On Broadway: what becomes a legend most? Chita Rivera's new show revisits her struggles and triumphs.

You would think that in file surly, back-biting world of Broadway, people would be talking about the unmitigated ego of doing a show like Chita Rivera: The Dancer's Life. That they would be asking why in the world Broadway needs a reverential biography of a Broadway veteran who was still kicking up her heels as recently as 2003, dancing a hot tango with Antonio Banderas in the revival of Nine. Or that they would be carping about developing a full two-act musical with 11-piece orchestra and 10-person ensemble around the life and career of someone who always presented herself as just another trouper.

But Rivera, at 72, inspires awe and utter devotion on Broadway, not cattiness. Some years ago, a seasoned Broadway pit musician mentioned to me that he had once toured with Chita Rivera. I started to ask a question but before I could get it out, he had answered it: "Everything you've heard about her is absolutely true."

Rivera is a legend among audiences for her 52 years as the proverbial triple threat--a distinctive singer, a riveting actress, and, above all, a superlative dancer; but that wasn't what he was talking about. It was the fact that Rivera's unsurpassed work ethic and her unstinting generosity have made her a legend among her colleagues. She is both revered and beloved in the world of musical theater. When she says, "What this show really does is allow me to honor the business that I'm in and the people that I've worked with--all the choreographers, all the dancers," she means it from the bottom of her heart.

Of course, it's not the first showbiz biography to pay tribute to the "no people like show people" spirit that Rivera embodies--think Funny Girl, or The Bin, From Oz. But it's the first I can recall that actually stars its subject--unless you want to consider one-person shows or glorified concert appearances like Lena Horne's The Lady and Her Music.

The Tony-winning playwright Terrence McNally, who wrote the book for Rivera's triumphant turn in The Kiss of the Spider Woman, has based this one on her reminiscences and on published interviews, which began coming in 1957, when she burst out of the chorus and took Broadway by storm as Anita in West Side Story. Graciela Daniele, who first worked with Rivera as a dancer and dance captain in Chicago, is directing and choreographing the show, which opens Dec. 11 at the Schoenfeld. And the ensemble is drawn from veteran Broadway gypsies who have danced behind Rivera in other shows.

Rivera hopes that by re-creating some of her landmark numbers, the show will offer Broadway-bound youngsters a glimpse of the way it used to be. As inspiration, Rivera's life certainly has what it takes: the spunky kid who loses her father at 7, gets into SAB at 14, gets her first Broadway job at 20, sticks with musical theater through thick and thin, and then recovers from a leg-mangling accident by sheer force of will and hard work. But The Dancer's Life is also about the people who inspired her--her ballet teachers; the jazz dance pioneer Jack Cole; Broadway choreographers Michael Kidd, Peter Gennaro, Jerome Robbins, and Bob Fosse; her friend and fellow icon Gwen Verdon.

Rivera's personal story is also in large part the story of Broadway dance over the last half century. And to look back at it is to comprehend how much we've lost. Rivera knows that the door has closed on the kind of career she's had. Broadway babies making their way into the profession now will not be able to spend 52 years on the stage, as she did. Talented, hardworking chorus kids who climb through the ranks will not end up headliners, as she did. Not unless they go to Hollywood first and become famous in the movies or make it big in television.

Rivera understands this, but her famously upbeat outlook won't allow her to make that her message. To her, The Dancer's Life is about "what people interested in the theater can have if they stick with it, study hard, and get a little lucky--because you gotta have luck, too."

Young dancers, she says, will learn a lot from the show: "That hard work can get you what you want. That dance isn't just about one style--it's about many styles, many interpretations. That good technique is important. And that you have to listen--don't think you know. Listen to your teachers."

The greatest teacher, they say, is experience. When Lena Home brought her show to Broadway in 1981, she surprised her audience by doing "Stormy Weather" twice: first, at the beginning of the show, in the sweetly forlorn way she'd sung it early in her career; and then, at the end, in a harsh, heart-ripping version that reflected all the wear and tear--and hard-earned wisdom--of decades.

Rivera acknowledges the benefit of time, too. She could not, she says, have performed the role of Aurora in Kiss of the Spider Woman even a few years before she did it, at 60, in 1993. "I wasn't ready for it," she says. "I don't feel I would have had the maturity and the glamour. Everything has been right on target," she says. "Right on time."

Sylviane Gold has written about theater for Newsday and The New York Times.