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taking it from off-Broadway to Broadway. Though not clear and sharp this
video of her acting, singing and, especially, dancing, "The Music and the Mirror" show why she won the Tony in 1976 for the Best Actress in a musical and following that is the video of her accepting the award
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uytuqWKdfgg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhzmfRzNpBw&feature=related
Donna McKechnie (born November 16, 1942) is an American musical theater dancer, singer, actress, and choreographer. She is known for her
professional and personal relationship with choreographer Michael Bennett, with
whom she collaborated on her most noted role, "Cassie" from the musical A Chorus Line, for
which she earned the Tony
Award for Best Actress in a Musical in 1976.
McKechnie was born in Pontiac, Michigan where she began ballet
classes at age five. Her earliest influence was the classic British ballet film The Red Shoes (1948), which
prompted her, at age six, to plan a career as a ballerina. She studied for many
years at the Rose Marie Floyd School of Dance in Royal Oak. Despite her parents'
strong misgivings, she moved to New York City when she was 17. Rejected after an
audition for the American Ballet Theatre, she found
employment in the corps
de ballet at Radio City Music Hall but walked off the
job on the day of dress rehearsal to do summer stock at the Carousel Theatre in
Framingham, Massachusetts.
After doing a Welch's Grape Juice commercial and the first L'eggs stockings
commercial, she was cast in a touring company of West
Side Story. In 1961, she made her Broadway debut in How to Succeed in
Business Without Really Trying, where she met choreographer Bob FosseGwen Verdon. A stint in a
Philadelphia production of A Funny Thing
Happened on the Way to the Forum (as Philia) was followed by the NBC music series Hullabaloo, where she was a featured
dancer and met Michael
Bennett, who became a guiding force in her life and career. and his wife,
[edit] Broadway
In April, 1968, McKechnie was back on Broadway in the short-lived musical
version of Leo Rosten's
collection of short stories The Education of H*Y*M*A*N
K*A*P*L*A*N, which led to a featured role in Burt BacharachHal David's Promises, Promises, choreographed by
Bennett. Along with Baayork
Lee and Margo
Sappington, she danced in one of Broadway's most famous numbers, Turkey Lurkey
Time. It was here that she first attracted notice from critics and
theatergoers alike. This was followed by a role in the touring company of Call Me Madam, starring
Ethel Merman. and
Bennett showcased McKechnie again in Stephen Sondheim's CompanyTick-Tock. After leaving the Broadway cast, she reprised
her role in the Los Angeles and London companies, and also toured in
the 1971 revival of On the Town (as Ivy). In March 1973,
she choreographed and performed in the highly acclaimed one-night-only concert
Sondheim: A Musical Tribute at the Shubert Theatre in New York. In 1974, she
co-starred with Richard
Kiley and Bob Fosse in the unsuccessful musical film version of the classic
The
Little Prince. (1970),
where she danced
McKechnie was part of Bennett's group therapy-style workshops that evolved
into the Broadway smash A
Chorus Line, in which she portrayed Cassie, a character based in great
part on herself. She danced her third famous Bennett-McKechnie number, The
Music and the Mirror, in which the vocal sections were tailored to her
unusually large range. Initially, Donna was to perform the number with four of
her male co-stars but after four previews before opening, McKechnie voiced
concern about dancing around the four guys and at the last moment, Bennett
changed the direction to have McKechnie perform the song-dance number alone. Her
performance earned her the Tony
Award for Best Actress in a Musical. The role of Maggie was also based on
her life. She married Bennett in 1976, but after only a few months they
separated and eventually divorced, remaining good friends until his death from
AIDS in 1987.
In 1980, McKechnie was diagnosed with arthritis and told she never would dance again. She
pursued various physical, psychological, and holistic healing remedies, and was
well enough to return to the Broadway company of A Chorus Line in 1986. During the remainder
of the 1980s she also toured in Sweet Charity and Annie Get Your Gun, and she
appeared in a London revival of Can-Can. She also participated in the
"Chorus Line" extravaganza to celebrate its then record-breaking run on Broadway
in September 1983.
In 2002, McKechnie starred in the pre-Broadway production of the Jerry Herman musical revue
Showtune. In recent years, she has
toured periodically in her one-woman show Inside the Music, a potpourri
of songs, dances and anecdotes about her life in the theater and her successful
battle with arthritis, directed by her old Chorus Line castmate, Thommie Walsh. Her
autobiography, Time Steps: My Musical Comedy Life, written with Greg
Lawrence, was published by Simon & Schuster on August 29, 2006, only weeks
before the Broadway revival of A Chorus Line opened on October 5.
In June 2010 McKechnie appeared at the Adelaide Cabaret Festival.
McKechnie currently is on the faculty of HB Studio in New York City.
Then again this is an old one.