History Theatre / AChorusLine

* {{Fanservice}}: Justified since they're all actual dancers, and the clothing they wear is [[TruthInTelevision what real dancers wear for practices]], but the entire cast spends the vast majority of the play walking around in their practice uniforms, which means form-fitting tights (for the boys) and leotards (for the girls).

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/a_chorus_line_poster.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:I really need this job. Please, God, I need this job. I've got to get this job.[[note]]Pictured: The cast from the [=NETWorks=] national tour. L-R: Don, Maggie, Mike, Connie, Greg, Cassie, Sheila, Bobby, Bebe, Judy, Richie, Al, Kristine, Val, Mark, Paul, Diana.[[/note]]]]

* BuxomIsBetter: Val certainly thinks so, and that's why she had a breast augmentation. The resulting boost to her career (and her sex life) suggests that the superiority of a large chest is a popular opinion.

* ShoutOut: "One" is meant to be an homage to the kind of number Creator/JerryHerman had in his shows Theatre/Mame and Theatre/HelloDolly...a catchy chorus number where the backup chorus sings about how awesome the female lead is.

* RefrainFromAssuming: Val's number was originally called 'Tits and Ass,' but was re-titled after the first line in the song to keep audiences from getting the joke. (In high school productions, the number is redubbed "This and That.")

[[caption-width-right:350:I really need this job. Please, God, I need this job. I've got to get this job.[[note]]Pictured: The cast from the NETWorks national tour. L-R: Don, Maggie, Mike, Connie, Greg, Cassie, Sheila, Bobby, Bebe, Judy, Richie, Al, Kristine, Val, Mark, Paul, Diana.[[/note]]]]

A film adaptation was released in 1985 (the show's tenth anniversary), directed by Creator/RichardAttenborough and starring Creator/MichaelDouglas as Zach. It was a critical and commercial flop.

-->-- From the OpeningChorus number

The original was a {{Long Runner|s}} for fifteen years (1975-90) on Broadway, while it ran for three years in London's West End. It received a film adaptation in 1985 (marking its tenth anniversary) and was revived in 2006 (Broadway) and 2012 (West End). Two of its songs ("One" and "What I Did for Love") have become fan favorites. In 2000, a Tony-nominated semi-autobiographical musical was mounted about Ed Kleban and the creation of ''A Chorus Line'' called ''A Class Act'', deliberately repeating the "A" placed ahead of the name employed to give the original show alphabetical priority in the theater listings.

A film adaptation was released in 1985, directed by Creator/RichardAttenborough and starring Creator/MichaelDouglas as Zach.

In this musical, the lives of many dancers converge on stage as they audition for a big musical. They do their best to impress the director, Zach, and hope they get the job. However, once they're down to seventeen, Zach makes a surprising request: he asks the dancers to tell their names, ages, and a little bit of their {{Backstory}} - where they come from and why they dance. Ranging from hilarious to heartbreaking, they tell their stories one by one. After one of them faces a possible career-ending injury, everyone confronts the question: what does it mean to them? In the end, eight are chosen.

* HighConcept: A look at the lives of the dancers in a Broadway chorus line.

* YouHaveToHaveJews: As befits a musical set in New York, one of the dancers, Greg (or, to use his Hebrew name, Rochmel Lev ben Yokov Meyer Beckenstein), is Jewish, and declares himself to be "''very'' East Side... and I don't deny it!" With a name like Benzenheimer, there's a good chance Bebe also comes from a Jewish family, but she never says as much.

* BigBraToFill: Val's dialogue may include frequent boasting about her breast augmentation, but even allowing for Sheila snarking that "They're not very big" (which Val counters by saying she wanted them in proportion to the rest of her), the actresses who play her are not necessarily the most buxom members of the cast. Audrey Landers in the film, however, had no problem [[{{Pun}} filling the role.]][[note]] Although critical consensus held that her performance could be summed up as "Looks: Ten; Dance: Three"; wide shots of the group dancing almost invariably used a dance double for Val, with Landers only appearing in close-up.[[/note]]

* TimeMarchesOn: In "Dance Ten, Looks Three," Val sings about getting some plastic surgery while she's on unemployment (as her looks are the reason she's not getting jobs, according to her). In the 1970's, this was apparently plausible (not least as the surgery would pay for itself with the jobs it enabled the patient to get). But with inflation over some forty years, it's very hard to imagine an actress, in New York City, on unemployment, could find a reliable doctor who would do such a good job -- and it wouldn't "cost a fortune."
** Well, maybe - purely cosmetic surgery was still new in the 1970s and has become routine today. In 2021, the combination of breast, butt and nose work would run about $20,000.

[[caption-width-right:350:I really need this job. Please, God, I need this job. I've got to get this job.[[note]]Pictured: The cast from the 2012 West End revival. L-R: Don, Maggie, Mike, Connie, Greg, Cassie, Sheila, Bobby, Bebe, Judy, Richie, Al, Kristine, Val, Mark, Paul, Diana.[[/note]]]]

* BittersweetEnding: It's between this and a DownerEnding - one of the dancers injures his knee, with a 50-50 chance of ever being able to dance again. Only some of the dancers will be accepted into the chorus line; the others have to go. That's the reality of show business. The chosen dancers are all dressed in identical costumes for the final number, merely back-up for the main character that we never see.

* BuryYourGays: While he doesn't die, the one character in the show to suffer a career ending injury (Paul) happens to do so almost immediately after his big monologue about growing up gay.

* DirectorsGirlfriend: Inverted, Cassie, legitimately auditioning for a part as a dancer in the show is Zach's ''ex-''girlfriend. In addition, Zach is ''less'' motivated to hire her, because he can't stand seeing her as chorus and not a lead.

* BabyDontGotBack: In the number "Dance 10, Looks 3", Val sings about how she repeatedly loses dance parts due to her [[ACupAngst flat chest]] and small butt. Once she got plastic surgery and increased the size of her assets, she started gettting plenty of parts.

* EatingTheEyeCandy: None of the ''men'', but both Shiela and Connie stare at Val during the opening number.
-->'''Bobby:''' ''(grinning to Shiela)'' Great new body, eh?\\

''(Val is nonplussed)''

* EatingTheEyeCandy: None of the ''men'' during the opening of ''A Chorus Line'', but both Shiela and Connie stare at Val during the opening number.

* FocusGroupEnding: [[spoiler:Cassie]] was originally not one of the final eight dancers chosen for the chorus line, as [[spoiler:Zach felt she was overqualified]]. A few weeks into the original run, this was changed,[[note]] Among other things that prompted this, Michael Bennett brought in Marsha Mason, a Broadway veteran and then-wife of Creator/NeilSimon, to punch up some of the comedic lines; Mason argued that [[spoiler:Cassie]] didn't do anything ''wrong'' and so didn't deserve to be passed over.[[/note]] and ticket sales increased significantly.

* JustSmileAndNod: Zack snacks during the tap combo that if Connie is faking tap, she should at least smile bigger.