The musical was fashioned from several taped interview sessions with Broadway dancers, known as "gypsies." When the musical got picked up by Joseph Papp at the Public Theatre, the original dancers had to audition to play themselves in the final version--and not all of them got the job.

The show opens in the middle of an audition for an upcoming Broadway production. After the most recent round of cuts, 17 dancers remain.

"Step kick kick leap kick touch, again!
Step kick kick leap kick touch, again!
Step kick kick leap kick touch, again!
Step kick kick leap kick touch, right!
That connects with,
Turn turn out in jump step
Step kick kick leap kick touch.
Got it?"

Zach previously cast Cassie in a featured part, after which they lived together for several years. Zach tells Cassie that she is too good for the chorus and shouldn't be at this audition. But she hasn't been able to find solo work and is willing to "come home" to the chorus where she can at least express her passion for dance ("The Music and the Mirror").

Mike recalls his first experience with dance, watching his sister's dance class when he was a preschooler ("I Can Do That"). Mike took her place one day when she refused to go to class--and he stayed.

Director Michael Bennett and his team played fast and loose with the interview material--for instance, Maggie's story about pretending to dance around the living room with her father, "an Indian chief," was actually Donna McKechnie's story, and she played Cassie.

The scatterbrained Kristine is tone-deaf. Her lament that she could never sing is interrupted by her husband Al, who finishes her phrases in tune ("Sing").

Zach loses his temper when the streetwise Sheila doesn't seem to take the audition seriously. Forced to open up, she reveals that her mother married at a young age and that her father never loved her. When she was six she realized, as had Bebe and Maggie, that ballet provided relief from her unhappy family life ("At the Ballet").

Mr. Karp liked to have his students improvise being various inanimate objects, including a bobsled, a table, a sportscar, and an ice cream cone.

The newly-buxom Val sings "Dance: Ten; Looks: Three" to explain that talent doesn't count for everything with casting directors. Sometimes, silicone and plastic can make all the difference.