“I just hope the audience gets out of it what us actors on stage get out of it. “Our department chair said in a newsletter that he chose this to be the season ender because it’s his favorite show and many people who are involved in musical theater’s favorite,” said Rex Glover, a 22-year-old senior double majoring in musical theater and dance. and again on April 23 at 2 p.m., The University of Alabama’s theatre and dance department will perform that beloved musical, “A Chorus Line,” at the Marian Gallaway Theatre as the department’s season finale. That Broadway dream, and struggle, is so intimately familiar to performing artists that there’s a classic musical about it, one that’s beloved by those in and outside of the profession. Viewed as the epitome of commercial theatre, many performing artists believe that if they can make it on Broadway they’ve reached the top and the doors of opportunity will swing open, leaving their days as starving artists behind. Nearly every dancer, actor and singer dreams of performing on Broadway. 4 (gates open at 6:30 p.m.TUSCALOOSA, Ala. “That’s a full-circle moment right there,” he said.
He lives in Culver City, within walking distance of the movie studio where “Singin’ in the Rain” was filmed 70 years ago. Guerrero is still performing regularly, and he teaches dance at both UC Los Angeles and the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. He’s now one of a handful of choreographers approved by the Robbins Rights Trust to reproduce Robbins’ steps in “West Side Story.” His career high point was performing in the final national production of “West Side Story” that original choreographer Jerome Robbins oversaw before his death in 1998. He has worked successfully ever since as a performer, director and choreographer in theater, television and opera in the U.S., Europe and China. “As soon as I saw Gene Kelly dancing, I knew that was what I wanted to do,” he said, though at Cal State Los Angeles he studied both child development and ballet, so he’d have a backup career as a teacher if his Broadway dreams fell through.Īt 21, he moved to New York, spent a year on scholarship in the Alvin Ailey dance school, and then hit the stage. At age 12, he discovered theatrical dance while watching a dubbed version of the 1952 film “Singin’ in the Rain” on TV. in a Mexican family where Spanish was the only language spoken until he was in his teens. For any audience member that sees the show, one of those people they’ll see onstage is someone they will connect with.”
“Over the years I’ve grown to associate more with different characters because of where I am in my life. “It’s all about wanting to be loved and accepted, and we all want that,” he said. Their confessional songs include worries about aging, their looks, their sexuality, their passion for dance and their fear of failure. Many sing and dance their responses, hoping desperately to be among the final eight chosen for the parts. After the first cut, the unseen director asks each performer questions about their personal lives. She will coach the singers and conduct the orchestra.īased on taped interviews choreographer Michael Bennett recorded in 1974 with a group of New York dancers, “A Chorus Line” is set at a dancer’s audition for a musical in development a couple dozen dancers are being put through their paces. He is also re-teaming with Randi Rudolph, who served as music director in the Welk show. Guerrero said he hired back about half of the Welk cast, but to freshen things up, he has moved some of the actors into different roles. The Pulitzer Prize-winning show-within-a-show will open a three-week run Wednesday at Vista’s Moonlight Amphitheatre. Now, as theaters reopen, Guerrero is back in the director’s chair for the first time since March 2020, directing another production of “A Chorus Line” just 10 miles away. Back in January 2020, director/choreographer Hector Guerrero mounted a production of the 1975 musical “A Chorus Line” at the Welk Resort Theatre in Escondido, which was forced to shut down two weeks early when the pandemic arrived last year.