It was the stitching together of all its elements in that purest of theatrical areas, a deep and empty stage, by its director-choreographer that made A Chorus Line so thrilling to its audience.
– Frank Rich, The New York Times theatre critic, 1994.
From an era when a critic’s harsh words could close a production overnight, nobody wielded a sharper critical blade than The New York Times' Frank Rich, aka 'The Butcher of Broadway'. For 13 years, producers would wait by newsstands for the first bundle of morning papers to be flung from the delivery trucks, frantic with anticipation of Rich’s live-or-die opinion. It’s a quintessential New York image.
Adam Del Deo and James Stern’s Every Little Step is full of quintessential moments. Mirroring the joy and despair of the audition process that is at the heart of A Chorus Line, their documentary follows the casting of the 2006 revival of the show, which had not been seen on Broadway for 16 years. They capture the callous nature of the audition process as hopefuls are identified and discarded; 'Dancers 3, 9 and 14, see costuming. The rest, goodbye."
Egos, emotions, friendships, dreams are all laid bare in Every Little Step, which provides one of the most revealing insights ever into the fragility of artistic ambition and the brutality of the collaborative creative process.
The beguiling film retraces the steps taken by the show’s creator, Michael Bennett, as he collated the thoughts of dozens of his friends, all of whom had been struggling to make it as Broadway stars. Archival images of Bennett, composer Marvin Hamlisch and lyricist Edward Kleban are pieced together with the original voice-recordings of Bennett and his troupe discussing their early hardships. Many of their anecdotes would appear in the show, verbatim.
Bennett’s understanding of the loneliness of the background dancer is perfectly realised in the grand finale rendition of the tune 'One', in which all the eclectic personalities of the dancers meld for the production – they have made it, but are as invisible as ever. They are the dance now, not the dancers. 'It fades with them kicking. That's it. That's the end of the show. There are no bows. I don't believe in bows, just the fade out. That's what a dancer's life is." says Bennett.
Michael Bennett won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for A Chorus Line. The show would win every major live theatre award of its time, including Best Musical honours at The Tonys and the Antoinette Perry awards of 1976. But it is the honesty with which the film captures the struggle of the chorus line dancer that has made it so beloved amongst the theatrical community. Every Little Step pays exhilarating homage to Bennett’s status amongst the dance community and the legacy he left (Bennett died from AIDS-related lymphoma in 1987).
And Frank Rich loved Michael Bennett’s musical A Chorus Line. The play ran for a staggering 6,137 performances – a Broadway record – finally shuttering on April 28, 1990. Frank Rich was not a theatre reviewer when the play opened in 1975 (he was film critic for Time magazine in those days), but he did review A Chorus Line’s 3,389th performance - the night it became the longest running Broadway show in history. It’s a beautifully pitched piece of writing that many scholars regard as one of the best pieces of American post-war journalism.
A Chorus Line inspired Frank Rich to do his best work; Every Little Step understands what so energised the critic and enthrals audiences to this day.
*Quotes taken from 'Michael Bennett’s A Chorus Line: Parts 1-3’ by William J. McKay, 1998.
