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Next to Jerome Robbins and Bob Fosse, Michael Bennett is one of the most well-known choreographers in Broadway history. In fact, his most well-known musical, A Chorus Line (1975) is perhaps more widely known than any one musical of Fosse’s.

Michael DiFiglia [his original last name] was born in 1943 in Buffalo, New York. His career was decided at the age of three when he began dancing at Miss Betty Rogers’s School of Dance. He performed at the age of nine as one of Mrs. John Dunn’s Little Stars of Tomorrow. Bennett lived and breathed dance. He spent his time reading Dance Magazine, begging his relatives to take him to shows and choreographing and performing every chance he got. When Bennett was 16, he apprenticed at the Melody Fair Theatre and told the manager, Jack Lenny, “I want to be a choreographer” (Mandelbaum, 1989, p. 23). Lenny began watching over Bennett and his career, and eventually became his agent.

Bennett dropped out of high school to dance in the chorus of West Side Story on the American and European tours. It was on the European tour that Bennett met Bob Avian, who would work closely with Bennett for the rest of his life.

Success on Broadway, as in every other career field, is often about personal connections. While Actors' Equity Association (the union for Broadway stage managers and performers) has strict rules about show auditions, the reality of casting still lies in who a performer knows. Equity stipulates that all union professionals must be given the opportunity to audition for a role. However, in the field of choreography, there are no such rules. Producers are free to make their own choice of creative staff. And choreographers are free to choose their assistants and dance captains and dancers (as long as they audition the other union performers, too). Bennett’s obvious electric talent, cocky confidence and career connections intersected to provide him the kick-start he needed to begin his prolific career as a choreographer. Later, he would use his choreographic successes to pave his road to the director’s chair.

Michael Bennett’s career path as a choreographer followed a path similar to most individuals seeking creative positions. He progressed from a dancer, to a part-collaborator in choreography, to a choreographer’s assistant, to a choreographer. There were two notable deviations. First, Bennett knew from a very young age that he wanted to direct and choreograph. His idol was Jerome Robbins, who gave Bennett a clear vision of exactly where and how he wished to work in the Broadway industry. Even while he was performing in West Side Story, Bennett knew that he would never be happy as a career “gypsy” [a chorus member who performs in show after show.] Second, Bennett’s climb through the ranks was meteoric compared to those who preceded him.

After returning from West Side Story, Bennett performed as a dancer in only three musicals. These shows are described by biographer Ken Mandelbaum as “not disasters but not hits, the…musicals in which Bennett served his time as Broadway gypsy were outstanding in one department only” (1989, p. 25). The musicals gave Bennett an education in directing and choreographing. Two of the musicals— Subways Are for Sleeping (1961) and Here’s Love (1963)—were choreographed by Michael Kidd.

Kidd’s background was ballet, and the key to his choreography was masculinity, virility, and a bombastic, athletic exercise of technique, all based on ballet technique…Kidd never did anything without a reason, without an idea. The idea of doing a number, filling up bars of music with movement, was not what he was about. (Mandelbaum, 1989, p. 26)

Broadway shows often play “on the road” for "out of town tryouts" weeks before opening in New York City. Traveling to a few select cities gives the creative staff and the producers a chance to try out material in front of live audiences, then make adjustments before presenting the show to critics and audiences on Broadway. Often cast members will receive major script, song and dance changes just hours before they are expected to incorporate them in performance on stage. On the road with Subways, many changes were made, including changes in dance numbers. Kidd's dance captain was John Sharpe. The dance captain in a show often assists the choreographer in developing and teaching the choreography, and the dance captain is responsible for maintaining the integrity of the dances once the show opens. Director/choreographer Kidd allowed Sharpe, and a few trusted dancers to collaborate with him on the show. Stage manager, Joe Calvan, recalled:

Michael [Bennett] helped a lot with the dancing…he was destined to be a choreographer. He worked very hard with Kidd, and a lot of his work went into the number that opened Act Two. That number was a breakthrough from the usual choreography of the period, which was ballet and conservative modern. That was the start of the type of dancing you see nowadays on Broadway. Kidd was not so familiar with that style, but it was Bennett’s forte. (cited in Mandelbaum, 1989, p. 27)

Bennett’s first choreography jobs were for “stock” [a temporary company of performers and creative staff hired by a regional theatre to do a short season of shows] and television shows, such as “The Ed Sullivan Show” and “The Hollywood Palace.” His style was jazzy and disco-like. Bennett also danced for two years on the television show “Hullabaloo,” where he partnered up with Donna McKechnie, a dancer who would slowly become more and more significant to Bennett.

Bennett’s first Broadway credit for choreography came at the age of nineteen. In 1962, Bennett was hired as part of the pre-production team for Nowhere to Go But Up. Many times choreographers hire an assistant as well as one or two additional dancers that help them develop, finesse and teach dance numbers. Without an official title, Bennett began to help Ron Field, who was choreographing his first Broadway show. Soon, Bennett had replaced Field’s assistant choreographer, Patricia Dunne. Bennett’s friend, Bob Avian was a dancer in the chorus. In an interview years later, Avian talked about Bennett’s sudden promotion:

Here he was, nineteen years old, this little kid, and—Zap!—he steps right into Pat Dunne’s shoes…He wasn’t shy at all about making suggestions. When it came to the stage, Michael always knew exactly what he was doing, or, rather, where he was going. In a funny way, there was something frightening in that, the focus had so much intensity. (cited in Long, 2003, p. 223)

Jack Lenny continued to steer Bennett’s career in choreography, convincing him to choreograph the show A Joyful Noise (1966). Bennett hated the script, but Lenny was certain that the musical would showcase Bennett’s choreography and help him gain recognition.

