MANCHESTER, NH – What’s most compelling about “A Chorus Line” is the intimacy you feel as an audience member – each character seems to bare their soul to you directly as they take turns at center stage for a monologue.
There are no small parts as this ensemble cast shines with the collective wattage of a neon marquee on Broadway.
And the real charm of this show, now running at The Palace Theatre through June 22, is in the humanity of those 17 characters we get to know over the course of two acts, who aspire to careers on Broadway – if they can ever make it past the chorus line. Whether they ever score that life-changing lead role is not the point; the common thread is their passion for what they do, and the need to pursue it.
The show opens with director Zach (played convincingly by Justin Wolfe Smith) who is evaluating a stage full of some 30-plus dancers as he prepares to make the first cut – to 17, then to eight – for a show that is inconsequential to the storyline. Immediately you’re invited into the behind-the-scenes experience of auditioning for a show – “turn, turn, out, in, jump, step, step, kick, kick, leap, kick, touch…” the choreography drills repeated and perfected by each aspiring member of the chorus line.
Zach’s assistant Larry, played Saturday night by Andy Kastrati, is a polished professional there to guide the dancers through their paces and keep auditions moving. As the 17 dancers are called back for the next round of auditions, Zach lines them up and lets them know he wants to learn more about their personalities. “Be yourselves,” he tells them, stirring up all sorts of insecurities – and triggering the inner monologues meant only for the audience’s edification.
The play is unlike most typical shows in that there is no external plot line to follow – it feels like you are part of the action as it unfolds.
Musical Director John Tengowski, one-sixth of the pit band that resonates more like an orchestra, drives the action as it moves through the lively and familiar soundtrack. Most popular tunes from this 1970s show include “One (Singular Sensation)” and “What I Did for Love,” delivered with heart by Camille Graciella Theriault as “Diana,” but really the music is there to support the rigorous dance sequences – including a solo by Katie Ann Harvey, as “Cassie,” which moved the audience to hoots and cheers.
Other featured performers, well cast under the direction of Artistic Director Carl Rajotte, include: AJ Love, Olivia Warner, Marcus Byers Jr., Brooke Cox, Benjamin LeBlanc, Alberto Luis Blanco, Savannah Enoch, Kevin Bowman, Emilee Clapp, Jake Tomé Rotz, Jessie Roddy, Adam Levine, Alexis Yard, Matthew Quintero and Madeline Falco.
As the cast reassembles for the show-stopping finale in glitzy ready for prime-time performance costumes, reprising “One” there is an overwhelming sense of joy and triumph for them on their quest to be the best they can be on – or off – Broadway.
As theatre-goes filed out of the theatre Saturday night the word “fun” could be heard percolating above the humming and whistling of many patrons who themselves were reprising the first few bars of the show’s iconic them song, “One singular sensation/every little step he takes/One thrilling combination/every move that he makes…” and three lovely ladies with silvery hair and sturdy walking shoes exiting in front of me locked arms and formed their own mini-chorus line with a few kids o their own, before they were lost in laughter and the dispersed into the rainy night cityscape.
“A Chorus Line” continues at The Palace Theatre now through June 22. For tickets call 603-668-5588 or, to avoid ticket scammers, order directly from the Palace Theatre online at palacetheatre.org.