Broadway Across America’s current production of Michael Bennett’s Tony-Award winning 1976 masterpiece, A Chorus Line, combines just the right amount of sparkle and soul to be both heartwarming and thoroughly entertaining.

Under the direction of an able and enthusiastic cast (including openly-gay actor John Carroll, who plays Larry, the director’s assistant - See “Final Audition” Issue 1804, Pg.25) portray a group of young dancers auditioning to be in the chorus line of a Broadway show. A musical-within-a-musical this is not, however. At the heart of A Chorus Line is the fictional show’s director, Zach (Michael Gruber), who asks the potential cast members, uncomfortably, to share the details of the their lives, which do not appear on their resume. Along the way we get a catalogue of the eccentric, the narcissistic and the earnest. The cast shares the travails of childhood and the insecurities of members of a profession which breeds insecurities. In the process the characters transform from bodies dancing in a line to full human beings.

Along the way we meet two openly-gay characters. There’s the flamboyant Greg (Denis Lambert), who tells as how he discovered he was gay while fondling a girl while in high school. And then there’s Paul (Kevin Santos), whose story becomes one of the emotional cores of the show. Small, slightly effeminate and Puerto Rican, he is unable to tell his story to the entire group of hopefuls. Only when he and Zach are alone do we discover his touching story of being abused as a child, being forced out of high school, and his parent’s tacit acceptance of his work as a drag performer.

And it is these emotional resonances, more than the current production’s flawless, spectacular staging and excellent performance of the show’s iconic anthem “One” (Singular Sensation), that make A Chorus Line worth seeing.