300. Fame (1980) & The Lives of Performers

Episode 300: The Lives of Performers.

I followed a line from Fame to the documentaries Every Little Step and Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened. Together, they cover so many of the joys and challenges of pursuing a life onstage, and present compelling and hard-won perspectives about the work's peculiar and demanding mix of talent, luck on the audition day, and self-belief in the face of a thousand no's to every yes.

It was @bradcalebkane who suggested Fame as an episode. While revisiting the film, I learned its origin story: In 1976, talent manager David De Silva saw A Chorus Line and noticed that one of the songs made a reference to the New York City High School of Performing Arts. This led him to playwright Chris Gore, and the creation of a story detailing how ambition and rejection influence the lives of adolescent students.

From Fame I found my way to Every Little Step. The film weaves the struggle to cast the 2006 revival of A Chorus Line with the history of the original 1975 production. It features rare, original audio of creator Michael Bennett interviewing Broadway dancers about their lives and careers and follows several prospective 2006 cast members through the physical, psychological, and emotional gauntlet of the 8-month-long audition process. In a way, the film takes kids who could have (and probably did) come from the High School for the Performing Arts and shows the reality of trying to do this for a living.

And finally, the documentary about the infamous 1981 Sondheim/Prince production Merrily We Roll Along, which dizzyingly went from sure-fire career-making hit to an overnight flop that closed after only 16 shows. 35 years later, the film's director, Lonny Price, a former cast member, interviews his colleagues about life, lessons learned, and paths taken and not taken. This film takes our earnest and ambitious performers on another, crucial stop on the performer journey: perspective and how the dreams of youthful ambition shape themselves around different kinds of lives on and off the stage.