Chicago Tribune - Highly Recommended
"...You'd think that “A Chorus Line” (note that word line) would be a difficult show to stage in the round. But not true. It is set in a big rectangle, a rehearsal room, and it benefits from having a voyeuristic audience peering in from all sides. You lose something in the finale, perhaps, and the mirrors are trickier to make work (although Lococo, doing the best work of his career, and Rockwell have numerous innovations). But there's a payoff earlier in the show, when the audience feels surrounded by talent, desire and desperation. In the round, the dancers have no where to go. Even when they're performing, they have to keep twitching and moving so we don't get the back of their heads. They can't ever win; all of that deepens the show."
Chicago Sun Times - Highly Recommended
"...With its breathtaking choreography by Rachel Rockwell (who clearly is riding a rocket since her dazzling staging of "Ragtime" at Drury Lane Oakbrook) and with the subtly tweaked casting and sensitively detailed direction of Mark Lococo, this is one of the strongest, most immediate, least self-indulgent versions of the 35-year-old Broadway classic I've seen."
Chicago Reader - Recommended
"...Thomas Ryan's bare-bones set (basically an empty stage with mirrors that are lowered at key moments) throws the focus on an ensemble of triple threats whose members turn in nuanced, multi-layered, nearly cliche-free performances. Mark Lococo's production reminds us that A Chorus Line was originally cobbled out of the real-life stories of chorus dancers."
Examiner - Highly Recommended
"...Of course, the kinetic heart of A Chorus Line is its dancing, that gorgeous, ephemeral art form that vanishes the instant it’s created. Choreographer Rachel Rockwell remains true to Bennett’s original steps while managing to put her own impressive creative stamp on the numbers. The results are alternately explosive (the Adolescent montage), graceful (At the Ballet) and brashly comic (Dance 10/ Looks 3). The solo spots are also memorable: Alexander Aguilar is a compact powerhouse of acrobatic joy in I Can Do That. As Cassie, the aging chorine who wants back in the chorus after a failed attempt at a Hollywood acting career, Mara Davi burns up the floor in The Music and the Mirror."
Copley News Service - Highly Recommended
"...The Marriott cast is a who’s who of local musical theater talent. Tyler Hanes and Tari Kelly play the romantic leads, Hanes a handsome young stud and Kelly a glittering Broadway musical comedy star. Andrew Lupp plays Hanes’s best friend. Early in the first act Hanes and Lupp perform “Cold Feets,” a tap dance duet that is one of the great showstoppers in Marriott’s history. It turned out to be the first of many marvelous production numbers that carry Marc Robin’s footprints. This is a dancing show supreme."
Centerstage - Highly Recommended
"...And talented they are. This production of "A Chorus Line" is not only superbly danced, it offers terrific vocal talent supported by Patti Garwood's full-sounding orchestra. Mara Davi, fresh from the Broadway revival, plays Cassie, the dancer who left the chorus to become a star but wants a chance to start over again. Davi's passion as she dances for her life in "The Music and the Mirror" overwhelms both the actor and the audience. Marriott newcomer Pilar Millhollen is a strong, personable, natural Diana, whether belting out "Nothing," a song about an insensitive drama instructor, or trying to tap-dance in sneakers."
ShowBizChicago - Highly Recommended
"...All sides combined, the Marriott’s “A Chorus Line” is a refreshing meditation on the plight and passion of the artists. It was Bennett who studied the connection between the unquenchable cravings among all workers, whether in tap shoes or steel-toed work boots. That most uncanny of connections, still very much alive and resonant on the Marriott stage, beckons us all to go back on the line."
ChicagoCritic - Highly Recommended
"...Every young aspiring actor/dancer/performer in Chicago needs to get to Marriott Theatre to get an injection of passion from the cast of A Chorus Line. This is a wonderful spirited and flawless production of a classic Broadway musical. The audience cheered throughout. The thrilling “One” finale almost overwhelms- you’ll be humming it for hours!"
Chicago Stage and Screen - Recommended
"...The Marriot Theatre has been wowing me for ages with their attention to detail, clear, crisp choreography, and talent that delivers what is needed and expected from a cast of almost all equity performers. For the most part this was true. I was disappointed with “The Music and the Mirror”, not so much for the mirror effect, but for the song and dance. Mara Davi didn’t produce the caliber that is expected in that song. Danielle Plisz was also an element that I did not enjoy due to the piercing nasal quality in her voice. It’s a shame because “At the Ballet” is such a beautiful song. A note for the show in general is to make sure to connect with the characters. Being “showy” is even discouraged in the text. These are very real personas as I’m sure many of us know people that have had these hardships in life."
Around The Town Chicago - Highly Recommended
"...Directed by Mark Lococo, who truly knows how to use Marriott Theatre’s formula in the round ( although the stage area is in reality a square) to its full advantage with extraordinary choreography by Rachel Rockwell, this is truly “one singular sensation”, making us laugh and cry and of greater importance, we become intimate with these dancers, these dreamers who do what they do for the love of what it is they do. As we hear their stories, we realize that many of them share the same type of family history- a lonely childhood, where pretending to be someone else makes them happy and gives them some reason to keep going. From Sheila ( Anika Ellis), Bebe(Pagah Kadkhodaian) and Maggie’s(Danielle Plisz) “At The Ballet” as each girls tells her story of no matter what went on with their family,”Everything was beautiful at the ballet”! and the gut-wrenching story that Paul ( deftly handled by Bryan Knowlton) tells of his homosexual existence after dropping out of school, we get the feeling that each of these characters is in fact real and all are using theater to escape from the lives they dread facing without the theater."
Chicago Theater Beat - Highly Recommended
"...Most musicals are examples of art imitating life. Not so A Chorus Line. It fascinates because its constantly young cast insure that this show is a textbook case of life imitating art imitating life. (Actors in 2010 who could be the children of the 1975 cast are creating the 1975 creation that was itself inspired by the reality of 1975 dancers.) The recessed mirrors in Marriott’s Production perfectly symbolize the backstage, show-before-a-show nature of this unconventional depiction of the creation of a very conventional Broadway musical. (Remember: The finale, “One Singular Sensation,” is really intended as a backup to a star of the Streisand, Verdon or Ann Miller persuasion. “Chorus Line” may be all about dance but the “outside” musical that they’re creating is not.)"
