Of chorus, of course. We’re home again. A Chorus Line IS Broadway, and it’s back where it belongs—the top of the Theater Directory in The New York Times. This is no mere happenstance. The show’s creator, the late, great Michael Bennett, deliberately contrived a title that would place it at the top of ABC’s theatrical listings in The Times.

As a director and choreographer, he contrived a show that celebrated theatrical life from the vantage point of the ensemble dancer—a gypsy’s eye-view of the world; a valentine to those who gave as well as to those who received; a human musical with kicks and glitz.

It may well be the last great American musical before the Brits and the French invaded Broadway and ran roughshod over the top ten list, leaving Sondheim to soldier on alone (although, lately, that’s mostly just revivals and Bounce, with the emphasis on the former).

Thus, the second Broadway coming of A Chorus Line is, by definition, a black-tie event. The welcome-back wagon was glamorously bedecked with some very well turned-out celebs: a Bill-less Hillary, Liza with a Jason escort, Rosie O’Donnell and Kelly Carpenter, Sarah Jessica Parker minus Matthew, Joy Behar, Bernard Gersten (associate producer of the original), Joan Rivers, designers Arnold Scassi and Michael Kors, Frank Wildhorn with fiancee Brandi Burkhardt of TV’s “Passions,” Tovah Feldshuh, Jacques d’Amboise (a proud Papa, he!), Diane Judge, Douglas Sills, Terrence Mann, Turner Classic Movies host-with-the-most Robert Osborne, Dee Hoty with new Equity president Mark Zimmerman, Brian Stokes Mitchell and, last but not least, an actual Chorus Line virgin (Sandra Bernhard, of all people!).

Two Tony-winners from the original were put conspicuously in place by John Breglio, Bennett’s attorney in his producing debut: composer Marvin Hamlisch, who didn’t change a note, and Bob Avian, who co-choreographed with Bennett the original and took over the direction of the revival, leaving the choreography re-staging to Baayork Lee.

Also reprising their original work: orchestrator Jonathan Tunick, vocal arranger Don Pippin, set designer Robin Wagner, Tony-nominated costumer Theoni V. Aldredge, wardrobe mistress Alyce Gilbert (now just supervising, since Wicked keeps her so busy).

McKechnie, who was Bennett’s muse for many years and his wife for one, caught the closing performance of A Chorus Line in 1990—and now this, its re-opening, “I just sat there like a happy audience member with great anticipation and let it waft over me,” she said. “What a great show! I mean, to see all of Tharon Musser’s lighting [adapted by Natasha Katz], to see Michael’s staging—all the layers he was doing. I was so happy that Michael’s work was on Broadway again because it’s been too long. We’re very lucky to have the original creators like Marvin Hamlisch, Bob Avian, Robin and Baayork. You know well Baayork has been carrying the flame of A Chorus Line all over the world.”

Bennett occupies a chunk of her autobiography, "Time Steps: My Musical Comedy Life," just published by Simon and Schuster. Particularly fascinating is the creation of the character of Cassie, which is an amalgam of both her and Bennett. The characters are based on taped interviews with dancers, and much of McKechnie is in the character, but she considers it the most fictionalized. Cassie went through numerous changes going from script to stage—a different entrance, a different solo spot and a different end. (Spoiler: It was only because Marsha Mason, then married to the show-doctoring Neil Simon, told Bennett she thought the show was downer that Cassie wound up making the cut.) Continued...