Bennett had a talent for urban movement. His movement was “real.” Bennett’s talents sprang from pure instinct. He was street wise, but not intellectual. For A Joyful Noise, he combined his own urban style with de Mille-like Western movements. The gamble paid off, and Bennett earned his first Tony nomination. The show ran for only twelve performances.

A fortuitous job as a “show doctor” led to Bennett’s job as choreographer for Promises, Promises. Producer David Merrick hired Bennett to fix the dance numbers that another emerging choreographer, Gillian Lynne, had created for his show How Now, Dow Jones. Bennett helped with the show, but was not listed in the credits. He preferred not to be associated with choreography that had not been borne from him.

Merrick hired Bennett for his new show, Promises, Promises. Legendary playwright Neil Simon wrote the script about an insurance company employee who loans out the key to his apartment so that his superiors can conduct their extramarital affairs. One of the adulterers goes back to his wife. His girlfriend tries to commit suicide, but is stopped by the apartment owner. They go off together, wounded but not alone. Burt Bacharach and Hal David, who were popular songwriters during that era, composed a score that was mellow and sensual. Bennett’s choreography fit the era and the songs. He took musical theatre integration another step forward,when his dancers entered the stage next to props and backdrops—becoming a part of the scenery changes—then stepped out of the background to dance the next number. Bennett was again nominated for a Tony award.

Bennett’s skill at taking real life and real movement and making them theatrical was again displayed. “Turkey Lurkey Time” helped to make the show a hit. Bennett…

…created an office Christmas party in dance with stunning energy and inventiveness. Notably involved in the scene as secretaries who became inebriated and cast aside their usual inhibitions were Baayork Lee…and Donna McKechnie, who danced disco-style across the floor and on top of desks…Bennett described McKechnie at that time as “a beautiful instrument to work with. Her temperament is beautiful, and she’s a wonderful actress when she dances. There’s so much emotion, so much sexuality in her movement. That’s what drew me to her when we both danced in ‘Hullaboloo.’” (Long, 2003, p. 227)

Video: "It's Turkey Lurkey Time"

As Americans continued to examine and re-examine such complex issues as war, racial prejudice, free love and women’s rights, it is no surprise that musicals began to examine and analyze rather than merely entertain. The musical Company took a close look at the institution of marriage and a single man’s reasons for avoiding it.

Producer Harold Prince hired Bennett to choreograph Company, a concept show about five married couples and their marriage-phobic friend. With few dance numbers, Bennett still managed to use his urban style to literally move the plot forward. The subtle yet distinctive movements gave mood to each scene. The musical won six Tony awards, including Best Musical. Bennett received a nomination for Best Choreography but did not win.

In the emerging "concept musical," production elements become crucial to aiding audience understanding of the show. In a “book” musical, there is a clear story, with songs and dances that—hopefully—support it. But communicating an idea, such as marriage, to an audience requires a deeper connection of scenery, lighting and movement to portray the mood of the song or dialogue, so that the thread that runs through the show is the humanity of the characters as they explore each facet of the concept being explored. Company is considered to be revolutionary in musical theatre history for its integration of creative elements and concept.

“Concept musical” is sometimes a hot topic among musical theatre historians, since definitions vary widely. Jones argues that a more appropriate term is “fragmented musical.” And he states that Prince’s fragmented musicals came during a period of time in which the nation was fragmented. Once again the musicals evidenced the national identity. In his book, The Rise and Fall of the Broadway Musical, author Mark N. Grant criticizes concept musicals: "At times conceptual showmanship has led not only to text-challenged overproduction but to the evacuation of dramatic meaning from dancing and stage movement” (2004, p. 291). He goes on to say:

When the primary language of theater is no longer word, character, or music but rather gesture, movement, and staging, the power and legitimacy of language and music are undermined. The musicals of the Broadway golden age had great language and music enhanced by gesture and movement; after about 1980 most new Broadway musicals featured crowd-pleasing gesture and movement with language and music as secondary elements—very much like the musicals before 1900.

“Concept musical”:

Today when a musical show is sufficiently diffuse in its writing to ask to be taken for its intentions rather than for its achievements, it is accorded the cachet of "concept.” (Grant, 2004, pp. 298-99)

Grant says the challenges of the concept musical go to the songwriters...

...because they are called upon to musicalize and lyricize atomized moments or disincarnate ideas instead of an emotional through-line or a developed characterization...The current respectability of the concept musical is an indication that Broadway has abandoned any hope that strong writing and composing could ever again mean what they used to in the commercial musical theater. Calling director-diddled Broadway shows concept musicals is no less false packaging that calling used cars preowned automobiles. (Grant, 2004, pp. 299-300).

Musical theatre historian, John Kenrick stated:

Songwriter Stephen Sondheim and producer Hal Prince rejuvenated Broadway with a series of Tony-winning concept musicals – shows built around a "concept" rather than a standard romantic plot. Instead of focusing on the one or two pairs of lovers in a standard book show, concept musicals could showcase the thoughts and feelings of a wide range of characters without losing coherency. Sondheim and Prince relied heavily on Michael Bennett’s innovative choreography to give Company (1970) and Follies (1971) a driving visual impact. (2003, “Michael Bennett”)

Producer Hal Prince, widely thought of as the man that cemented the place of the concept musical in theatrical history, despises the term. Said Prince:

The whole label that was put on our shows, the whole notion of the “concept” musical, was one that I really resent. I never wished it on myself. It caused a backlash and animosity towards the shows and us. I think for a lot of people it was like waving the red goddamn flag. And I kept hearing, “We’re sick of the goddamn concept musical.” And I kept thinking, “Leave me alone…I never called it that.” It’s called a “unified” show, an “integrated” show. (cited in Jones, 2003, p. 271)

Prince's "unified" contrasts sharply with Jones' renaming of the concept musical as the "fragmented musical." Whatever the label for Prince’s genre of musical, Company made use of scenery and stage design in a way that had previously never been seen on a Broadway stage. Steel scaffolding and cold lighting contributed to bringing the audience into the disjointed feeling of the lead character, Robert. Bennett moved the cast around the stage constantly, seamlessly incorporating the movement with the dialogue and song. He and Hal Prince worked closely together. Bennett eliminated the chorus, instead using the cast members alternately as lead characters and backup actors commenting on the action. Prince’s emphasis on strong visual elements that impact mood would heavily influence Bennett’s work in the future.

