Uptown Players Present A CHORUS LINE

Uptown Players brings a limited engagement of everyone's favorite kickline to Dallas for one weekend only with its run of A Chorus Line, February 2-4 at the Moody Performance Hall in the Arts District.

A Chorus Line is a celebration of those unsung heroes of American musical theater as it takes the audience through the final grueling audition for a new Broadway musical. A Chorus Line provides a glimpse into the personalities of the performers and the choreographer as they describe the events that have shaped their lives and their decisions to become dancers. With music by Marvin Hamlisch, lyrics by Edward Kleban, and a book by James Kirkwood Jr and Nicholas Dante, A Chorus Line will be directed and choreographed by Jeremy Dumont and will take place for one weekend only.

Director Jeremy Dumont became obsessed with A Chorus Line at the age of nine when his mother introduced him to it (skipping to the part where Val sings "Tits and Ass") and he seemed to feel the universe pulling him in to be a part of this show. When asked what drew him along with decades worth of theatre audiences to A Chorus Line he first mentioned the score with "One" being a Broadway standard on par with Rodgers and Hammerstein and Stephen Sondheim. His next response was that people are fascinated with the life of performers. Dumont says, "We are a strange tribe of people who put up with so much and face so much rejection, yet we continuously put ourselves 'on the line' in order to do what we love. A Chorus Line allows the audience to take a look into what it's like to be one of us. I believe people are still madly in love with this show, as am I,"

An unprecedented box office and critical hit, A Chorus Line won nine Tony Awards in addition to the 1976 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The original Broadway production ran for 6,137 performances, becoming the longest-running production in Broadway history until surpassed by Cats in 1997. Dumont explains, "Lately, A Chorus Line seems to have been stored in some sort of museum. The issues that A Chorus Line grapples with are STILL issues that we face today and sometimes the way you get people to see that is by giving it a 'fresh coat of paint'. I am, for one, excited to see what will come of this production."

Cast includes - Whitney Bollinger , Colby Calhoun ,Alexandra Cassens, Ashley Chasteen, Phillip Giandiletti, Colleen LeBleu, Walter Lee, Beth Lipton, Lindsay Longacre, Bethany Lorentzen, McLaine Meachem, Mindy Neuendorff, Dominic Pecikonis, Collins Rush, Michael Russell, Dan Servetnick, Carlos Strudwick, Michael Sylvester, Trevor Wright

A Chorus Line runs February 2-4, 2018 with shows at 8 p.m. on Friday, and Saturday, and 2 p.m. on Sunday. Performances take place at the Moody Performance Hall, 2520 Flora St, Dallas, TX. Tickets are $30-$55 and can be purchased online at www.uptownplayers.org or by phone at (214) 219-2718.

About Uptown Players:

Uptown Players is a 501 (c) 3 non-profit organization, presenting plays and musicals that challenge audiences artistically and strive to create greater positive public awareness and acceptance through the performing arts. Now in its seventeenth season and ninth at the Kalita Humphreys Theater, Uptown Players has gathered a dedicated following and is providing an opportunity for a wide diversity of gender styles to come together and explore life choices through great theatre themes such as relationships, family, prejudice, and values. The response from the community and critics has been remarkable, including over 25 Leon Rabin Awards from the Dallas Theatre League, and over 30 Theater Critics Forum Awards in its first fifteen seasons. Uptown Players has also been named the best theatre company by the Dallas Voice Readers and by the Dallas Observer and was also featured in D Magazine and on WFAA's Daybreak and Good Morning Texas programs.

Uptown Players has presented world premieres, including Redesigning Women (2013), Crazy Just Like Me (2011) and the stage adaptation of The Valley of the Dolls (2007), along with the United States premieres of the West End hit musical Soho Cinders (2014), and the Pet Shop Boys Musical Closer to Heaven (2010). Uptown Players was the first regional theater in the United States to present the Tony Award winner The Boy from Oz and the Pulitzer Prize winning musical Next To Normal, following the closing of the Broadway productions. Each season, Uptown Players presents several regional premieres, including recent productions of It Shoulda Been You, The Toxic Avenger, Mothers and Sons, End of the Rainbow, The Nance, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, Hello Again (featured in a Broadway World article about the recent movie), and The Producers.

Photo by Mike Morgan

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