Donna McKechnie is the legendary actress best known for her Tony Award-winning performance in A Chorus Line. She made her Broadway debut in 1961 with How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. Her other Broadway shows include Promises, Promises; Company; Sondheim: A Musical Tribute (which she also choreographed); On the Town; Sweet Charity (national tour); and State Fair, for which she won a Fred Astaire Award in 1996. Reviewing her recent one-woman show, My Musical Comedy Life, Ben Brantley wrote in the New York Times: "She remains the essence of the heroic drive that A Chorus Line celebrates." She lives in New York. Greg Lawrence is the author and coauthor of five books, including Dance with Demons: The Life of Jerome Robbins; the bestselling autobiography of Gelsey Kirkland, Dancing on My Grave; Colored Lights; and The Shape of Love.
In 1975, singer-dancer-choreographer McKechnie was one of the brightest lights on the Great White Way, winning a Tony for her performance in A Chorus Line, and now theatergoers will be elated to see her autobiography shelved in stores only days before A Chorus Line's October Broadway revival. McKechnie's memories of the original musical's creative genesis serve as the centerpiece, and the other chapters are equally compelling. Her story is one of fierce drive and determination. Leaving Detroit at 16, she ran away from home to dance with a touring troupe, arriving in Manhattan at 17. Following a failed audition with American Ballet Theatre, she performed in Massachusetts musicals, filmed commercials and toured in West Side Story, leaping from the long-run Broadway hit How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying in 1961 to TV (Hullabaloo; Dark Shadows). By the time Stephen Sondheim's Company brought her back to Broadway in 1970, her career was a cakewalk, but the aftermath of a divorce from choreographer Michael Bennett led to a "vicious circle of depression." McKechnie writes honestly, revealing her innermost thoughts, looking back at family, close friends and intimate relationships, while probing her anxieties, low self-esteem and personal pain between the plaudits, raves and theatrical triumphs. 16-page photo insert not seen by PW. (Sept.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
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