Donna McKechnie was the only featured dancer in the show. Speaking about McKechnie in a Dance Magazine article, Bennett named McKechnie “the most beautiful dancer I’ve ever seen…She learns incredibly fast, has amazing objectivity and works almost as a collaborator. She sees what you’re going for …[and] she’ll kill herself to make something work…Let me put it this way—Jerry had Chita, Bob had Gwen, and I can’t tell you how happy I am that Donna is mine” (cited in Long, 2002, p. 233).

[Which brings up an interesting thought: Bob Fosse cultivated dancers much as had Ziegfeld. He took dancers Gwen Verdon and Ann Reinking, worked with them and made them stars. He also had long love affairs with them, just like Ziegfeld. Jerome Robbins also had muses, at least one of which he almost married, though his homosexuality eventually prevented the union. Now Bennett was following suit with his muse, who he would also eventually marry. Throughout American musical theatre history, powerful men spotlighted their muses, fell in love with them and married them. In Bennett’s case, the story holds an added twist worthy of a musical script. He was a self-proclaimed homosexual. Like Robbins, he also underwent many years of therapy.]

Plot: A theatre is about to be torn down. The Ziegfeld dancers who danced there decades before gather for a goodbye party and contemplate their past and their failed relationships of the present.

Although Follies did not achieve commercial success, the show has been named by some as a work of art, seamlessly integrating all the creative elements. Bennett won the Tony Award for Best Choreography. He and Hal Prince co-directed and received a nomination, but didn’t win. The book was viewed as the weak link that caused the show’s failure to thrive with audiences.

“At midnight on Saturday, January 18, 1974, Bennett and eighteen dancers, some of whom came directly from dancing in shows, arrived at the Nickolaus Exercise Center on East Twenty-third Street in Manhattan...It was a collection of friends, enemies, and strangers whose lives would be altered during the next twelve hours” (Mandelbaum, 1989, p. 100).

The collection of dancers talked for hours. Before the evening was over, secrets had flowed like wine, leaving the participants melancholy and woozy from the emotional intensity. Every dancer in the room had watched as these secrets were divulged, leaving the speaker naked [once literally] in front of their colleagues. But sharing was what they had come to do. A tape player recorded every word, and dancers were provoked to reveal their darkest innermost thoughts. There to watch and monitor and emotionally provoke was Michael Bennett. Months later, after tears, sweat, pounds and many performers had been shed to reveal A Chorus Line.

American economics of the 1960s and ‘70s had negatively impacted Broadway. Gone were the lavish budgets to fund musicals, and the numbers of musicals produced decreased. Too many dancers were vying for too few roles that held little artistic merit.

When asked about his inspiration for A Chorus Line, Michael Bennett talked about his love of dancers and his growing distrust and dissatisfaction with the American government following Watergate. “After watching hours of falsehood, cover-up, and deceit on television, Bennett became disgusted. He yearned to see truth on the stage and to say something positive about a country whose values had been called into question” (Mandelbaum, 1989, p. 93).

Chorus dancers and singers were hit especially hard by the declining economy.

It was more than just the shrinking job market that Bennett wished to address. It was the position of the dancer in musical theatre that had become so frustrating to him and many of the dancers with whom he worked. The primary function of the dancer at the time seemed to be to remain in the background, making nondancing stars look good, and this was no longer acceptable to the low-paid, highly trained, and skilled performers who were vastly overqualified for the assignments for which they fought. (Mandelbaum, 1989, pp. 94-5)

“Fought” is an appropriate word for the daily competitive battle that dancers confronted—and still face—in order to get a job on Broadway. With less money to spend, producers in the 70s hired one chorus of performers who could sing and dance, rather than following the tradition of hiring a chorus of dancers and a separate chorus of singers. Terrified of unemployment, expert dancers went running to singing teachers, and expert singers went racing to dance studios. It wasn’t long before audition notices advertised openings for “dancers who sing” or “singers who dance” to let performers know which expertise would be assessed first at an audition call.

All performers on Broadway belong to the Actors’ Equity Association (AEA) from the smallest walk-on “player” to the most well-recognized celebrity lead (star of the show). Stage managers also belong to AEA. [The Stage Directors and Choreographers Society (SDC) represents directors’ and choreographers’ interests. However, membership in the union is not mandatory. Though SDC is slowly gaining strength, a long tradition of individual deals and stiff competition for jobs undermines the power of this union.]

There are many types of auditions or “calls.” In general, initial auditions for a show fall into two categories: Principal Calls (to cast lead and supporting, “featured” roles) and Chorus Calls (to cast the chorus and possible featured “bits” in the show.) Initial auditions are almost always separate for men and women.

The most common type of audition is the “open” call. At open calls, all members of Equity wishing to be seen by the people casting the show must be seen. Imagine we are watching a female performer as she experiences her first 10:00 am “dancers who sing” open call.

