The Broadway revival of “A Chorus Line” will launch its national tour with a May 6-17, 2008, run at the Buell Theatre.
The selection of Denver to launch the tour is not quite as big as the earlier news that Disney had chosen the Mile High City to develop its Broadway-bound “The Little Mermaid” this summer, but Denver hasn’t kicked off a major national tour since “The Lion King” in 2002. That run was sold out for 10 weeks.
“The Buell Theatre is a great house for musicals, and Denver audiences have always been very responsive and supportive of musical theater,” said producer John Breglio.
The Broadway revival of “A Chorus Line” opened Oct. 5 and was perhaps the biggest event of the last New York theater season. The musical, a character-based look at the brutal audition process, was faithful to the original that opened May 21, 1975, and ran for nearly 15 years, closing in 1990 after 6,137 performances. It won the Pulitzer Prize and nine Tony Awards.
“A Chorus Line” tour hasn’t visited Denver since 1997.
“The touring productions of the original ‘A Chorus Line’ enjoyed great success during multiple engagements in Denver, and we are thrilled to return with this new production,” Breglio said.
The Broadway creative team will helm the new tour – director Bob Avian and choreographer Baayork Lee, who restaged the late Michael Bennett’s work.
Lee’s Broadway assistant was Denver choreographer Michael Gorman, who also directed “A Chorus Line” at the Littleton Town Hall Arts Center last year.
The Broadway cast features Mara Davi, 22, who made her Broadway debut as Maggie. Davi was raised in Highlands Ranch before her family moved to California when she was 14.
The new Broadway production cost $8 million to launch but recouped its initial investment in only 19 weeks.
Denver’s selection continues its recent rise in national prominence. “The Little Mermaid” will be developed here and open at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House on July 26 in preparation for its Broadway run to follow.
Theater critic John Moore can be reached at 303-954-1056 or jmoore@denverpost.com.
