A Chorus Line No. 21 - Clive Clerk

Photo by Martha Swope, 1975

"While in search of a replacement for Tony Stevens [in the role of 'Larry' the assistant-director], Michael ran into Clive Clerk unexpectedly. The two had worked together in Toronto when Michael was sixteen and Clive was fourteen. […] 'We reminisced about the past and then Michael told me about the show. I mean it was a Judy Garland musical: We're putting on this show in the barn' type of thing. We're having a run-through tomorrow, as luck would have it. Why don't you drop in?'"

"So Clive went downtown to the studio, bearing in mind that because ‘this little off-Broadway show’ wasn't going out of town, he could do it and still continue his studies at the League. It would be a nice interlude. He found more than he bargained for.

“'I thought it was the most exciting thing I had ever seen. I remember the jazz combination. I remember there were these little bleachers and just these dancers, these beautiful, beautiful people coming at me. And piano and drums, and just the energy in the room was the most extraordinary feeling. My God, it was like coming home again. From the beginning of the show, right through the opening number and the beginning of the line, it just blew me away. It just brought back my whole childhood as a dancer in theater. I had stopped because of some— think now, in retrospect-unfortunate considerations I had. I really loved dancing; I just had the feeling that I wasn't going to make a career as a dancer. I suppose I had set my sights somewhere else and at times I almost wished that I had really hung in there and gotten more enjoyment out of it. Seeing this brought back all those old feelings and I wanted to get up and dance again. So I said right there, 'Oh, yeah, I'd love to be in your show, Mr. Bennett.'

"As I got involved, it became more and more exciting. As the charley horses diminished and I got more familiar with what was going on, it just became a joyous experience. It all came back to me.

"There was also a feeling of honesty that I had not experienced in any other area of show business before, certainly not in L.A. doing movies and television. It was like being able to breathe easily. To be able to be yourself. That's what was being generated on that stage. Between that freedom of spirit and the physical workout and actually dancing again, I was just alive. I loved it.  As Larry, the director's assistant, he was not involved in the soul-searching or the audition.’

—What They Did for Love by Denny Martin Flinn 

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On how the opening audition scene was created:

"Like everything else, it was a product of the trial-and-error rehearsals Michael conducted. 'The scene happened on our feet,' says Clive Clerk, who had by now stepped into the role of Zach's assistant, Larry. 'It was out of an improv session. Bob Avian came up on the stage. We were at the Newman Theater. He got up and went through how he would conduct a tap audition, and as he did I was writing things down, and at the end we handed it over to a writer and had a script made out of it.'"

"Clive was the only dancer present who did not want his role enlarged. 'There was never a great deal of chatter about the part of Larry. Larry is one of those dinner-is-served parts. Which was just fine with me.'”

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