Dance 10, Bargaining Skills 3

The Guardian has picked up a story originally reported in The New York Times (whose website is not available to the unregistered) about the original dancers who sold their life stories to Michael Bennett for $1 in return for a chance to play themselves on Broadway in A Chorus Line.  Perhaps in the hope that his conduct might one day become the basis for a Contracts course hypothetical, Mr. Bennett later agreed to pay the dancers some royalties for the original production, which provided up to $10,000 a year for the dancers

Now the show is being revived, but the executor of Bennett’s estate has apparently concuded that the dancers are not entitled to their share of the take on the revival.  The dancers are consulting with attorneys but “acknowledge that they are in a tough place,” according to the Times.

[Jeremy Telman]