‘Chorus Line’ Extends N.Y. Run to April 28 : Broadway: Longest-running show gets a boost in sales. Shakespeare Festival, AIDS will benefit from two performances.

Closing “A Chorus Line” on Broadway is proving almost as difficult as it was to open it 15 years ago.

Faced with a booming box-office response to the March 31 closing notice that was posted in February, producer Joseph Papp said Thursday that the longest-running show in Broadway history will extend its nearly 15-year run at New York’s Shubert Theatre to April 28. In a phone interview, he said the four-week extension should not come as a surprise because in his original statement he left open that possibility, based on the box office. Since the closing announcement, ticket sales have been up by $200,000 a week.

But beginning about January, the show’s box-office strength had dwindled, running at under 50% capacity and, in fact, at a $300,000 loss a week in the weeks just before Papp made his first announcement. “You have to know when to close a show,” the producer said.

Papp, whose nonprofit New York Shakespeare Festival has earned more than $35 million in profits as producer of the musical, had come under criticism from friends of Michael Bennett, the show’s late director-choreographer and profit participant, for not moving the show back to the festival’s small, 299-seat Newman Theatre after the Broadway closing. It was at the Newman where the musical had its first, uneasy origins. Some felt that “A Chorus Line,” in many ways a paean to the heartbreak, tension and exhilaration of the Broadway theater, should always have a New York presence.

Others from the original 19-member cast of the show had criticized Papp for not making the final performance a benefit for AIDS, the disease that took Bennett’s life at age 44 on July 2, 1987.

Said one former dancer in the Broadway company: “If Michael Bennett were alive, you can be sure there would be a great celebration for the closing. But Joe Papp doesn’t think that way.”

But in his Thursday announcement, Papp said the final performance on April 28 would be a benefit for the Shakespeare Festival--tickets ranging in price from $80 to $500.

Papp also said there also will be a special performance for “Equity Fights AIDS” on April 8 in memory of Bennett, whose birthday was that day. For the AIDS event, he said all tickets will be increased in price by $10--and proceeds will benefit Equity Fights AIDS. He said he agreed to the special performance at the request of the current cast and company, which he said will contribute their time.

In the interview, Papp said he never had any intention of moving the show to the Newman Theatre. “It would be all kind of a reduction of something that was beautiful and splendid,” he said. He left open the possibility of a new national touring company and of “annual visits” to Broadway. “ ‘A Chorus Line’ is so entrenched in the American scene that it will never die,” he added.

As for the final performance benefiting the Shakespeare Festival, Papp said: “Why shouldn’t we have a benefit? It takes $14 million to run the festival annually. We’re always fighting to raise funds.”

In these final weeks, there has been a swirl of media activity surrounding the show and the former and current casts. Members of the original company have been interviewed by the media and some are making appearances on “Geraldo” and the “Phil Donahue Show,” which are scheduled to air soon.

A consensus of the original 19-member cast, all of whom worked closely with the late Bennett, expressed disappointment about the final performance during interviews with Calendar, and the fact that they had not been invited. Said Clive Wilson, who played the assistant director Larry: “It’s inconceivable to me that the show would be a benefit for the festival and not for AIDS.”

Priscilla Lopez, who sang the song “Nothing,” felt that the Shakespeare Festival “has been profiting for 15 years . . . that’s usually plenty.”

On Thursday, however, Papp said he always had intended to invite the cast to the evening, as soon as he knew when it would be. He cast aside any criticism about the AIDS benefit, saying he had never heard from the original cast about the idea. He said the plans for the April 8 benefit came directly from the current company.