A Chorus Line, summer 1989

The summer musicals were always fun to work on.

Most everybody loves musicals; big casts, flashy sets and many costumes along with fun songs.

Musicals are also lots of work but A Chorus Line is a different kind of musical that has many special challenges.

The basic cast is made up of 17 plus 12 or more extras needed for the opening number.

After the opening number, I hope I get It, about half of the cast is cut and sent home.

In our production the extra actors would leave the stage, change and go home as they are not need again and did not get a curtain call.

A Chorus Line is different from the traditional musical that we had been doing in that all of the actors needed all had to be triple threats.

They had to be able to sing, dance and act, something not always easy to find in one person let alone the 17 needed for the show.

In traditional musicals there are always a few leads and then a mixture of extra actors who may sing or dance or just take up space on the stage and look good in their costume.

Although some Brockport students were used many in the cast came from the Theatre Rochester Community.

Our department scene designer had left and the new one was not yet on staff so the production manager from the Dance department designed.

A Chorus Line does not require a traditional set but Christian Tucker, a long time theatre designer, did a nice job on the set.

OK, most of the show the set is simply a white tape line along the floor but there was also a big decorative curtain used in the final musical number.

It was made up of various shinny and reflective materials from Rosco.

A line of mirrors along the back of the stage are the signature set pieces for the play.

The mirrors were not hard to make.

We used Rosco shrink mirror on special wooden frames.

The mirror is attached to the frames and then using a heat gun the mirror shrinks and tightens up leaving a glass like result.

The first few frames went fairly quick and we thought that this was going to be easy.

The second roll of the mirror did not shrink as easily as the first and we started to get little burn marks.

When we got to the third roll it would not shrink at all. 

Rosco is a good supply company and I have always had good luck with them but when we called them and tried to get a replacement roll but were told that they were in the middle of a big audit and could not help us.

WHAT!!!!

After another few frantic calls they told us that the California office could help us and they sent us another roll.

Well the new roll came and it shrank a bit better but it seemed to a stain or fog on part of the mirror.

Come to find out the backing used on the mirror was made by another company for some other use and the fact that it would shrink under heat was not important to its intended primary use.

Now this was 25 years ago and they still sell the mirror I can only assume they have worked things out.

The mirrors got done and looked very good and you would have to know where to look to see any of the burn marks.

Yes I still have a few of the mirrors and used one recently during the rehearsals of Avenue Q for to actors to practice working with their puppet.

Most of the mirrors were to be used again the following summer in 42^nd Street.

A mirror panel or two have been used in several other shows over the years and have been lent out to other theatres on occasion.

Although the set for A Chorus Line was not really too challenging for Christian would get a chance to design a fun set for Cabaret a few years later.

For me as the lighting designer there were a few challenges.

One of the iconic images from the show is the line of 17 actors all holding up their photos in little pools of light.

This called for 17 specials all focused very tightly plus 17 other lights used as back light.

It looked good when done.

The other issue was the follow spot.

Because most of the actors are always on stage when the spot was used it would light up the actors behind the one doing their solo.

To fix this I put a small follow spot up in the ceiling cove position which gave me a very steep angle and worked well.

It was very tough on my crew person because it was July and very hot and even though the AC was on in the theatre, we know that heat rises and it was locked in the ceiling.

The show went well and we sold out most performances