A Class Act is a musical with a book by Linda Kline and Lonny Price and music and lyrics by Edward Kleban. The musical is based on the life of composer-lyricist Ed Kleban, who died at the age of 48 in 1987. The musical uses flashbacks and the device of time running backwards to retrace the high and low points of Kleban's personal and professional life. The production was stitched together by Kleban's friend Kline and by Price using a trunkful of songs that Kleban wrote for a number of musicals that never were produced. In addition to serving as a tribute to one of the award-winning collaborators of A Chorus Line, A Class Act provides a behind-the-scenes glimpse at how a musical is created and brought to the stage and offers a warning about how an artist?s personal life - including struggles with mental illness and cancer - can interfere with, obstruct, and doom his professional pursuits. Production The