Cast: Rebecca Riker (Cassie), Gabrielle Ruiz (Diana), Emily Fletcher (Sheila), Hollie Howard (Maggie), Michael Gruber (Zach)
For the complete cast & schedule information, see Broadway.com.
I’ve always been a big fan of A Chorus Line. I love how it shows what one goes through during an audition – the
Overall, this cast was much better than the original Broadway revival cast I saw a couple years ago. Rebecca Riker (the understudy for Cassie) has a much better voice than Charlotte
d'Amboise. I was surprised that she didn’t sing when doing the combination with the guys either. I had thought they’d cut that out because d’Amboise couldn’t hold her own. I guess they just cut it from this production, though I can’t imagine a director being okay with Cassie simply choosing not to sing because she doesn’t feel like it. No director I’ve worked with would be happy with that and I’ve never worked even close to that level. Emily Fletcher as Sheila was also much better than Deidre Goodwin and since that’s one of my favorite parts in A Chorus Line, it was great to see it being done so well. Gabrielle Ruiz has an amazing voice, but didn’t quite have the spunk Natalie Cortez does for Diana and James T. Lane was much better as Richie than Anthony Wayne.
The overall performance was better than that on Broadway, though. Though some of the cast members are not as good as their Broadway counterparts, none of them were bad. They were all very good in their roles and had I not seen the other cast, I wouldn’t have thought they weren’t good enough. In contrast, I was very bothered by the performances of Charlotte d’Amboise and Deidre Goodwin on Broadway. Having a good Cassie and Sheila are important to me and both of them had been better in every other production I’ve seen of A Chorus Line.
I definitely recommend the touring production of A Chorus Line. There’s not much to the set, so it’s easy to take on the road and the cast is great.
Grade: B+
Reviewed by Kat at the 8:00 PM show | 0 screams