The house lights come down and the stage lights come
up to reveal Alex Rybeck at the piano, Dave Wilkinson on the bass and
George Mazzeo on drums and as they start playing you hear Donna
McKechnie backstage singing "Everything Is Coming Up Roses" and 30
seconds later she comes swirling from behind the curtain in a red dress and everything IS coming up roses for me!

     She
talks, and sings, about her life in show business from running away
from home to Broadway, getting a role in "How To Succeed In Business
Without Really Trying" and her attaining recognition from critics for
her dancing in the "Turkey Lurkey Time" number in "Promises,
Promises"--the show I saw her in  during a snowstorm in New York city in
February 1969. She briefly, one liners, talks about her battle with
arthritis and her divorce but mainly she sings songs from shows she has
been in like "Company", "Follies",  "State Fair",  being taught by the
original Charity, Gwen Verdon, when she was doing a revival, also
talking about Ann Miller, not name dropping but telling about people she
has worked with.

And
then, much too soon in her act, we, her audience, see her at the age of
35, all of us 37 years younger and "Cassie" is on stage. She sings the
original song, "Inside The Music", that Marvin Hamlisch and Edward
Kleban, wrote for her, segueing into the show stopper it would become
called "The Music and The Mirror" where for 8 1/2 minutes she held the
Shubert Theatre audience (and many others in the following years)
spellbound as she acted, sang and danced in  a role that would earn her a
Tony Award.

I
remember sitting in the second row of the Shubert's mezzanine and being
taken in by her for all she was doing but even more so identifying with
the words of the song and how she felt. Now, in 2012, I am once again
mesmerized by Donna McKechnie as Cassie in "A Chorus Line" and my eyes
fill with tears as it always does when I hear this number. I remember
sitting in the Shubert on September 29, 1983, when "A Chorus Line"
became the longest running show on Broadway, and once again she did "The
Music and the Mirror" with other 'Cassies' but none moving like her and
certainly none moving me like she did.

She
went on to sing about "Lies Of Handsome Men" and a medley about the
movies but I was stuck on her "Music and the Mirror". Sure she doesn't
move like she did but she gives the illusion of doing just that. It's
not the full 8 and 1/2 minutes but in my head, as she moved and sang, I
saw her doing it all.

The
show ended too soon. It was suppose to have been 90 minutes but only
ran about 70. I suppose with the opening the night before, where she
signed autographs for all 250 people that were there, then doing the
master class this afternoon and now this evening show she may have been
drained of energy but she didn't show it. I was hoping she would do the
signing again but that was not to be.

For
her encore, and final number, she did a tribute to Fred Astaire and
told her story of meeting him the first time. She has told it thousands
of times over the years, and has added a little to the story  each time,
but it felt as if she was telling it for the first time. You could see
the thrill she felt when he asked her to dance and held out his hand to
take hers. She was a fan who was tongue-tied, in awe, at meeting her
idol and that is how she left her audience.

THANK
YOU DONNA MCKECHNIE FOR ALL THE JOY, AND TEARS, YOU HAVE GIVEN ME OVER
THE YEARS AND BEING HERE, IN MY LEAP YEAR BIRTHDAY MONTH, FOR ME---AND
NO ONE WILL CONVINCE ME OTHERWISE. IT IS A DAY AND EVENING I WILL NEVER
FORGET.