‘CHORUS LINE’ BUBBLES WITH EMERGING TALENT

It was much later in the evening--past midnight following the press performance and opening of Porchlight Music Theatre’s singularly sensational revival of “A Chorus Line” at Ruth Page Center for the Arts Sunday--that I realized the significance of April 15. Exactly 44 years ago, to the day, “A Chorus Line” opened at the Public Theatre, before moving to the Shubert Theatre in July that year to begin a run of 6,137 performances, the longest running show in Broadway history at the time. As conceived, directed and originally choreographed by Michael Bennett with book by James Kirkwood and Nicolas Dante, music by Marvin Hamlisch and lyrics by Edward Kleban, it garnered nine Tony Awards and the 1976 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.