A Class Act

Urn

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This is the urn that Ed Kleban received for his work on A Chorus Line.

Susan S. and Vince Y. both searched for this photograph for the production.

Lehman Engel

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Lehman Engel was born on September 14, 1910 in Jackson, Mississippi. He attended the University of Cincinnati, the Juliard school of music, and the Roger Sessions which were taught by Roger Huntington, an American composer. He began his conducting career with Cradle Will Rock (1937) and followed it with Call Me Mister (1946), Wonderful Town (1953), Fanny (1954), Li'l Abner (1956), Jamaica (1957), Take Me Along (1959), Do Re Mi (1960), and I Can Get It for You Wholesale (1962). He was the conductor for the television version of Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew (1956), Twelfth Night (1957), Leonard Bernstein's Wonderful Town (1958), and Broadway musical version and motion picture (1959) of L'il Abner. Engle composed music for Broadway's revival of Hamlet (1939) and Anne of the Thousand Days (1948). He taught at the American Musical and Dramatic Theatre Academy and New York University. He is also an author who wrote such books as Musical Shows: Planning and Producing (1957), The American Musical Theatre (1967), Words with Music (1972), and an autobiography, This Bright Day (1974). He died on August 29, 1982 in New York City.

A Chorus Line Awards

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A Chorus Line was nominated for 12 Tony Award nominations, winning nine:

Best Musical
Best Actress in a Musical (Donna McKechnie)
Best Featured Actor in a Musical (Sammy Williams)
Best Featured Actress in a Musical ( Carole "Kelly" Bishop)
Best Director ( Michael Bennet)
Best Musical Book (James Kirkwood and Nicholas Dante)
Best Score ( Marvin Hamlisch and Ed Kleban)
Best Lighting Design (Tharon Musser)
Best Choreography (Michael Bennet)

Also:

the 1976 Pulitzer Prize for Drama
the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best Play of the season
The West End production won the Laurence Olivier Award as Best Musical of the Year 1976, the first year in which the awards were presented

From July 25, 1975 at the Shubert Theatre it ran 6, 137 performances, the longest running show in Broadway history, until Cats in 1997.

A Class Act (2001)

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Chorus Line (1975)

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Promises Promises (1968)

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Michael Bennet choreographed this Neil Simon show.

Seesaw (1973)

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This is actually a song book with the broadway poster as the cover. Seesaw was written, directed, and choreographed by Michael Bennet.

Coco (1969)

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Coco was choreographed by Michael Bennet.

Kleban Pictures

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Irene (1973)

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Irene, the 1973 revival, was very popular in it's time. It even stole Carole "Kelly" Bishop for the role of one of the girlfriends for the national tour during the hiatus between wokshops of A Chorus Line. Michael Bennet had to pay, with money and a favor, to get her out of her 6 month contract to get her back for A Chorus Line.

Group Pictures

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Martin Hamlisch (left, with glasses) and Michael Bennet ( right)
(back row, left to right) Ed Kleban, Marvin Hamlisch, (front row, left to right) James Kirkwood, Michael Bennet, Nicholas Dante

Bennet Pictures

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Chorus Line (1976) Videos

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A Chorus Line commercial

Donna McKechnie as Cassie in "Music and the Mirror." She won a Tony (1976) for "Best Actress in a Musical " for this role.

Carole "Kelly" Bishop as Sheila in "At The Ballet". She won a Tony (1976) for "Best Supporting or Featured Actress in a Musical" and a Drama Desk Award (1976) for "Outstanding Actress in a Musical" for this role.

1976 Tony Awards- A Chorus Line "One"

Marvin Hamlisch

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Marvin Hamlisch was born on June 2, 1944. He was a child prodigy who studied piano at the Julliard School of Music. As a teenager, his talent for the piano drew him to being a professional concert pianist, but his anxiety over performing prevented him from pursuing this career. It did lead him to become a composer instead, though, something he had only pursued in private. By the time he was 21, he composed his first hit song titled "Sunshine, Lollipops, and Rainbows." In 1973, he won three Oscars, best dramatic score and best song, for the scores to the movies The Way We Were and The Sting. In 1975, he wrote the score for A Chorus Line which won him a Tony award (1976) for Best Score. He has since conducted various pop orchestras including the Pittsburgh Symphony and scoring flims and television shows.

