"A Chorus Line"

August 31, 2011 — A Marvin Hamlisch score, brilliant dance routines, pretty girls in skimpy costumes, what better way to close the 2011 summer theatre season. The Mount Washington Valley Theatre Company staged "A Chorus Line" at the Eastern Slope Inn Playhouse in North Conway, New Hampshire. This popular musical which ran on Broadway over 6,000 times and was the longest running show in Broadway history up to that time, won nine Tony Awards as well as the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

The show is about a group of singer/dancers auditioning for a place in the chorus line of a Broadway musical. The cast of nineteen was talented and energetic. Over the course of the musical, each character relates his or her aspirations, dreams and fears in response to questioning by the director, played by Grant Golson. All were great, but I have to give special mention to Liz Clark Golson who turned in a dazzling song and dance number, with R-rated language, extolling the virtues of her physical attributes. The band, consisting of two pianists and a drummer, sounded just a bit tinny, but the acoustics of the Playhouse could be to blame for that rather than the musicians.

The finale was a triumph when the nineteen performers, after an unbelievably quick change, came out in matching gold costumes and performed a Rockettes-style high-kicking chorus line to wrap up the show.