A documentary by Adam Del Deo and James D. Stern. Rated PG. Opens Friday, May 29, at the Cinemark Tinseltown

Every Little Step is a filmed record of dancers auditioning to play dancers auditioning for a chorus line in a revival of A Chorus Line. The fact that everyone is conscious of all this only adds to the meta–show biz fever emanating from ambidextrous, hungry performers looking to make their marks in an unforgiving field.

As handled by codirectors Adam Del Deo and James D. Stern (who also made The Year of the Yao, about Chinese basketball great Yao Ming), this compelling doc deploys the expected reality-TV device of trailing a few competitors vying for the same roles. But it places this horse race in the more interesting context of the original musical’s genesis, which happened amidst hours of audiotaped workshops, heard here in snippets alongside grainy footage of early performances, from 1975 on.

This strategy is ambitious but it also leads to frustration. Early signals suggest more time with the individual dancers than you actually get, and in the end, the men have been almost entirely left out, although the cast is roughly halfsies. (Young soap veteran Jason Tam does steal the show, however, in an unforgettable audition scene.)

The doc is stingy with information. It’s delightful to spend time with cocreator Bob Avian and composer Marvin Hamlisch, but why no mention of lyricist Edward Kleban? And maybe someone should tell us that featured dancer Donna McKechnie, who offers valuable on-screen insights, had been married to the original show’s driving force, Michael Bennett. By the way, she reportedly didn’t know the intensely creative Bennett was gay until he died of AIDS–related lymphoma in 1987.

Guess you can’t be expected to figure out everything in a hall of mirrors. The fun is finding your way out—and, sometimes, in.