Local Review: The UTEP Dinner Theatre's Production of "A Chorus Line"

   For the third show of their 35^th anniversary season, the UTEP Dinner Theatre presented a production of the Broadway classic, A Chorus Line, which is a musical about 17 dancers auditioning for a Broadway musical. Each of the dancers gets a chance to step out of the line and share a bit of their life story with the director, Zach, before they step back into the line with the rest of the Broadway chorus hopefuls. Although I do not speak about the show very often, I have always considered A Chorus Line  to be one of my favorite shows. Marvin Hamlisch and Edward Kleban’s score is gorgeous and the book by James Kirkwood & Nicholas Dante is masterful and intelligent. The UTEP Dinner Theatre’s production of the Broadway classic was entertaining, but the production had a few things that hindered it.

  I found the show’s production and overall tone to be quite enjoyable and everybody involved seemed to have an innate understanding of what the piece says. The production looked and felt well established. But, for the first time, I was not blown away by the singing at a dinner theatre show. While some of the cast members sounded quite nice on their own, the group numbers where everyone sang together sounded unclean. It didn't sound together. Unfortunately, the same can be said for the dancing in the show's group numbers. You could see some of the dancers falling behind or getting ahead of everyone else in the cast. This was noticeable during the song "One." During the song "One", the director, Zach, is yelling directions at the character of Cassie, when in reality, he probably should have been yelling those directions at some of the dancers around her. The entire show wasn't like this, it was just the group numbers that I found looked choppy. The show was by no means bad in any way, but these were things that were hard to look around when they happened.

  Each of the cast members was very unique, as they should be in any production of A Chorus Line, which is a show that celebrates individuality. The performances that I strongly appreciated were Josey Pickett, who performed a beautiful version of "Music and the Mirror" as Cassie and Jorge Blakely, who was charming as Mike. In the role of Diana Morales, Lizbeth Sanchez Pineda's rendition of "Nothing" was probably my favorite part of the show. As Val, Katie Harding had so much character and charisma behind her performance and she fit the part very well. Another standout among the company was Jeffrey Qunitana (Bobby), whose comedy fit him like a glove.

   In terms of direction (by Jaime Barba), choreography (by Josey Pickett) and production, it was a typical production of A Chorus Line with the only real set (by Mike Spence) being large mirrors and big Broadway lights at the end. Barba and Pickett did a good job recreating Michael Bennett's original direction and choreography, but as I mentioned, the big dance numbers really didn't get the opportunity to shine because it didn't seem like all of the cast members were on the same page.  Music director, Patricia Ann Provencio, always does a fantastic job leading the band. At times, it sounded almost exactly like the instrumentals on the original cast album and it was really cool to listen too.

   Something that the production succeeded in doing was creating a mood within the theatre that felt very sincere. It felt traditional. While there's no way to know this for sure, I felt as if everyone in the audience knew the show and was anticipating every word. When we reached certain songs such as "The Music and the Mirror" and "What I Did For Love", the show felt like a family tradition, almost. I don't know how much of this paragraph makes sense, as it's very hard to put into words. The show felt quite routine, in a good way. It felt the way it feels when the actress playing Christine in The Phantom of the Opera sings "In sleep he sang to me..."

 The UTEP Dinner Theatre's production of A Chorus Line was able to get the show's message across although the singing and dancing wasn't all there. I personally liked finally being able to see a production of the show after so long (also hearing the song "And", which isn't on the cast album. Although I love the show, I literally forgot what that song sounded like). It was a nice production of the familiar show, that I wouldn't mind seeing again to see how it changes throughout the run. Overall, I felt this performance had its ups and its downs, but at the end of the day it was a cordial production of A Chorus Line.

The UTEP Dinner Theatre production of A CHORUS LINE was directed by Jaime Barba, choreographed by Josey Pickett, and incorporated the original direction and choreography by Michael Bennett. The cast consisted of:
Zach/Director/Choreographer- EDWARD GALLARDO III
Laurie, Zach's Assistant- KAELIN WALKER
Cassie- JOSEY PICKETT
Sheila- SARAH PAGANO
Val- KATIE HARDING
Diana- LIZBETH SANCHEZ-PINEDA
Judy- TANIA HERNANDEZ
Kristine- REBECCA VARGAS
Maggie- ALYSSA DONNELLY
Bebe- LAURA MAE KLINGER
Connie- JENSEN SPRINGER
Mike- JORGE BLAKELY
Richie- JEAN ANDRE MOORE
Don- JOHN LEVICK
Paul- DERRINK CINTRON
Mark- ALVARO CALLEJAS-VASQUEZ
Greg- HENRY DEL TORO
Bobby- JEFFREY QUINTANA
Vicki- BAILEE RODRIGUEZ
Tricia- BIANCA ISABEL GOMEZ
Lois- CHIARA CHANOI
Butch- DIEGO PARADA
Tommi- CAITLIN CHANOI
Frank- OMAR GONZALEZ
Backstage Singers- TANISHA LEWIS, KARLA PRIETO, JOHN DAVID GUEVARA, HECTOR PIPER



Performance Reviewed: January 31, 2018 (7:00 PM)