Chorus Line, A Lyrics – All Songs from the Musical

"A Chorus Line" – The Musical Guide & Song Meanings

Review and lyric themes

“A Chorus Line” asks a cruel question, then makes you listen to the answers. Who are you when the job is the only proof you exist? On paper, the show is an audition. In practice, it is a pressure test. The dancers are asked for “type,” then forced into autobiography. The music does not console them. It frames them.

Edward Kleban’s lyrics are built like interview transcripts that learned how to scan. The language is conversational, sometimes jagged, and often funny in self-defense. When the show goes lyrical, it rarely goes poetic. It goes specific. “Nothing” is a punchline with teeth. “Dance: Ten; Looks: Three” is a résumé turned into a survival story. “What I Did for Love” lands because it refuses to sentimentalize the bargain; it simply states the bargain out loud.

Marvin Hamlisch’s score moves with the logic of rehearsal. It can shift from confessional to showbiz gloss in seconds because the room keeps shifting. The sound is Broadway-pop of the mid-1970s, but the structure is more daring than the sheen. Each number is a window, then the window snaps shut, and the audition continues. Even “One,” that famous finale, is a trick the show plays on itself: after ninety minutes of faces, the ending turns everyone into the same smiling product. That is not a contradiction. It is the point.

How it was made

The creation story is almost as famous as the musical, and it is messy in the way artistic ownership is messy. “A Chorus Line” grew out of taped late-night workshop sessions with Broadway dancers, hosted at first by dancers Michon Peacock and Tony Stevens, with the first recorded session dated January 26, 1974 at the Nickolaus Exercise Center. Those recordings became raw material, shaped into a book by James Kirkwood Jr. and Nicholas Dante. The show’s DNA is documentary, even when the finished product is polished theatre.

It opened Off-Broadway at The Public Theater on April 15, 1975, then transferred to Broadway, opening July 25, 1975 at the Shubert Theatre. The Broadway run lasted 6,137 performances, closing April 28, 1990. The show won nine Tony Awards and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, an outcome that still feels slightly improbable for a musical about people who rarely get top billing.

That documentary beginning also explains the writing style. These are dancers who do not speak in speeches. They speak in fragments, facts, jokes, evasions. Kleban’s gift was turning that into song without sanding off the edges. The score is full of lines that feel overheard. You can sense the tape recorder in the room.

Key tracks and scenes

"I Hope I Get It" (Company)

The Scene:

A bare stage. A line of bodies under work lights. The piano snaps into a count, and the room turns into math. Feet hit the floor like a deadline. Zach watches from the dark, and the dancers try to look like they are not begging.

Lyrical Meaning:

The lyric is pure audition brain: desire narrowed into a single sentence. The song makes the show’s economy explicit. Talent matters, but so does endurance. So does nerve.

"At the Ballet" (Sheila, Bebe, Maggie)

The Scene:

Three women step forward and the rehearsal hall softens. Lighting shifts toward memory. Each story arrives with a new image of childhood, then the images collide into one shared fantasy of grace.

Lyrical Meaning:

The lyric treats art as refuge, then admits refuge has a cost. They wanted a place where everything made sense. They found one, then learned it demanded their whole lives.

"I Can Do That" (Mike)

The Scene:

Mike reenacts the moment dance chose him. The number plays like a spontaneous demonstration: quick footwork, bright timing, a boy discovering he can compete in a world that is not built for him.

Lyrical Meaning:

It is confidence as origin story. The lyric makes talent sound accidental, then reveals the hunger underneath. The joke is the shield. The ambition is the engine.

"Nothing" (Diana)

The Scene:

Diana squares up to the room. The music is blunt. The story is blunt. Her acting teacher’s cruelty hangs in the air like fluorescent light that never flatters.

Lyrical Meaning:

“Nothing” is a lyric about being told your truth is useless. Diana refuses that verdict. The song is also the show’s argument for musical theatre itself: feeling is craft, not embarrassment.

"Dance: Ten; Looks: Three" (Val)

The Scene:

Val flips the audition into a stand-up set. The lighting turns presentational, almost like a spotlight in a club. She tells you exactly how bodies are priced, then laughs so she does not have to cry.

Lyrical Meaning:

The lyric is a critique disguised as a hit. It exposes a system that rewards surgery more reliably than training. Val’s humor is not innocence; it is strategy.

"The Music and the Mirror" (Cassie)

The Scene:

Cassie is alone with the studio mirror and the version of herself she used to trust. The choreography is an argument with gravity. The light feels surgical, every angle judging her back.

Lyrical Meaning:

This is the show’s purest portrait of dance addiction. Cassie is not asking to be loved. She is asking to be allowed to work. The lyric makes need sound like devotion.

"What I Did for Love" (Diana and Company)

The Scene:

The room regroups after a dancer is seriously hurt. The chatter drops away. The line becomes a circle, then a chorus. For once, nobody is competing.

Lyrical Meaning:

The lyric reframes sacrifice as choice, even when it did not feel like choice at the time. The song also lets the show stop being cynical for a minute, without lying.

"One" (Company)

The Scene:

Gold costumes. Hard glam lighting. Smiles that read from the balcony. The dancers become a single machine, perfect and interchangeable, and the audience cheers because the machine is flawless.

Lyrical Meaning:

The lyric sells stardom while the staging shows its price. After all the individual stories, the finale turns identity into uniform. The thrill is real. So is the loss.

Live updates 2025/2026

2025 became a public anniversary year. A planned, site-specific non-union “A Chorus Line” at The Loft New York was announced and then canceled after Concord Theatricals pulled the rights, with Playbill and TheaterMania reporting the cancellation and the removal of associated social accounts. That mini-drama felt oddly on-theme: a show about labor, gatekeeping, and who gets to stand on the line.

