Theatre & dance
Donna McKechnie
born 1942 · musical theater dancer, singer, actress, choreographer
Pontiac-born dancer who trained in Royal Oak and won the 1976 Tony Award as Cassie in A Chorus Line, a role built largely on her own story.
- Born
Pontiac, Michigan
age 83- Detroit years
- 1942–1959
- Field
- Theatre & dance
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
McKechnie was born in Pontiac in 1942 and began ballet at five; after seeing the film The Red Shoes she decided at eight to become a ballerina. She trained for years at the Rose Marie Floyd School of Dance in Royal Oak and, against her parents' wishes, left for New York at seventeen. Turned down by American Ballet Theatre, she danced in the Radio City Music Hall corps, toured in West Side Story and made her Broadway debut in 1961 in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, where she met Bob Fosse and Gwen Verdon. As a featured dancer on NBC's Hullabaloo she met the choreographer Michael Bennett, later her husband, and she became central to the workshops that grew into A Chorus Line. Her role, Cassie Ferguson, drew heavily on her own life, and it won her the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical in 1976. She also appeared on the soap opera Dark Shadows.
Highlights
- Tony Award, Best Actress in a Musical, for A Chorus Line (1976)
- Trained at the Rose Marie Floyd School of Dance in Royal Oak
- Broadway debut in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (1961)
- Featured dancer on NBC's Hullabaloo