A Chorus Line No. 19 - Sammy Williams
- Lauryn Johnson
- Jul 11
- 8 min read
Updated: Jul 12
"Sammy Williams recalls that there was a 'presence' between Bennett and himself during the rehearsal period for the road company of Seesaw. "Before we left town," Williams said, "Michael said he wanted me to learn the role Tommy Tune was doing. He said he wanted me to do the role for a bus-and-truck company after Tommy left. So I did, and went on tour with that, knowing I would eventually be playing the big balloon number ["It's Not Where You Start"]. It was almost too much to believe. This man who's the best in the business wants to give me this role.
"It was in July and I was in Philadelphia when I got a phone call from Michael. It was Thursday and he asked me what I was doing for the weekend. I said I had no plans and he asked me if I would like to come into the city for the weekend, on Sunday. He said he wanted to talk to me.
"I honestly thought I was being called to discuss playing the role of David in Seesaw, though there was scuttlebutt about Michael's new show. At that time he was living on Fifty-fifth Street.
We spent the entire day together, it ended up being my audition for A Chorus Line.
"We talked for a long time. Small talk at first, then he started asking me personal questions, about my family, growing up, how I felt about certain things. He talked about himself, told me a bit about his childhood, about how he got involved in the business. He wanted me to know as much about him as he wanted to know about me.
"There was no tape going. As a matter of fact, we talked a little bit, went to the ballet and saw Jerome Robbins's ballet that afternoon. We stopped and talked with Jerome Robbins after the ballet, then we went back to Michael's apartment and talked some more for about another hour.
"Finally, Michael asked me if I knew why I was there. I said I thought he wanted to talk about me replacing Tommy Tune. He said, That too, but I have another show coming up and there's a role I think you're right for, and I'd like you to read for it.
"He asked me if I remembered Nicholas Dante's life story, and I said yes, I had worked with Nicky in Applause and I knew about him working at the Jewel Box. I remembered vaguely what he had talked about at the tape session. I remembered the feeling that I had gotten from what he had said and how I felt for him, but I didn't remember exactly what he said. Michael said he wanted me to read for that part. He said, 'You're more right for Nicholas's life story than you are for your own, so don't be offended that you're not reading for yourself.'
"I said okay, so he handed me the monologue. Mind you, I never had an acting lesson, had never gone to an acting class, never even bothered to want to open my mouth on the stage because I was so afraid of being called a sissy. I had this real high voice. So acting was not something I really wanted to do.
"So naturally I wasn't reading it well at all; I was reading like I was reading the telephone book. I got about three sentences out when Michael stopped me and told me to try it again. He gave me a little bit of direction. I listened to him, and started reading again. This time I got messed up on the words, I was real nervous.
"He stopped me again and told me to try it again but it was just the same. So he said he had an idea. He wanted me to reread the monologue while he was out of the room and when he came back, to tell it like a story, the way I remembered it, in my own words.
"By this time it was about three or four P.M. He came back and I started telling him the story, that 'Paul' had been raped at the age of six, et cetera. And I started talking about how the kids harassed Paul in school and how he was smart. Paul was always afraid to answer questions because there was always a mumble or remark because he was effeminate.
"Well, it suddenly dawned on me that that was what my school life was like, and I fell apart. I couldn't even carry on after that. He just held me and rocked me and I kept sobbing. Then he started asking me questions about school and I started telling him how I hated it, how I hated being called a sissy, hated getting up in the morning and going to face all those kids knowing they didn't like me. How I was different from everybody. He opened up Pandora's box.
"Finally he calmed me down and called Marvin Hamlisch on the phone and told him there was someone in his apartment he wanted Marvin to meet. He said, I think we found him? It didn't make much sense at the time. We got into a cab and went over to Marvin Hamlisch's house. I had no idea who Marvin was. Michael just said, We are going to a friend's house to meet somebody?'
"While we were in the cab he asked me if I had ever thought of what I wanted to do with my career. I said I was twenty-five years old and didn't want to be a chorus boy at thirty. If nothing happens to me by that time I would stop dancing and do something else. He asked me if I'd ever considered acting and I told him no. He said, You'll act first before you give up dancing? He didn't say another word to me for the rest of the cab ride.
