized that he had accomplished what he had worked for so many years to accomplish.

The Broadway hit A Chorus Line is returning to Times Square in a major revival this fall - and ON THE LINE: THE CREATION OF 'A CHORUS LINE' provides an oral history from the nineteen original cast members who recall how they become involved with the project, how it evolved from workshops, and how it made many of them lasting successes in their fields. Robert Viagas collaborated with original cast members Baayork Lee and Thommie Walsh to provide this memoir, which is a 'must' for any prior or present fans of the Broadway musical production. Many insider's views here can't be found elsewhere.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

"On the Line" filled in a lot of missing pieces of me trying to understand what happened to the Original Cast, as well as those dancers who told their stories but who did not "make the cut." I enjoyed the weaving together of the stories of all of the dancers. It's fascinating. This is the best way to get a real sense of what it felt like to be in the workshop with these talented, complicated, and exploited creators of "A Chorus Line."

It is outrageous that these artists lived on $100 a week during the workshop and signed away the rights to their life stories for $1 (because they knew they would have been fired if they had not signed). Something like 52 dancers split 1/2 of 1% of the profits.

The epilogue says it all. This book was written by the original dancers of the Chorus Line who had "unresolved emotions" and thus "set about to uncage them." So, it has the feeling of catharthis, which if you're on the receiving end of, is sometimes hard to follow or relate to. I mean, hey, let's be clear: I adore 'A Chorus Line'. I saw a touring production in Vancouver when I was twelve, I think, and it made me gay - this romantic, yearning, nostalgic tale of dancers (in cute tights). So, there was interesting back-story here, it's just that along with it is a lot of angst, the cast upset with how they were treated by Michael Bennett, worried about their roles, worrying about being on the inside or outside, cliques, money issues. Performers are often dramatic, sensitive, so this is office politics gone to hell. And it's really long.

While the personal attachment to the project is evident, it would have been nice if the publishers had sprung for a stronger writer and editor to pull back some of the pedestrian prose; that feeling that they're trying to press on the reader about WHAT BEING A DANCER IS REALLY LIKE is tiresome.

I found the Appendix perhaps most interesting, to see what the cast went on to do afterwards (the appendix was added to the 2006 updated edition). My biggest criticism is that with a book primarily about 19 cast members, a pictorial guide would have really useful - I know it might have been difficult at the time to get but a simple close snapshot of each cast member, with their name and the role they played. There are a handful of photos where you can see some of the cast members, but in the end, it was frustrating to have shared a nearly 400 page book with these people and not know what some of them looked like!