The eager dancer gets up early. She takes about two hours to shower, put on makeup, coif her hair and pack her bag. [The experienced dancer knows to bring the makeup bag with her. There will be plenty of time to put makeup on before she is “seen.”] The dancer brings an 8x10 headshot [taken by a professional photographer at a 3-4 hour photo shoot at a current cost of about $700 ], a resume and sheet music (pages of music with song lyrics and printed notes) of a practiced song.

Dance calls are held at dance studios around New York City. Often they are held at the AEA offices, where the waiting room is large, but the dance studios are small and not ideal for seeing many dancers at once. The new dancer arrives half an hour before the call. Unfortunately, veteran auditioners arrived at 8am and are lined up outside the building far down the block.

At 9:30am, an Equity monitor will give numbers to the women, in the order they arrived. Competition is fierce for the first twenty to fifty spots. Performers know that whoever is casting the show will be fresh and excited to see the first group of dancers. They will “keep” many qualified dancers from the first group or two and possibly take a chance on a few others. By the time they have seen several groups of the more than two hundred applicants, it is unlikely that more than one or two dancers per group will make the cut. “Cuts” are made after each phase of the audition to whittle down the number of applicants. Those that are “kept” wait until all applicants are seen, then they come back for another round of auditioning.

Once inside the building, the performer presents an AEA membership card and receives a numbered 5x7 pink index card. After filing into the waiting room—if there is room for her—she will stand in the order of her numbered card and fill out the pink card with her name, contact information and related job experience. All of this information is, of course, on her resume, but this way the casting people can quickly glance at her job experience while she is dancing.

At a “dancers who sing” call, performers will be called into a dance studio in groups of 20 or 30. As they go in, the monitor collects the cards in order. Once in the room, the dancers, with great civility, vie for standing spots at the front of the room.

One side of the room is lined with mirrors, and in a corner sits the accompanist at an upright piano. The accompanist may be the musical director or a rehearsal pianist for the show. Behind a long table sit the casting people for the day. This group includes a casting director and anywhere from one to four members of the creative staff [e.g. director, producer(s), various assistants.]

On occasions where there are hundreds of dancers and few job openings, the casting group will “type” the performers before they dance. If the creative vision of the show requires buck-toothed dancers who are 5’10” and above, they will quickly dismiss all women who do not meet these qualifications. [Sometimes this information is in the advertisement for the audition. A dancer who is buck-toothed and 5’8” would go to the audition. But your instructor, who is 5’2” would know to skip this call!] Another way of typing is to have each dancer perform a pirouette [an advanced turning step that requires dance training]. These shortcut measures are taken only if there is an outrageous number of applicants or if dance technique is one of the highest priorities of the creative team.

In most cases, the choreographer and /or assistant choreographer teach a short dance combination [group of steps] from the show. The dancers learn it, practice it once or twice while the accompanist plays, then perform it in groups of 4 or 5 in their number order in front of the casting group. The corresponding numbered pink cards are laid out on the table in front of the choreographer and director.

As the dancers perform the combination in small groups, the casting director puts the pink cards of the performers who are being kept in one pile, and the cards of the girls who are being cut in another. When all dancers in the studio group have performed, they go outside the studio, where the Equity monitor will read off the names on the pink cards for those women that were kept.

Meanwhile, the new dancer now knows how many performers are in each group and how long each group takes to dance once they enter the studio. She is using her math skills to calculate how long she will be waiting and what time she will go into the studio. [She may be waiting anywhere between one to three hours before she dances a step.]

Once the performers have all been seen, those that were kept will be seen again. They will either dance another combination in groups of 20 and undergo another cut or sing a short excerpt from their previously prepared audition song [chosen to suit the actor’s stage type and vocal ability and usually rehearsed with a private singing teacher and/or coach at a cost of $60 per hour. Most performers attend at least one weekly lesson.] The musical director will usually ask to hear “16 measures” [roughly equal to one verse and one chorus], during which the performer will do her best to show her voice and distinctive personality.

Once a dancer has done a Broadway show or has caught the notice of casting directors in town, she will not need to attend the open chorus call. A separate call, with dancers privately invited by the casting director will be held on a different day. The only way to get into an agent’s call is to know someone or have an agent who knows someone.

The dancing and singing components are the same, but the crowds are vastly reduced. An agent’s call usually has less than twenty performers, all of whom get a chance to dance and sing for the casting team. With less competition and a less frazzled group of casting people behind the table, dancers at the agent’s call are more likely to get the job and to be remembered for future work.

Once the initial round of auditions are over, dancers—whether from open or agent calls—are invited back for a second round of auditions. This audition is a “call-back.” Depending on the competition and the job at stake, performers can be called back two, three or seven times at the whim of the creative team. Each round of call-backs has less performers auditioning and more potential for a contract. Anxiety, excitement and confidence increase as the process progresses. Performers size up their competition, often “typing” as if they were casting directors. A short brunette female, seeing three other short brunette females may feel discouraged, while a tall, willowy blond, seeing four other short brunettes may feel the same. Conjecture and stress fly around the room like pinballs, and it is rare that the creative team offers any reassurance to stop them. One thing is certain, those performers who have previously worked with someone on the creative team have a leg up on those that have not.

Even after spending hours with performers in the audition process, a director or choreographer still does not have a sense of the day-to-day personality of an individual actor. Remember, if a dancer is hired, she will be spending several hours every day for weeks, months or years with other cast members and with the creative team. So, it’s no surprise that performers that are known by the creative team are hired for their working personality in addition to their talent—or not hired if they have a bad working reputation.

