A Chorus Line won a double armload of Tonys and a Pulitzer and set a (since broken) record for longest run on Broadway for many reasons, one of which is its awesome score.
- A Minsky Pickup and choreographer Zach yelling "AGAIN!" cues the outstanding opening number, "I Hope I Get It". As well as introducing multiple Recurring Riffs, the song sets the tone of the musical as the dancers express their anxiety over the chorus line audition; several of them mention that they are desperate for work, any work, while they all angst over mistakes in the various dance combinations and are convinced they've already blown their chances. But eventually, seventeen of them are chosen for the next phase of the audition, and the "I really need this job" melody takes centre stage, now sounding much more hopeful.
- "At the Ballet" sees Sheila, Maggie, and Bebe reminiscing over their unhappy childhoods, and how ballet allowed them to escape into a world away from parents who were some combination of emotionally abusive, absent, or serially adulterous. Maggie in particular gets to strut her stuff as a singer; if she really nails the high E, the applause is always thunderous.
- "Montage" (AKA "Hello Twelve, Hello Thirteen, Hello Love") gives us a series of rapid-fire character portraits of every dancer except Paul (who instead gets an extended monologue about three-quarters of the way through the play) in a masterpiece of counterpoint and vocal back-and-forth, with the spotlight shining for just long enough on each dancer to give us an idea of who they are and what drives them.
- "Dance: Ten; Looks: Three", AKA "Tits and Ass", is the play's comedy highlight, as Val proudly boasts about how much better her career and sex life have been since she had surgery on her... well, the clue is in the title.
- "One" may be deliberately stylistically at odds with the rest of the score, as it is the only number intended for the Show Within a Show, and it may reduce the wonderfully unique individual dancers we have come to know over two hours to interchangeable smiling faces in identical shiny gold suits and hats, but it's such a high-energy number that it's hard to resist its charm as the chorus members talk up how the (never seen) female lead lights up a room from the moment she walks into it, especially when the cast gathers on stage for the finale to show us how talented they really are.
- "What I Did for Love" sees the dancers, rattled by Paul's aggravation of a potential Career-Ending Injury, dodging the question of what they will do with their lives when they can no longer dance. Instead, they focus on the hard work and sacrifice they have undertaken, all for the love of dancing, once again shining a light on how all of the dancers on a stage, even the anonymous chorus members, have their own stories to tell about how hard they have worked to be where they are.
