BALDWINSVILLE — Baldwinsville Theatre Guild is wrapping up its 80th anniversary season with a dream show for many performers: “A Chorus Line.”
The musical follows a group of dancers auditioning for a Broadway show. Each dancer shares their background and tells the story of how they got into the industry. The three performances take place Oct. 28 and 29 in the Baker High School auditorium.
“To really do the show properly, we just needed a stage that was a little bigger than the home stage,” said Managing Director Kathryn Woods.
BTG’s usual home base is the Presbyterian Education Center on Oswego Street, which fits 120 people. With a capacity of 878 seats, Baker’s auditorium offers plenty of room for a larger crowd — plus ample opportunity for social distancing.
“We’re hoping to fit at least 300 per show,” Woods said.
Woods said the BTG team is very excited about “A Chorus Line.”
“It was actually a passion project of the director, Shannon Tompkins, and she wanted to do it while she could still choreograph it,” Woods said. “It was perfect to close out our 80th anniversary season because it’s all glitzy.”
“A Chorus Line,” which opened off-Broadway in 1975, is based on interviews with real-life performers. It was Broadway’s longest-running musical until “Cats” knocked it off its perch in 1997.
“The original choreographer/director Michael Bennett got together with [co-choreographer] Bob Avian and said, “I want to record these dancers telling their stories,’” Woods said.
Some characters, like Bobby (played by Shane Stensland), are composites of multiple dancers. Bobby is based on Bennett and Thommie Walsh, a native of Auburn who originated the role of Bobby in the off-Broadway and Broadway debuts of “A Chorus Line.”
Stensland said he saw much of himself in his character.
“He’s kind of an odd duck. He has a pretty typical upbringing, although he had kind of a unique style. … He definitely got picked on a lot in school because he was different,” Stensland said of Bobby. “I grew up in a really small town and my class size was like a hundred kids. Kids were mostly entertained by me … so there wasn’t really a need to pick on me necessarily because I was comedic relief.”
Growing up, Stensland imagined himself on stage, in movies or on television. His older brother is a performer as well. Stensland said his parents would not let him take dance classes as a child, so he began his dance career in high school.
Playing Bobby has brought up memories of Stensland’s school days, and not always fond ones.
“I definitely have some flashbacks to school of certain key moments of things that I’ve endured growing up,” he said. “Now being an adult … if I could only go back and tell my younger self, ‘None of this matters. You’re going to be okay.’”
Even when the role is difficult, Stensland said he appreciates that theater offers the chance to step “out of reality and into a dreamworld.”
“Dancing and being in shows is therapy for me. It’s stress relief, even if the process can be stressful sometimes,” he said. “You can escape the drama of real life … be happy for a small period of time and make other people happy.”
Like Stensland, Katie Lemos Brown found a lot of familiarity in her role as Cassie, a dancer who comes out of retirement to audition for the show.
“My story is so similar to Cassie in the way that I went away from my first love basically of theater and pursued a completely different occupation, went and had beautiful children,” Brown said. “I really did put some different dreams first, but in turn it made me lose myself. In the past year I have let go of that former career and done some healing … so I can focus on my own loves and passions.”
Brown and her family moved to Baldwinsville during the pandemic. BTG was a big draw for her.
“We’re loving it. Both my husband and I share an urban heart so we miss being city-centric, but the other half of us is very nature-driven,” she said. “It’s such a perfect small town. It has at least one of everything you need and it has lots of good restaurants … and a really great theater company.”
Cast and crew alike have been hard at work putting the show together. Woods said “A Chorus Line” has not been produced in this area in several years.
“Shannon is doing almost verbatim the original choreography. We might get frustrated sometimes, but we are doing what they did on Broadway,” Brown said. “It really is such a special gem of musical theater and I feel like it’s not to be missed.”
Gabriella Giacovelli’s Diana is the lead on the show’s climactic number, “What I Did for Love.” The song is a reflection on a dancer’s limited window of physical ability and making the most of one’s dancing career.
The song hits home for Giacovelli, who has tendonitis in her foot. She has been dancing since age 5.
“Before I saw the show I thought it was a love song, but now it has such a different meaning,” Giacovelli said. “I dance because I love to dance, but I have this injury now and I don’t know how many years I have left to dance.”
Even those without theater experience can find a glimpse of themselves in “A Chorus Line,” the performers said. Brown said the theme of the show could apply to “anything you love and you want to be in it and you just give your all.”
“Every character has a different story that they tell and I feel like everyone who’s in the audience will find at least one character they resonate with,” Giacovelli said.
“A Chorus Line” takes place at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 28, and 2 p.m. or 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 29, at Baker High School, 29 E. Oneida St., Baldwinsville. Tickets are $26 for adults and $22 for students and seniors. Visit baldwinsvilletheatreguild.org to purchase tickets. Call the box office at 315-877-8465 to arrange accessible seating.
For more information, email [email protected].
