A Chorus Line

A Chorus Line
Original Broadway windowcard
Music	Marvin Hamlisch
Lyrics	Edward Kleban
Book	James Kirkwood Jr. Nicholas Dante
Productions	1975 Off-Broadway 1975 Broadway 1976 North American tour 1976 US tour 1976 West End 1990 US tour 1996 North American tour 2006 Broadway 2008 North American tour 2013 West End
Awards	Tony Award for Best Musical Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical Tony Award for Best Original Score Pulitzer Prize for Drama Olivier Award for Best Musical Helpmann Award for Best Musical

A Chorus Line is a 1975 musical conceived and directed by choreographer Michael Bennett with music by Marvin Hamlisch, lyrics by Edward Kleban, and a book by James Kirkwood Jr. and Nicholas Dante.

Set on the bare stage of a Broadway theater, the musical is centered on seventeen Broadway dancers auditioning for spots on a chorus line. 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.

Following several workshops and an Off-Broadway production, A Chorus Line opened at the Shubert Theatre on Broadway July 25, 1975, directed by Michael Bennett and co-choreographed by Bennett and Bob Avian. An unprecedented box office and critical hit, the musical received twelve Tony Award nominations and won nine, 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, and the longest-running Broadway musical originally produced in the US, until surpassed in 2011 by the revival of Chicago. It remains the seventh longest-running Broadway show ever. A Chorus Line's success has spawned many successful productions worldwide. It began a lengthy run in the West End in 1976 winning the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Musical and was revived on Broadway in 2006, and in the West End in 2013.