Photo: Leanna Bodnar is the director/choreographer for the upcoming production of A Chorus Line at Hickory Community Theatre. The show opens Friday, August 28 at 7:30pm in the Jeffers Theatre.

Hickory – Every dancer in A Chorus Line steps forward with a story to tell and a dream of making the cut. When Hickory Community Theatre brings the landmark musical to the stage, the person guiding those dancers will have a particularly personal understanding of that journey. Director and choreographer Leanna Bodnar began her own professional career in A Chorus Line, making her debut at age 17 as Maggie. Now, she returns to the show that helped launch her career—this time shaping the stories from the other side of the audition table.

For Leanna Bodnar, directing and choreographing A Chorus Line brings her professional journey full circle. A San Francisco Bay Area native, Bodnar made her professional debut at age 17 as Maggie in A Chorus Line, a role that launched a 15-year performing career that included national tours of Jerome Robbins’ Broadway, Cats and Grease, as well as leading regional roles in Evita, Crazy for You, The Sound of Music and Fiddler on the Roof.

After retiring from performing, she turned her focus to teaching, directing and choreography, and today serves as Executive Director/Artistic Director of Performing Arts for Hickory Ballet & Performing Arts. Bodnar is also no stranger to Hickory Community Theatre, having choreographed The Little Mermaid in 2014 and The Music Man in 2015, and directed The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in 2017. Returning to the musical that began her own professional career gives her an unusually personal connection to the dancers standing on the audition line this time around.

Bodnar grew up in Northern California, where she began dancing as a young child and studied ballet in the San Francisco Bay Area before pursuing musical theatre professionally. She eventually made Hickory her home and, after the birth of her first daughter, discovered a new calling in teaching—drawing on her own experiences as a young performer to help developing artists build both technique and confidence.

Since taking the helm of Hickory Ballet & Performing Arts in 2018, she has helped expand the organization beyond classical ballet into musical theatre, voice and acting, while developing community outreach programs designed to make the performing arts accessible to a broader audience. That combination of performer, teacher and arts leader now brings Bodnar back to A Chorus Line, a show about dancers putting their training, ambitions and vulnerabilities on the line for the chance to do exactly what she herself set out to do as a teenager.

Performances will be Fridays and Saturdays, Aug. 28, 29, Sept. 4, 5, 11 and 12 at 7:30pm; Sundays, Aug. 30 and Sept. 6 at 2:30pm; and Thursday, Sept. 10 at 7:30pm. Tickets are $18 for adults and $12 for youth and students 18 and under. This production is recommended for ages 18 and up due to adult language.

Tickets are available online at hickorytheatre.org/box-office or by calling 828-328-2283.