This concern for the chemistry of the cast offers an explanation of why Michael Bennett’s friends—the majority of whom were castmates in previous shows—were well represented in the cast and creative team of A Chorus Line:

· Jack Lenny (Bennett’s agent): Met Bennett when Bennett was an apprentice at Melody Fair Theatre, where Lenny was manager.

· Bob Avian (Assistant Choreographer): Met Bennett while they were rehearsing for the European tour of West Side Story.

· Donna McKechnie (Cassie/lead dancer): Bennett’s dancing partner on the television show “Hullabaloo. She danced for Bennett in Promises, Promises and Company. [McKechnie married Bennett in 1976, and they were divorced in 1977.]

· Baayork Lee (Connie, Assistant to the Choreographers): By the time A Chorus Line came along, Lee had danced with and for Bennett in five Broadway shows.

· And others...Of the 25 opening night cast members, almost half had worked previously with Bennett.

As mentioned earlier, A Chorus Line was borne out of frustration. The 1960s into the 1970s had shown a decrease in jobs for dancers. A dancer lives to dance and just wants to work as hard as possible for a choreographer. Equity salaries, though fairly substantial, do not help to carry a dancer through months of unemployment. When dancers in the 1970s did land a job, most of them found the dancing unchallenging and unsatisfying. Dancers began to ponder the big question: “What am I doing with my life?”

Donna McKechnie, one of the most successful dancers of the time, was thinking of buying a farm in New Zealand and starting a cooperative theatre company. She invited Michael Bennett to join her.

Fed up with uninspiring dance jobs, two other dancers, Tony Stevens and Michon Peacock, decided to create something of their own. They gathered their friends together to discuss the plight of the Broadway dancer, and they decided to ask colleague Michael Bennett to facilitate the discussion. The rest is Broadway history.

A Chorus Line was epitome of the concept musical. The story—dancers auditioning for a job—offered more of a setting than a plot. The heart of the show was the humanity displayed onstage. For most of the musical, there was no scenery other than a thick white line that ran from one side of the stage to the other, no costumes other than tight rehearsal clothes. With no sequins to cover them—the dancers were costumed in 1970s rehearsal clothes—or sets to shield them, the performers were literally bare before the audience. Their emotions were played out with no productions elements to distract. The result was an intimate connection between audience members and the heart of each dancer standing before them. A Chorus Line was not a show about new dancers breaking into the business. It was about Broadway dancers and what had driven them to stay in a difficult industry. The youngest cast member on opening night was 24.

In addition to the real-life dancer stories played out on the stage, there was quite a bit of drama with Bennett and his performers off stage.

Bennett took all credit for every aspect of the show. Though it was well-known that the material for the show came from personal stories, Bennett insisted that he got the dancers together for the initial talks that produced the stories. As stated earlier, this idea came from Tony Stevens and Michon Peacock.

Of course, the development of the material was a ground-breaking approach. There were no AEA contracts to cover “dancers as co-creators” of a musical. For the original production, Bennett divided about 1/10 of his royalties and 1/3 of rights income between the 37 dancers involved in development of the musical. This applied to the original production (which ran for 15 years) and subsidiary rights, but not “first class productions” such as national tours or revivals. In 2008, dancers won a case against Bennett's estate. Negotiations began when the revival was staged on Broadway, and dancers who had contributed to the creation of the original show were ineligible for royalties. The dancers won an undisclosed settlement which paid them retroactively for the revival and entitled them to royalties for all future first-class productions.

Comments on Bennett’s treatment of his cast are quite mixed. Accounts by those performers who worked with him include many grateful tributes to Bennett. There is also documentation of emotional abuse disguised as “directing.”

Bennett harbored no separation between rehearsals and real life. Using his unerring instinct for people he manipulated each of the dancers, intensifying in them those feelings that would be of most use to the drama of the show. To enhance the feeling of separation between her lead character, “Cassie,” and the rest of the cast, Bennett told the cast to stay away from actress Donna McKechnie. And he told McKechnie not to socialize with the cast. She said, “My most painful feeling was wanting to belong and feeling alienated. The need to be accepted and recognized among my peers. Because of the very nature of the show and my role in it, just the opposite was happening...I was not a member of the line in the play or in real life” (cited in Flinn, p. 63).

Bennett believed that real feelings in a scene were better than acted ones. Although he loved his dancers, his desire for authentic, raw emotion in the show superceded his care for their mental health.

Near the very end of the first workshop, Bennett employed a startling method of obtaining a “real” reaction from his cast.

[Bob] Avian: “Michael told myself and the production stage manager that he was going to fake having an accident. He said, ‘I want to do this scene, but I don’t want to spend weeks rehearsing it.’ Michael was rehearsing ‘One,’ tap dancing with the kids, and all of a sudden he fell—bang! The strong kids all came running to see what they could do. The more frightened ones pulled away. And the confused ones just sort of hung where they were. Some began crying hysterically. Michael maintained this for about 4 or 5 minutes, while I pretended to call our doctor. All of a sudden, Michael looked up and said, ‘Does everybody remember exactly what they did?’ Half of them were furious. Baayork Lee was hysterical; she started sobbing, and was terribly angry at him for doing this and manipulating them like that. He immediately staged the scene, and everybody knew exactly where they had gone and what they did and what their reaction was, which made it totally real.” (Mandelbaum, 1989, p. 123)

The entire scene—the ankle sprain and the cast’s reactions—was put into the show as a catalyst for the question: “What do you do when you can’t dance anymore?”

The hoax worked exactly as Bennett had hoped. However, it opened the eyes of the cast to Bennett’s manipulative directing. “They had been on a performer’s high, but now felt used and betrayed. For Michael, it was all worth it” (Flinn, 1989, p. 64).

