What's Up - Your guide to what's happening in Fayetteville, AR this week!
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38 WHAT'S UP! JUNE 19-25, 2022 FYI Baayork Lee Still Inspires After 46 years, Baayork Lee is still bringing the magic of "A Chorus Line" to audiences the world over. I have been involved with the show from its inception. On opening night, when we were off-Broadway, Michael Bennett passed me the torch and said, 'You are going to be taking care of the show, because I'm going on to do other things.'" She began working on "A Chorus Line" as an assistant to Bennett, the writer and director of the show during the show's development. "I had already been on the tape sessions with Michael Bennett. And he came to me and he said, 'I would like to use your life for the show. And I said, 'Well, do you really want to know about a short Asian that wanted to be a ballet dancer?' And he said, 'Yes, I think people would be very interested in your story.'" After playing Connie Wong in the original 1975 production, Lee has since gone on to direct and choreograph more than 35 international productions of the show. "What keeps me close to the show is the next generation and the next generation and the next generation. I love this show. I love the choreogra- phy. And I love what Michael Bennett has left for the next generation." FYI Create Your Own Subscription The "Create Your Own Subscription" package is avail- able now for the 2022-23 Walton Arts Center season. Patrons may choose shows from any series (except for Starrlight Jazz Club and West Street Live) to make their own three-, five- or seven-show subscrip- tion package. Create Your Own subscribers also get early access to the season's shows before single tickets go on sale, early access to new shows added throughout the year and discounts on most shows, including Broadway. Visit waltonartscenter.org for more information. FAQ 'A Chorus Line' WHEN — 8 p.m. June 24; 3 & 8 p.m. June 25; 2 p.m. June 26 WHERE — Walton Arts Center in Fayetteville TICKETS — $33-$62 INFO — 443-5600, waltonartscenter.org Dan Sher you don't realize, thankfully, when you watch it, or you'd be really bored. … We hope you barely realize that lights are programmed to do what they're doing. You just think it's kind of just all happening. So that's the magic of theater, I would like to think." When getting a show ready to tour, teching involves planning the show for other spaces too. "There is a specific way that you have to put a show together so that it can pack up to go on a truck," Sher explains, "because [when] you get to the next venue, and you open the trucks, you have 50 individuals who don't know what's on the truck, and you have your maybe 15 people telling them what to do." He goes on to say that "it takes a very specific, scrutinizing kind of process to diagram out and create a show to tour." This is the 12th tour to be launched from the WAC, the second time for "A Chorus Line," which was first launched from Fayetteville in 1997. "It's a wonderful place to mount musicals, it's a wonderful place to just bring musicals to full stop, and particularly wonderful place to put them together from a production and tech standpoint," Sher enthuses. He has worked behind the scenes on collaborations with Disney on Elton John and Tim Rice's "Aida" (North America, Taiwan and China), and with Cameron Mackintosh on "Miss Saigon." He has also worked behind the scenes of "The Producers," "My Fair Lady," "Dreamgirls," "Hair," "An American in Paris" and so many more. He says that the TV station, TBS, in Japan was "determined that they wanted to celebrate the reopening of Japan with 'A Chorus Line,' because it's one of the most beloved shows in the country." Often credited with "saving Broadway" and its longest running show, "A Chorus Line" was directed and choreographed by Michael Bennett with the music composed by Marvin Hamlisch. The story is based on a group of dancers who tell a director why they are auditioning for a new show on Broadway. Prior to its July 25, 1975, release attendance at Broadway shows was at almost an all-time low of around 6.6 million. After "A Chorus Line," those figures rose to 8.8 million. With 24 dates scheduled, "A Chorus Line" planners are hoping to bring back audiences in a big way, too. "I think it has particular emotional appeal now that we're back on stage doing what we all love to do," Sher says. Chorus Continued From Page 7 FAYETTEVILLE Keep Arkansas Beautiful.com