A Chorus Line No. 18 - Cameron (Rick) Mason

Photo by Martha Swope, 1975

"Rick has a boyish charm and a terrific jazz technique. He got a call to audition. After he had sung the only song he knew all the way through, and waited for a conference to take place at the back of the theater, Michael came onstage and said, 'Fine, you'll do.' Rick didn't at that point have any idea what he 'would do' at."

—What They Did for Love by Denny Martin Flinn

"Rick Mason had exactly the opposite feeling when he got a phone call from Jack Hofsiss, then casting director of the New York Shakespeare Festival, inviting him to audition. 'One of my goals in life when I was a kid was that I wanted to be in an original musical,' Mason said, 'and I wanted to do an original cast album. The name of the show didn't mean anything to me at that point. I only knew it was for Michael Bennett. I was asked to go up and sing a song, and I think I sang I Met a Girl' from Bells Are Ringing. And they all went up to the back of the house and had a conference and I stood on the stage waiting and I believe it was Michael or Bob who came down and said, 'We'd like you to do this role.' I still didn't know what role it was. I wasn't asked to read, I wasn't asked to dance, just asked to sing. I had worked with a couple of the kids, and I knew Baayork and Wayne from 'Milliken,' but I didn't know them well. They were still the pros to me and I was still the young novice coming in to make his niche in this community.

"Do you know how stupid it was to say, for two years, 'Gonorrhea' [in the song 'Hello Twelve, Hello Thirteen, Hello Love']? Maybe Baayork got the same frustration with "Four foot ten." I felt I had something I could have said about my existence and my growth and pain at wanting to dance in the theater-something that would have been meaningful and memorable other than one wet dream! And it wasn't even my wet dream! From my whole monologue I didn't get to say one thing of my own except that I was from Tempe, Arizona. 'Mark Phillip Lawrence Tabori' was Steve Anthony. That was him, he did the original tape. As for the rest of my lines, it was Michael's wet dream, it was Michael's problem with the priest, Michael finding the books—just Michael, Michael, Michael.'"

—On the Line: The Creation of A Chorus Line by Robert Vargas, Baayork Lee, & Thommie Walsh

Footage: July 12, 1975 during the off-Broadway run at The Public Theater. Filmed for the Theatre on Film and Tape Archive for the New York Public Library.