The manipulation became a rule, rather than an exception. Those who couldn’t be manipulated ended up leaving the project. Bennett would drive them to quit. In the final scene of A Chorus Line, director Zach chooses which performers get the show, and those dancers are the stars of the finale. Said cast member/contributor Tony Stevens: “Every time we’d rehearse the final scene, somebody else would be eliminated, and you would never know if you were going to get picked or not. You were always upset when you weren’t, and it made you go through the feeling of an actual audition, which Michael wanted to maintain at all times” (Mandelbaum, 1989, p. 123).

One would think that the dancers wouldn’t mind not dancing the finale once in a while, but there are important considerations for dancers during the rehearsal process. Once a dancer lands a job in a show, the competition felt during the auditions is far from over. Dancers in rehearsal for a show feel they are always auditioning. There are “prizes” to be won in the rehearsal process:

· "Bit parts"--small featured lines or dance combinations--are assigned to dancers. Often they are assigned spontaneously during rehearsal. The choreographer comes to that part of the scene, then looks at the dancers and makes a choice on the spot. He or she is more likely to choose the dancer that always works with full energy and smiles.

· Stage positioning: During dances, the stage spots in which the dancers perform are the same for every show. Whether a dancer is in the center of the front line or tucked into the back--where the dancer will be less visible--is set during rehearsals.

· Future job opportunities with the choreographer, director or producer can be expanded by demonstrating talent and a daily, friendly, eager work ethic.

All of the above are inherent reasons for dancers to push themselves to the limit at every rehearsal. Add to that a choreographer who is abusive, difficult to please, and committed to raw emotion at all costs, and you have the recipe for an insecure, mentally fragile dancer. “Michael’s personal treatment of the individual dancers forced them into a position that paralleled their roles. Whatever he brought out of them—fear, insecurity, anxiety, alienation, anger, or bitterness—enhanced their performance. This was a technique Michael inherited, and refined, from Jerome Robbins who would humiliate dancers” (Flinn, 1989, p. 90)

Said Robert LuPone, who originated the role of the director, Zach, “Where did the acting of the piece come from? I’m telling you, the best ensemble I’ve ever seen. Every emotion was felt down the line. It didn’t come from acting necessarily. It came from total abject fear of Michael Bennett” (cited in Flinn, 1989, p. 133).

Michael had been father and mother, guide, guardian, and God to each of them for so long that their dependence on him was total. The sun rose and set on what he said and did each day. He knew most of the time exactly what he wanted and how to get it. Crissy Wilzak (understudy) says he ‘just had this…thing about him. He had this iron hand over everybody that was just amazing. I was scared of him. He just had that air about him. Knew exactly what he wanted and he knew how to dig, how to say something to get you going, to get you to do something. He’d just do anything to get you to do what he wanted you to do. Even if it was kinda mean.” (Flinn, 1989, p. 133)

A cast member played Greg on Broadway and on tour and played Zach in two companies. He also staged two companies of the show. Over the ten year period that he performed in A Chorus Line, he had many opportunities to witness Bennett’s emotional manipulation first-hand.

Michael wasn’t at any of my auditions. I was hired for the bus and truck tour. Getting hired for the job was interesting. I remember my number was somewhere in the middle 800’s for the open cattle call. There were three or four callbacks. At the last callback there were 8 or 9 of us in a room. They taught us huge parts of the choreography, and they worked us really hard. Then they sat us all down. They took one guy out of the room, and we were thinking, well, he got the job. Then they waited ten minutes and came in and said “Welcome to A Chorus Line.” It was a long time before I realized they were putting us through the emotions of the last part of the show, where you think you don’t have the show, but you do. Or you get called to step forward, and you think you have the show, but you don’t.

I rehearsed for two weeks for the role of Bobby. Then, two days before I was supposed to go into the show, they told me I was going to be Greg. They switched me with the guy who was playing Greg at the time and told him he would be Bobby. They did stuff like that all the time. It was all about keeping us on guard and off balance. I was fired after six months. Then I got hired for the Broadway cast. I remember the dance captain and the stage manager would always threaten us with “Michael Bennett is coming,” but, I didn’t understand why that was such a big deal. Matter of fact, I was pretty excited about it. But he didn’t come and everyone was really worried about it. Then, one day I looked over during the show, and there he was watching from the wings. His directional philosophy was terror. He terrorized the cast because it was his way. Michael was a total dictator. Every time Michael came in [to see the show], he fired at least one person, so he could keep the tension of the audition in the show. See, the emotion all came down to the opening of the show, “God, I hope I get it.” Then, once you were in the show, it was “God, I hope I still have it.”

The next day, Michael came to rehearsal. He had us stand on the line, and one by one he had us say the names. Just the names, and with just that he did such a number on each person, that every one of them down the line was crying. He would say terrible, cruel things. He would say to the women, “you’re fat and ugly, and I really don’t know how long you’ll last.” I was fourth from the right, and he didn’t say anything to me. He didn’t say anything to the woman playing Cassie either. I thought, “Maybe he doesn’t like me.” Then, I thought, “Maybe he does likes me.” Michael was famous for seducing young boys in the cast. I tried to keep an aloof distance, because I really didn’t want to deal with that situation.

It was a great job to have, but as an actor it was terrible. Once the show became a success, the show was set in stone. Every line reading and inflection and rhythm of how you said something was set. You couldn’t deviate. The show was two hours and twenty minutes. If we got out of there at two hours and nine minutes, we would go into major rehearsals to get it right. There was no room for interpretation. You had to do it the way the person before you did it. It was actually startling when I would go see a different company and one person spoke out of the rhythm that had been set.

