Theater Review:

When “A Chorus Line” blazed across Broadway for a 15-year run back in 1975, winning the Pulitzer Prize and nine Tony awards, it inspired a plethora of local productions from the late ’70s through the ’80s. Seems as if every college and community theater was taking a crack at this landmark show.

It’s been quite a while since the career-driven dancers vying for eight slices of anonymity in a Broadway musical have been glimpsed locally, but now the original is back — or at least a high-stepping copy of that mid-’70s classic, directed by its original Tony-winning co-choreographer — at the Orange County Performing Arts Center.

Taking the late Michael Bennett’s concept and choreography and dusting it off for a new generation, director Bob Avian has mounted a superb ensemble piece with inestimable assistance from Baayork Lee, restaging the original Bennett-Avian choreography.

The beauty of “A Chorus Line” is that there are no headliners — but plenty of stars with their own individual moments in the spotlight. And while we may be quite well acquainted with them by this time, their impact is hardly lessened by this familiarity.

There’s Cassie (Nikki Snelson), whose dreams of making it on her own have crumbled and who now seeks a place on the line. Complicating her quest is the demanding director Zach (Michael Gruber) — an old flame. Snelson is radiant in her desperate “Music and the Mirror” solo dance.

There’s Val (Natalie Elise Hall), the chorus cutie who warbles the show’s funniest solo, “Dance: Ten; Looks: Three,” which will forever be known as the “T & A” number, about enhancing her physical appearance for fun and profit. It’s a howl.

There’s Diana (Gabrielle Ruiz), a Puerto Rican import who offers a funny-poignant selection, “Nothing,” about being trapped in a method acting class. Ruiz also leads off the show’s best number, “What I Did for Love,” as the dancers consider their life after showbiz.

There’s Sheila (Emily Fletcher), a stunning “old lady” of 30 who looks down on the younger cuties and shares a riveting “At the Ballet” number with Pilar Milhollen and Hollie Howard as each recounts her traumatic childhood.