What I did for love: A Chorus Line, Jim Guedo’s farewell production at MacEwan, Theater News

By Liz Nicholls,

The musical that opens tonight on MacEwan University’s Triffo stage takes us into the individual lives, the hopes, the desperate dreams, the sacrifices of Broadway dancers, that anonymous ensemble of high-kickers who do it — or so the song says — for love.

Fifty years ago A Chorus Line, the Tony-studded Pulitzer-winning creation of the brilliant director/ choreographer/ innovator Michael Bennett, broke new ground in musical theatre. Its scene is behind-the-scenes; its set a stage where dancers are auditioning for a new Broadway show. The anxiety and tension, the fierce competition … it’s all there threading through the real stories gathered from interviews with career dancers, in the conception of the groundbreaking musical that director Jim Guedo chose for the theatre arts season finale at MacEwan.

And, as a special occasion capper, A Chorus Line is Guedo’s own farewell to that institution after 15 years as an educator, teaching, mentoring, and directing there, preparing the new generation of theatre artists for life in the industry. “I love the show,” says Guedo, who saw the original Broadway production on his first trip to New York . “It’s a great show to end a season.” And for his cast of graduating actors, “it’s the final show of their training after four years: they’ve spent four years acting, singing, dancing. And they actually get to do a show that beautifully integrates all of that.”

“Such a cohesive concept piece, experimental at the time … great acting scenes, fabulous stand-alone numbers, and dancing for days! I love the integration of it, workshopped originally to give each aspect equal weight: stream of consciousness, internal exploration, documentary realism…. It’s just a wild ride.”

For the students it’s an ultimate work-out, in a great way.” And the ultimate dance show, as he points out: “jazz, ballet, tap, soft-shoe….”

Saskatchewan-born Guedo, who taught theatre at the University of Saskatchewan for a decade before coming to MacEwan 15 years ago, has a director/designer resumé dotted with awards and Canadian premieres and productions in theatres across the country, including his artistic directorship at the late Phoenix Theatre here, summer Shakespeare with Freewill, Theatre Network, Workshop West, the Citadel. And departing MacEwan, “bittersweet” as he describes, means a liberation into freelance directing, including productions to come with his own indie company Wild Side Productions, known for his challenging choices like Small Mouth Sounds, A Doll’s House Part 2, The Children. Last summer he directed and designed Victor and Victoria’s Terrifying Tale of Terrible Things at the Fringe. At this summer’s festivities, it’s full throttle: he’s directing two shows, both musicals.

And A Chorus Line, Broadway’s longest running musical till Cats overtook that record, comes with its own challenges, and its own ironies for both cast and director, as Guedo describes. “People tend to think of it as a dance musical like 42nd Street or Fame, about kids getting their big break. But it’s a darker, deeper animal than the traditional backstage musical,” he argues. “Beautifully written, it charts, not in a linear way as fractured between (stories from) 17 people, the stages in the life of a dancer — at eight, at 15, what made you want to do it? how did you become a dancer? what was it like growing up? You get a sense of it.”

The realities of life in the theatre have changed in the 50 years since Zach, the musical’s tyrannical director character, demanded the audition-ers spill the  secrets of their private lives. The theatre is not an easy life, to be sure. But “I don’t believe this show as it’s written can be performed as if it’s happening in 2026,” Guedo points out. “I was an acting student in the late ‘70s, when the instructor could be smoking in class, and his mickey contained who knows what…. And Michael Bennett could do a cattle call audition that could last eight hours, and grill the dancers all day long. The director was god, and you could break all the rules.”

“None of it would fly now. The director would not get away with any of this.” The realities were brutal, as Guedo has been telling his student cast. In 1975, where “most Broadway musicals were lucky if they lasted 10 weeks,” a dancer might make $200 a week. So, $2500 in a year — yes, doing the job you love, but if you got injured and had surgery, that would be the $2500 gone.”

“The weird irony,” as he says, “is that we’re training the students to audition. And auditioning is nothing like the world of this play…. We’re used to a more compassionate, empathetic, nurturing environment.” The difference in tone between the 1975 cast recording of A Chorus Line, and the one made from the 2006 Broadway revival, is telling. The latter, Guedo points out, “has (already) been slightly softened, trapped by nostalgia….”

“When you sing What I Did For Love, you can’t turn it into a power ballad, a park-and-bark emotional pop anthem. It’s saying ‘what would you do if you can’t dance?’.”

A Chorus Line is a 1975 portrait — of Michael Bennett, via his show alter-ego Zach — of the director as brilliant, a genius, and a master-manipulator.” He demands insights into their lives, into “what makes them tick.” The dancers are “his playground, his putty, his tools, and they suck it up; they want to be part of it.” Guedo says wryly, “In my entire career, there are only three or four people I’ve hired on the basis of an audition.” He much prefers watching actors onstage in other shows (“you learn more be being in the audience”). Or “I go for coffee with them…. Is this someone I want to spend six weeks with?”

The production makes no concessions for students, says the director. “Courtney Arsenault’s choreography is not some junior version….” The great Marvin Hamlisch songs are in the hands of musical director Shannon Hiebert. “And the students are there. We have the people!”

And after 25 years “simultaneously straddling” the parallel, but different, worlds of theatre education and the professional theatre, Guedo is ready to step up to the bucket list of shows he’s always wanted to direct. “I’m open for business.” What he’ll miss is directing the students through their four-year evolution. “I want to see where they land!”

PREVIEW

A Chorus Line

Theatre: MacEwan University Theatre Arts

Created by: Michael Bennett, Marvin Hamlisch (music), Edward Kleban (lyrics), James Kirkwood and Nicholas Dante (book)

Directed by: Jim Guedo

Where: Triffo Theatre, Allard Hall, 11110 104 Ave.m

Running: tonight through Sunday

Tickets: macewan.ca