Donna McKechnie, Baayork Lee, Wayne Cilento and Bob Avian Talk A CHORUS LINE and More on Backstage LIVE With Richard Ridge

Nothing can stop BroadwayWorld's Richard Ridge from bringing you interviews with your favorite Broadway stars! On July 26, he brought together Donna McKechnie, Baayork Lee, Wayne Cilento and Bob Avian for a A Chorus Line reunion!

The interview was conducted to celebrate the 45th anniversary of the show's Broadway run.

The group first talked about their experiences working with director and choreographer Michael Bennett, who sadly passed away from AIDS in 1987.

"Michael, he really spoiled me in a way, because he was such a collaborator," McKechnie said. "One of the gifts he gave all of us was he believed that musical theatre was a true collaboration."

"He was one of the biggest influences on my whole career," Cilento said. "Just watching him, just him being such a genius."

They went on to talk about a song called Picture Resume, that was initially the opening number for one of the early workshops of the show, but was later cut because it went "on and on and on and on" according to Avian.

But, the song lives on still in some form.

"The dialogue in the song is what Priscilla says in her opening speech," Lee explained. "'Do you wanna know how tall I am? My eyes...' All of that was in the song. The dialogue is now in the show."

The rest of the interview was spent sharing stories and experiences from their time on the show, what it means to them, and more.

Watch the full interview here.

A Chorus Line is a musical with music by Marvin Hamlisch, lyrics by Edward Kleban, and a book by James Kirkwood Jr. and Nicholas Dante. Set on the bare stage of a Broadway theater, the musical is centered around seventeen Broadway dancers auditioning for spots on a chorus line.

Following several workshops and an Off-Broadway production, A Chorus Line opened at the Shubert Theatre on Broadway July 25, 1975, directed by Michael Bennett and co-choreographed by Bennett and Bob Avian. An unprecedented box office and critical hit, the musical received twelve Tony Award nominations and won nine, in addition to the 1976 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The original Broadway production ran for 6,137 performances, becoming the longest-running production in Broadway history until surpassed by Cats in 1997.