The utterly delightful "Every Little Step" (an exciting, moving documentary about auditions for "A Chorus Line") will have its commercial release in late April, but a similar documentary of outstanding merit has no such assured future of being seen - yet. It should. At a private screening Friday at Dolby Laboratories, "They Came to Play" impressed the viewer as a potential commercial crackerjack, and, alternatively, PBS-worthy to a T. The "They" of the title are 75 contestants accepted - from hundreds of applicants - at the fifth International Piano Competition for Outstanding Amateurs in Fort Worth, hosted by the Van Cliburn Foundation. A more motley crew you will never see, ranging from a Moldova-born dental assistant in Oakland (with an overlarge Phyllis Diller personality) to doctors, lawyers, a former coach of the French national tennis team, to a man battling a fatal disease. They are all amateurs - in the sense of not making a living from music - and they all love music in palpable, moving, sometimes hilarious, often dramatic ways. In his directing debut, Alex Rotaru (a Romanian-born editor for BBC and Screen Actors Guild Awards telecasts) follows a dozen contestants (some making the finals, some not - it's great fun to root for your favorites) from their homes through the contest. Those homes range from Texas to Berlin to the Bay Area; the contestants represent a cross-section of humanity. "They Came to Play" is a brilliant multiple character study, an in-depth look at how music is made, and it provides generous excerpts from fascinating performances. It's amazing how much is squeezed into 90 minutes. To state the obvious, this is not "the" Van Cliburn competition, but it is run by the same foundation, and the man himself makes a few fleeting appearances. That's all to the good as Cliburn's habitually strange behavior has reached something just plain weird. With the mien of an Old Testament figure (a la Charlton Heston), Cliburn makes terse, incomprehensible pronouncements - but doesn't overstay his welcome. As for the Players Who Came, their welcome could easily extend to twice the length of the movie. Janos Gereben www.sfcv.org [log in to unmask] *********************************************** The CLASSICAL mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's HDMail High Deliverability Mailer for reliable, lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html