“‘Chorus Line’ is the longest running American musical,” said Victor Hamburger, director of marketing at Wharton Center. “It’s a great heritage piece. It’s got that classic score, the Marvin Hamlisch score, with the signature numbers ‘I Hope I Get It,’ ‘What I Did for Love’ and ‘One.’ (It) just really resonates. It’s that show within a show storyline that’s all about hopes and dreams and trying to achieve them.”

The musical examines many of the struggles of making it in the competitive world of show business — the importance of physical beauty, facing an aging body, being gay and scrambling day after day to find a job and get paid. Throughout the performance, audiences get to know the personalities, trials and triumphs of each of the 17 hopefuls, and only at the end find out which eight made the cut.

Richard White, a Williamston resident who attended the Tuesday night performance, said he empathized with the director, who faced the difficult challenge of deciding which people to hire.

“He had to make cuts, pick who was going to be in it and who was going to go,” White said. “He couldn’t have them all.”

Lauryn Ciardullo, a swing performer in the cast, said “A Chorus Line” accurately portrays the struggles of being a performer.

“Every night, we’re telling our own stories,” she said. “The director and our choreographer made a big point of not just acting as a character, but being truthful to yourself and letting yourself come through the character, because it’s real. You are somewhat in a vulnerable state doing this show, because you really are just being yourself. It’s what we go through every day to get that next job as performers.”

Aside from the emotional issues of the musical, there is plenty of singing and dancing in the show’s “audition.”

“The singing was fantastic,” Holt resident Mark Kreft said. “I’ve never heard anything like it.”

Without much of a dramatic setting, the costumes and staging for the show are simple. The performers are dressed in leotards and other dance clothes and stand on a stage completely bare except for a few mirrors in the back.

“I liked the way the mirrors are set up,” Jackson resident Yong Keyes said. “I like to see them move all the time. The performers are so talented.”

Premiering in 1975, “A Chorus Line” is a popular Broadway classic that draws in many people, Hamburger said. “Broadway is a big product for us,” he said. “Broadway is an American medium. It really resonates. It’s certainly growing in popularity with how popular dancing has become in American culture. There seems to be renewed interest among young people with the success of things like ‘High School Musical,’ ‘Glee.’ Musical theater is something that’s growing.”

“A Chorus Line” will run in Wharton Center’s Cobb Great Hall at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, 8 p.m. Friday, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday and 1 and 6:30 p.m. Sunday. Tickets range from $26.50 to $62.50.

For more information or to purchase tickets, visit the Web site at whartoncenter.com or call the Wharton Center Box Office at (517) 432-2000.