Michael Bennet

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Michael Bennet was born April 8, 1943. He was a director, choreographer, and dancer throughout his life. He started his life on stage as the character of Baby John in West Side Story on the U.S. and European tours. On Broadway, he began as a dancer in Subways are for Sleeping, Here's Love, and Bajour in the 60's. His breakout choreaographed show was the unsucessful A Joyful Noise (1966), followed by another failed show Henry, Sweet Henry. But, his luck changed with the show Promises, Promises. For this show he created original dances to Burt Bacharach and Hal David's lively, contemporary score. He then choreographed Katherine Hepburn in Coco (1969), Sondheim's Company (1970), and "Follies" (1971). He choreographed, directed and was the librettest for Seesaw (1973). In 1975, he choreographed and directed his huge hit A Chorus Line. His only other major hit was Dreamgirls (1981). After these shows he worked with various projects until moving to Tucson, Arizona. He remained in Arizona until he died of AIDS in 1987.

Testimonials about Kleban

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Susan Sandberg was used as one of the inspirations for the character of Sophie. She was Kleban's friend since high school. She rememebered how much Kleban loved to talk. He would phone her late at night and read The New Yorker's entire J.D. Salinger story from the latest issue. In the last months of Kleban's life, he was unable to speak due to his illness. She would tease him about having to learn to listen.

Jonathan Tunick was a friend of Kleban's from the High School of Music & Art. They were friends for 35 years. Before Kleban lost his ability to speak, he had called Tunick to tell him how much he valued his friendship. Tunick's testimony was paraphrased by Bobby in A Class Act:
"With Ed it's easy to say, " too bad he wrote so litte." To me the miracle is that he wrote so much. I've never known anybody who exemplified more the expression," the courage to create." Knowing him as well as I did, I know what it must have cost him to break through that familiar fascade, the witty Ed, the self assured, articulate Ed- I used to tease him that he was the only person I knew who used " moto" as a verb- that erudite, perfect Ed- to break through that and expose to us for those few moments that it takes to hear a song, the "real" Ed."

Lynn Ahrens was a BMI workshop member as a lyricist- librettist. She states,
" The legacy he (Kleban) left is the process. Looking at every word and making every word count."

Maury Yeston was a workshop collegue of Kleban. He is a composer and lyricist who was incoled with Nine and Grand Hotel. He states," I've been tremendously influenced by him. He influenced a whole generation of writers. He had a wonderful sense of humanity towards his fellow writers."

Suzanne Bixby was a student of Kleban's at BMI and a friend of Linda Kline. She states Kleban was a "fabalous teacher and mentor."

Linda Kline, Kleban's long-time girlfriend before his death, was asked what Ed would have "celebrated- or decryed about the state of the musical during the 2000-2001 season when A Class Act opened on Broadway." She replied :
" He would celebrate that musical theatre is alive and well in the 21st century. He would send notes to the creators of shows he admired; he would walk out on the shows he didn't like- and he would know by the second number."

Kleban Quotes

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Kleban Two-Block Rule: " Don't speak about the play until you're two blocks away."

Ed's metaphor for creating a musical: " A major musical is this: someone gets hit by a Mack truck and he's carried into an emergency room. Five or six crazy egotistical genuises who have never met are called in to put him together. Now these brillant weirdos must get along if the patient is to survive. If any organ goes, the patient dies. If the patient survives, that's a hit musical."

Ed's statement from a BMI Magazine explaining what the Musical Theatre Department meant to him: " I don't know what I'd do without the workshop and its members. I trust their reactions more than any single genius in the theatrical profession. My workshop colleagues heard and dissected all the material I wrote for A Chorus Line. And when the show won everything, I walked into a session and received an absolute ovation. It meant more to me than almost anything becuase this very special group of people understood completely what was done. That moment gave the whole enterprise validity...a celebration of the process within the workshop. It proved that we weren't sitting around whistling "Dixie""

Edward Kleban

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