"We got over to Marvin's house and he had me sing for him. The only thing I could think of was the song ["I'm Way Ahead"] that Gittel sings at the end of Seesaw where they break up. So I sang that for Marvin. He asked me if I could read music, and I told him no. He asked me to listen and he started playing The Way We Were, and I tried singing with it. Then Michael asked me to tell Marvin the same story I told him, Nicky's story. I did, and once again I just fell apart. I got to the part about school and I broke down.
"We left Marvin's house and went back to Michael's and for about the next three hours Michael asked me more questions about my family. Michael never said anything to me about whether I had the job. He never said, T'll call you.' He just said, Thank you for the day, thank you for sharing yourself with me? That was it.
I went back to my apartment on cloud ten. It must have been about two or three A.M. when I finally got home."
"Williams's famous Paul monologue tells the story of a transvestite dancer whose parents come to accept his profession and his homosexuality. Williams's encounter with his own parents was no less fraught with anxiety.
"My family came to see the show in stages,' he said. 'My mother was the first, down at the Newman Theater, and she was devastated. The first thing she said to me after the show, the only thing she said immediately afterward, was, 'Boy, I'm sure glad someone brought you a glass of water.' She was referring to the accident scene. I thought that was the cutest thing because she was really into it.
"But she didn't say anything about the monologue or anything else. We walked from the Newman to a restaurant and she never said a word. We ordered and ate and finally she said to me, What's the family going to say? How could you get up there and say those things? It's so embarrassing?
"I was devastated. I had just poured my guts out, worked over six months, and she was worried about what the family was going to say. I didn't say anything for the rest of dinner. She was staying overnight in my apartment and we didn't speak. We went to bed and got up the next morning without speaking.
"When we were in the cab on the way to the station, I said, I don't care what the family thinks. I worked very hard on this project and I'm real proud of what I'm doing and I'm in a hit show and that's all that matters. If you and the family cannot deal with it, that is your problem. I will never come home again? And I sent her on her way.
"Three days later she called to tell me she thought I was wonderful and she was really proud of me.
"My father came after we opened on Broadway. My father had left home when I was sixteen years old and up to this point I had very little contact with him. No phone calls, no meetings, perhaps a card once in a while. But I did call him and invite him to New York to see the show. I was scared to death because I was out there every night telling people I was a fag. It was humiliating for me to tell people I was a homosexual because it was for real, it wasn't just a monologue. So I was telling my father this was real and I didn't know how I was going to handle it. A long time before that, when I told my mother I was gay, she said, 'Don't ever tell your father that, hell kill you?' So I lived all those years with a black cloud over my head.
"So here I was, inviting my father to see the show. I gave a performance that night that was one of my best, at the time. My father never called me 'son,' either. That night my father came backstage, and walked into my dressing room. He had these big tears in his eyes. I had never seen my father cry. He didn't say anything. He just held me and said he was very proud of me. He took me out to dinner, it was amazing. I think that was the beginning of a relationship with my father."
--On the Line: The Creation of A Chorus Line by Robert Viagas, Baayork Lee and Thommie Walsh
"During the summer of 1975, when 'A Chorus Line' was rehearsing at the Shubert, the creative team couldn’t hear Paul’s now-famous monologue from the back of the theater over the sound of the air conditioning. They contemplated putting a body mic on Sammy Williams, who played Paul, but sound designer Abe Jacob thought that would harm the realness of the moment. Instead, it was decided that each night, at the end of “The Music and the Mirror,” stagehands would turn off the air conditioning for the entire theater. No one would hear the motors shutting down over the loud applause. Paul’s monologue would be performed while the theater was silent and still, and afterward the air would be turned back on. Throughout the run, Abe observed that the sudden hotter temperature in the audience contributed to the tension of the moment. No one knew how carefully orchestrated that part of the show was, and it contributed to how “A Chorus Line” affected its audiences for 15 years."