I was in and out of the show for over 10 years, 3 or 4 times on Broadway. It was exhausting. You were never allowed to relax, never allowed to settle in, to enjoy. I would stay as long as I could ‘til the stress was too much, then leave with a bad back and bad knees. Then I would go back. There were a lot of drugs with people trying to cope with the stress. It was like a pharmacy backstage. The last time I came back to the show as a “wonderstudy,” one of the people in the opening that also understudied. But the person in the role of Greg went into detox, so I was in again.

In spite of—or perhaps because of—Bennett’s emotional manipulation, the cast gave stellar, performances for 6137 shows. The audience connected to the dancers’ stories and their honest emotions in telling them. Said the cast member: "They told us the show was going to close. I gave my notice two months before the closing was scheduled. Everyone said I was crazy, but I knew I didn’t want to be on stage when the show closed. I was maxed out, and I knew if I didn’t leave on my own terms, I’d get sick. I wanted to be in the audience for the last show. And I was. And I was really happy” (personal communication, April 1, 2009).

A Chorus Line gave a voice to dancers. Dancers were required to speak personally about themselves, their dreams and their ideas. This voice usually remains unheard, as dancers go silently through training, auditions and rehearsals. “She’s great to work with” is usually synonymous with “She doesn’t talk back” or “She does what she’s told.” Because there is never a guarantee of work, a dancer feels always as if he or she is auditioning, proving that the choreographer made the right decision by hiring her and hoping that the choreographer will continue to choose her in the future. A dancer cannot afford to air her opinions. The Broadway industry is insular and has a long memory.

Audience members who saw the show heard the inner life of dancers, the joy and the pain and the need to dance and the why of their need to dance. This intimate look educated audiences to appreciate dancers.

A Chorus Line positively affected the popularity of dance. After the show achieved success, a new crop of movies about dance were produced, including: The Turning Point (1977), All That Jazz (1979), Staying Alive (1983), Flashdance (1983), and Footloose (1984).

A Chorus Line won nine Tony awards, winning every category except costume design and completely shutting out Bob Fosse’s Chicago, which had the misfortune of opening in the same year. Chicago was nominated for 11 Tonys and won none, a still unbroken record for the poorest ratio of nominations to awards which it shares with the 1997 production of Steel Pier (also nominated for 11 Tonys with no wins.) A Chorus Line was also awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

Ballroom was a musical adaptation of a CBS made-for-TV movie called Queen of the Stardust Ballroom. Plot: “The story of a Bronx widow who finds new happiness and fulfillment at a slightly run-down local dance palace and falls in love with a married mailman” (Mandelbaum, 1989, p. 198).

Knowing that whatever he chose to do as his next show would inevitably be compared to A Chorus Line, Bennett decided not to worry about it. In fact, he was fully prepared for Ballroom to be a flop. He financed the entire project with his own money. His motivation for doing Ballroom was personal.

Bennett never forgot dancing on Broadway in the early Sixties and those with whom he had danced. By the mid-Seventies, many of those people had retired or taken nontheatrical jobs. The ever sentimental, loyal Bennett decided it was time to set them dancing again, and, in doing so, pay tribute to an earlier generation of gypsies. [Robin] Wagner [scenic designer for A Chorus Line and Ballroom]: “When Michael told us we were doing Ballroom, there was a chorus of whys. He said, ‘Because I have twenty friends over the age of 40 who will never dance on Broadway again if I don’t do this show. I want to see those people on Broadway.’” (Mandelbaum, 1989, p. 199)

The production of Ballroom followed the new workshop model that Bennett had developed for A Chorus Line.

Following is an excerpt from the current AEA Workshop Agreement:

Actors’ Equity - Amended 08/25/10

All Actors participating in a Workshop must be or become members of Actors' Equity Association.

Such standard benefits as Pension, Health, Social Security, Workers' Compensation (including the Supplemental Plan administered by the Equity-League Trust Fund) and Unemployment Insurance are all provided…

There are no public performances of a Workshop permitted. Workshops are made up of rehearsal periods called "sessions" which are generally four to eight weeks in length. A Workshop usually consists of a single session, but it may have several sessions separated by hiatus periods of two to four weeks. Rehearsal days are seven out of eight and half consecutive hours for either a five day work week or a six day work week. [Shows almost universally run on a six-day work week]…

Everyone who participates in the Workshop receives the same salary [regardless of whether a person is a lead or a chorus member].

ROYALTY PARTICIPATION

In addition to the salary the Actors earn during the Workshop sessions, they also earn a share in the future success of the show. For their contributions to the development of the show, the Actors share in contingent compensation that takes two forms. First, the Actors share in the weekly box office gross when the show is produced under contract; that is, the Actors as a group share a percentage (usually 1%) of the gross box office receipts. However, the percentage of gross receipts may increase when there is more than one session of the Workshop. Equity determines each Actor's share based on the number of days/weeks that the Actor participated in the Workshop…

Actors also share in any subsidiary rights income which is generated by the play. For example, subsidiary rights income can come from royalties from foreign productions, stock and amateur rights, or from the sale of motion picture rights. The Actors' share of subsidiary rights is usually 1.5% of net receipts.

At the end of the Workshop, Equity will issue a determination of the pro-rata share of royalty payments due to the Actors.

FIRST REFUSAL IN SUBSEQUENT PRODUCTIONS

Those Actors who complete the Workshop must also be offered employment to perform the same role or function in the first subsequent production of the play under a standard Equity contract, or they must be offered no less than four weeks' minimum salary under the appropriate Equity contract.