The official 50th Anniversary Celebration benefit concert took place July 27, 2025 at the Shubert Theatre, benefiting the Entertainment Community Fund and featuring original cast members alongside a rotating roster of guest performers. Coverage highlighted Baayork Lee’s role as director and choreography custodian for the event.

For 2026, a major commemorative staging is set: Barrington Stage Company will present a 50th anniversary production in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, running July 15 through August 8, 2026, directed by Alan Paul. Regionals and conservatories will continue to do what they always do with this title: treat it as both a classic and a dare.

Notes and trivia

• The Broadway opening was July 25, 1975 at the Shubert Theatre, and the original run closed April 28, 1990 after 6,137 performances.
• The setting listed in IBDB is blunt and perfect: “An Audition. 1975. Here.”
• The show began with taped workshop sessions; a commonly cited first recording date is January 26, 1974 at the Nickolaus Exercise Center.
• The original cast recording was released by Columbia Masterworks in 1975 and peaked at No. 98 on Billboard’s Top LPs & Tape chart.
• A 2008 documentary, “Every Little Step,” follows the casting process for the 2006 Broadway revival and uses archival audio to connect the revival back to the original sessions.
• The 2025 planned Loft New York site-specific production was canceled due to licensing authorization issues, widely reported the same day it was announced.
• Barrington Stage’s 2026 anniversary production is billed for July 15 to August 8, 2026 on the Boyd Quinson Stage.

Reception then vs. now

Early reception treated “A Chorus Line” like an event, partly because it did not resemble what Broadway was selling at the time. Fifty years later, the surprise has shifted. The surprise now is how contemporary the power dynamics feel. Who gets asked for their trauma. Who gets to say no. Who is praised for “authenticity,” and who is punished for it.

“A theatrical magic” that turns the audition into something “emotionally resonant,” wrote the Financial Times of the 2024 Sadler’s Wells revival.

WhatsOnStage noted how differently the Cassie and Zach dynamic reads “in the wake of the Me Too movement,” with safeguarding now part of the audience’s lens.

A Broadway.com anniversary feature quoted Clive Barnes’ famous opening thought about the show: “The conservative word … might be tremendous.”

What has not changed is the way the lyrics make performers legible. Most musicals build character through plot. “A Chorus Line” builds plot through character. That is why the songs still feel like someone talking to you, not at you.

Quick facts

• Title: A Chorus Line
• Year: 1975 (Broadway opening July 25, 1975; Off-Broadway opening April 15, 1975)
• Type: Concept musical / audition drama
• Music: Marvin Hamlisch
• Lyrics: Edward Kleban
• Book: James Kirkwood Jr., Nicholas Dante
• Conceived and originally directed and choreographed by: Michael Bennett
• Original Broadway theatre: Shubert Theatre
• Selected notable placements: “I Hope I Get It” (opening audition combo); “The Music and the Mirror” (Cassie’s solo push); “What I Did for Love” (late-company reflection); “One” (finale)
• Original cast album: “A Chorus Line: Original Cast Recording” (Columbia Masterworks, 1975; approx. 48 minutes; Billboard peak No. 98)
• Documentary context: “Every Little Step” (2008) follows the 2006 revival casting process and connects it to the original taped sessions
• 2025/2026 status: Official 50th anniversary benefit concert held July 27, 2025; Barrington Stage Company 50th anniversary staging scheduled July 15 to August 8, 2026

Frequently asked questions

Is “A Chorus Line” based on real people?

It was developed from recorded workshop sessions with real Broadway dancers, and the writers shaped those stories into composite characters for the stage.

What happens in “I Hope I Get It”?

It is the first big audition sequence: the dancers learn and perform a combination under pressure, and the show makes the job hunt feel like a sprint.

Why is “The Music and the Mirror” such a centerpiece?

It is Cassie’s argument for being hired, expressed through movement and lyric. The number exposes how dance can be both identity and dependency.

Who sings “What I Did for Love” in the show?

Within the musical’s story, Diana begins the song and the company joins, framed as a shared response to the risk and loss built into the profession.

What is the “One” finale saying, beyond the glamour?

It shows what the audition was for: a chorus line where individuality is erased into precision. The finale is thrilling and unsettling on purpose.

Was the 2025 Loft New York revival real?

It was announced and then canceled after the licensing rights were pulled, according to Playbill and TheaterMania reporting.

Key contributors

Name	Role	Contribution
Michael Bennett	Conceiver, original director/choreographer	Shaped the audition-as-confessional concept and the original staging language.
James Kirkwood Jr.	Book writer	Helped convert taped dancer testimonies into a playable dramatic structure.
Nicholas Dante	Book writer	Co-wrote the book with an ear for backstage speech patterns and lived detail.
Marvin Hamlisch	Composer	Wrote a score that pivots between rehearsal-room realism and Broadway finish.
Edward Kleban	Lyricist	Created lyrics that preserve conversational truth while still landing as song.
Bob Avian	Co-choreographer	Co-created the original choreography and later helped preserve the work’s movement legacy.
Baayork Lee	Choreography custodian	Widely credited as a key steward of the choreography, including directing the 2025 anniversary concert.
Alan Paul	Director (Barrington Stage 2026)	Set to direct the 50th anniversary staging at Barrington Stage Company in summer 2026.

Sources: IBDB, Playbill, Entertainment Community Fund, Financial Times, WhatsOnStage, Broadway.com, Wikipedia, BroadwayWorld, TheaterMania, Barrington Stage Company / Playbill (Barrington announcement), A Chorus Line (Original Cast Recording) discography pages, Every Little Step (film listing), Sadler’s Wells.