A Chorus Line

Remember

1.       Everything is done to tell the audience this is not a musical: Pit covered, stage bare, no curtain.  Audience cannot hear talking in the wings or they know there is a company of actors warming up for a show. 

2.      But this is not a show – it is an audition that has been going on for two hours before the lights come up

3.      The opening is not a number in a musical, it is a scene in a play. The scene is about dancers competing for a job. 

4.      You don't know what is going to happen next.

5.      Zach is the only one that can tell you so LISTEN to him, The audience only understands who Zach is by the way you behave toward him.  AUDITIONING FOR A DIRECTOR IS DEFFERENT THAN REHEARSING WITH HIM. 

6.      You don't know everyone on stage.  Youdon't know where they're from, who they are, what they've done or what they're going to say or how they are going to handle the tension of this competition.  The audience becomes interested only if you become interested. 

7.      The audience is not there.  You distort the show when you start pushing for laughs or juding the audience, TALK AND BEHAVE NATURALLY.

8.      At an audition you are vulnerable- open for rejection and criticism,  you are vulnerable because you want the job but you have no control over the decision.  The audience is more interested and loves you more if they see you are off balance on edge, than if you are just wonderful, secure, charming, fun boring people. 

9.      "Indicating" is not right.  You don't have to show how you feel all the time you just have to feel it.  Often at an audition you behave in a certain way because you are trying to cover how you feel. 

10.  Protect one another.  Don't break character, don't fidget or draw focus while someone else is talking.  Protect the material.

11.  In the montage you are never not standing on that line.  What someone says triggers something you remember. 

12.  When you enter for One it is still an audition not a rehearsal. 

13.  The tap combination is your last chance to dance for Zach. You might be tired but you are not bored or hostile. 

14.  The Finale is not a curtain call it is an Epilogue to the play  The Epilogue is a statement about the tragic conformity of the chorus line.  To make that statement you have to conform and dance the finale perfectly and exactly the same

15.  As dancers, you know you are taking a big chance dancing without first warming up your body.  Don't take a chance as actors by not warming up the emotional machine as well. 

 

---From The A Chorus Line "Bible"