(AEA, 2010, “Workshop Agreement Overview”)

Ballroom workshopped for five months! During that time Bennett put the dancers—many of whom had come out of retirement—through exhausting hours of rehearsals. “The fox-trots, tangos, sambas, hustles, rhumbas, lindys, cha-chas and waltzes took endless and grueling hours for Bennett to devise” (Mandelbaum, 1989, p. 201). Performer Janet Stewart White recalled:

We weren’t in shape for Michael’s demands, and it was very hard. He treated us well, but could be inconsiderate about what he demanded of our bodies…Michael had us on edge at all times. You never felt sure of any part you had in any of the dances. You felt you were auditioning every day, the whole time. He didn’t mean to do that. In his mind, it was like a gigantic chess board, and he would move people around and envision new things. Everybody loved him, but we were aftraid of him too, because he was so powerful. He kept us at a distance; he was remote. And he expected a performance level of you at all times…I never saw anyone so in love with dancing as that man. (cited in Mandelbaum, 1989, pp. 201-2)

Though it was nominated for eight Tony awards, Ballroom won only one: the Tony award for Best Choreography (Michael Bennett and Bob Avian).

Bennett’s next project is probably his second most well-known, next to A Chorus Line.

Dreamgirls told the story of a black female singing group, their rise to stardom and the drama of their lives backstage. The show capitalized on the current popularity of Motown music.

Through four sets of workshops, a nine-week out of town tryout in Boston, cast adjustments, book overhauls, a decision for Bennett to take over the direction from bookwriter Tom Eyen, and many doubts that the show would ever open, the songs and bits of dialogue eventually became a coherent musical.

Bennett’s genius shown in the musical in two particular elements. First, as director and producer, he was passionately committed to the book of the musical. In fact, one entire pre-production workshop was conducted sitting at a table working on the storyline. He believed strongly in presenting a show about human struggles, rather than black problems. Said Bennett:

The important thing about Dreamgirls for me was that I approached the material as if cultural assimilation is something that has happened in America… Dreamgirls is not about being black, it’s about being human. It’s a black musical, but it’s about people. It’s not a black version of a white show. It’s very nice for young blacks to go to the theatre and see role models who are successful and still human. (cited in Mandelbaum, 1989, p. 217)

Second, as director/choreographer, Bennett’s brilliance in literally moving the musical from start to finish was evidenced in the spectacular and seamless integration of set design and scene changes with the movements and emotions of the characters in the show.

For the show, set designer Robin Wagner “created five floor-to-ceiling towers made of aluminum and Plexiglas, studded from top to bottom with stage lights. These computer-operated towers glided about in dozens of configurations, creating and defining spaces, shifting the scene from dressing room to backstage to recording studio to nightclub to television studio instantaneously, with only the addition of small pieces, such as a table or a curtain, needed to complete the environment” (Mandelbaum, 1989, p. 218). In some cases, the scene changed during the course of one song, giving the audience a backstage view of the action, then a view from the audience of the same performance of a song. Bennett used the scenery to create moods. Bennett talked about the towers: “They’re almost like a narrator. By the end of the first scene, the towers become more like a cage. They start closing in; the dressing rooms get bigger, but there are more pieces in them, and there’s a feeling that these girls are trapped by their success” (cited in Mandelbaum, 1989, p. 218).

Although the outstanding visual impact of Dreamgirls could not be refuted, critics’ reviews were mixed. Many stated that the show was “all style but no substance” (Douglas Watt, Daily News, cited in Mandelbaum, 1989, p. 222). Others were disappointed that there was so little dance in the show:

Only “Steppin’ to the Bad Side” exploded into a full-fledged dance sequence. Yet those who felt that Bennett and [co-choreographer Michael] Peters were sparing with their choreography failed to realize that the entire show was choreographed, from the actors to the towers to the lights.

Peters: “When we opened, many people said there was no choreography. But that show was staged—to death—from the moment the curtain went up. There was movement throughout, but because it was done so well, people just accepted it, without realizing what was going on up there.” (Mandelbaum, 1989, p. 220)

Choreography for numbers other than “Steppin’ to the Bad Side” was integrated into the singing performances. For the first act, Bennett and Peters choreographed steps that looked as if they had been put together for the girl trio’s amateur singing act in the basement where they rehearsed. Later, the steps “grew” into a more polished performance.

Also problematic was the audience’s connection to the black performers. The creative team blamed the lack of connection on the audience, saying that they just weren’t ready to accept blacks as humans with the same problems as whites. Dreamgirls won 6 Tony Awards, including a Best Choreography Tony for Bennett and co-choreographer Peters.

One of the Tony Awards not won by Dreamgirls was the award for Scenic Design. Some critics surmised that the astounding visual effects in the show overshadowed the story. This theory was somewhat validated by the second Broadway opening of the show. When Dreamgirls went on tour, it became logistically impossible to travel with the enormous towers. The towers were made smaller and moved by the cast—rather than by computer—and the pyrotechnic effects were eliminated. What resulted was a more intimate look at the storyline. When the bus-and-truck tour came back for the second Broadway opening on June 28, 1987, Dreamgirls was received with open arms and open hearts. But those hearts would be broken four days later on July 2nd, when Michael Bennett finally succumbed to AIDS-related lymphoma, one more victim of the tragic disease.

Though Bennett participated in the pre-production of other projects, Dreamgirls was his last show on Broadway. The show offered employment to stellar African American performers for several years. Bennett’s longest running show, A Chorus Line was still going strong at the Shubert Theatre on July 2, 1987, the day Bennett passed away. In his honor, cast members replaced “she” with “he” in the finale:

One singular sensation, ev’ry little step he takes.

One thrilling combination, ev’ry move that he makes.

One smile and suddenly nobody else will do.

You know you’ll never be lonely with you-know-who…

Ooh! Sigh! Give him your attention.

Do I really have to mention?

He’s the one!