40 years ago today, A Chorus Line had
its first performance on this stage. To begin our festivities, to begin our
festivities, please welcome from the mayor's office nine time Emmy winner
Cynthia Lopez. On behalf of Bill de Blasio, the mayor of the city of New York,
I do hereby proclaim Thursday, April 16th 2015 in the city of New York A Chorus
Line Day. Ladies and gentlemen, please give it up
for the original cast of A Chorus Line. Scott Allen,
Renee Baughman, Kelly Bishop, Wayne Cilento,
Chuck Cissel, Kay Cole,
Ronald Dennis, Brandt Edwards, Patricia Garland, Carolyn Kirsch, Ron Coleman, Nancy Lane, Baayork Lee,
Priscilla Lopez, Donna McKechnie, Carole Schweid, Michael Serrecchia, Ladies and gentlemen, from The Public,
Patrick Willingham and Oskar Eustis. 40 years ago, Chorus Line reinvented
everything, and there's a lot of things that we knew about Chorus Line, but let me just
focus on one thing: what Chorus Line did was it said let's for a moment take the
spotlight off the star of the show and let's turn the spotlight on the people
who are making the show work, who actually build it, who devote their lives
to it, and let's not just turn the spotlight on them, let's actually ask
them their story. Let's find out who they are, let's find out how they got here, and
let's say, "You know what? That's the real show." And they did that and they changed
the nature of the American Musical Theatre. And Hamilton's doing in a little
bit of a different way but it's saying the same thing, because it's taking the
story of the founding of this country and saying, "Guess what? Let's tell the
story of the founding of this country told by the people who actually make up this
country, who are this country, who are the strength, who built this country, and who
are this country's future. And these two musicals together -- what better thing
could represent what The Public Theatre tries to do. We try to do it every day
and every 40 years we hit it out of the park. And I just want to say that my comrade
Patrick has here -- we're bad at remembering in the theatre because we're
all about moments right we're all about creating this special moment, but it's
important to remember. And the plaque that's going on this theater that
will forever commemorate that this is the place where Chorus Line began and
we'll never forget that. We can't forget that.
