“Step, kick, kick, leap, kick, touch … again, step, kick, kick, leap, kick, touch … turn, turn, touch down, back step, pivot step, walk, walk, walk.”
Every dancer knows the opening combination of “A Chorus Line.” The Tony-award winning musical will be at the RiverCenter on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Those opening words are spoken as hundreds of dancers try for one of eight spots — four men, four women — in a new Broadway musical.
One of the hopeful dancers is Vicki, played by Paige Fauré of Atlanta.
Unfortunately for Vicki, she gets cut early in the show.
“She’s not a very good dancer,” Fauré said. She’s only seen in very first scene where the cuts are being made. But Vicki is a flirt, who interacts with the director, Zach, and choreographer, Larry.
“I make the most of the very few moments on the stage,” Fauré said.
Being a trained dancer since she was very young, it’s difficult to play a bad dancer, she said.
“It definitely took me a little while to shake off some of the (correct) techniques,” she said. “I have to do it without looking too silly. There is a very fine line between being bad and being ridiculous.”
Fauré does have her opportunities to be on stage since she understudies the roles of Maggie, Sheila, Judy and Diana.
“I rehearse and prepare for them on a moment’s notice.”
She is also one of the backstage singers who fill out the sound because the dancers on stage are so winded after some of the dance numbers.
Touring is ‘the best’
Fauré was in Naples, Fla., where the show was for a week in late January.
After graduating high school, she went to Marymount Manhattan College in New York for a year.
“I was lucky enough to be cast in a tour when I was in school,” she said. “I took advantage of the tour. That was four years ago. I keep trying to chug along.”
She continues to take classes when she can, but she’s been busy on national tours of other productions, starting with “Aida,” “Little Women” and “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.”
Every time one of her shows comes to Atlanta’s Fox Theatre, she said dozens of her family members and her entire church congregation will attend at least one performance.
Fauré loves touring. “It really is a wonderful opportunity,” she said. “Touring is the best. I get to see so much of this country and see how beautiful it is. And I get to perform.”
She said she enjoys performing in big theaters in large cites as well as in smaller towns.
“There is one theater in Madison, Wisconsin, that is beautiful,” she said. “It’s a really fun town as well as having that beautiful theater. But I’ve had fun in the smaller cities, the ones that are not the ‘A’ cities.”
Smaller venues “have so much charm and so much character,” she said.
In these smaller theaters, a cast will appropriate a space on the wall in the dressing room area and each cast member will sign it. She said she loves to see who has performed in that theater.
Fauré has been in Columbus before. When she was a sophomore in high school, she competed in the Georgia Theater Conference in Columbus State University’s University Hall.
Excited to be in Columbus
It’s not so much that she’s excited to be in Columbus, but that she’ll be able to see family.
“The whole family’s coming down,” Fauré said. “It’s going to be quite a trip.”
She has not seen them since Thanksgiving when they visited her in New York City.
In March, the cast has a short break. She’ll head back to New York and audition for shows. Then it’s back to work until the end of May when the tour ends. After that, she begins another round of auditions to see what’s next.
While she said she would enjoy being in any show, Fauré would love to tackle the role of the green-skinned Elphaba in “Wicked.”
Her goal in life though, is to have a role that she originates.
“I’d love to create a role that’s not written yet,” Fauré said. “That’s what I’m gunning for at this point.”
