Michael Bennett (April 8, 1943 – July 2, 1987) was an American musical theatre director, writer, choreographer, and dancer.

Bennett, under the aegis of producer Joseph Papp, created A Chorus Line based on a workshop process which he pioneered.

Bennett's career as a Broadway dancer began in the 1961 Betty Comden–Adolph Green–Jule Styne musical Subways Are for Sleeping, after which he appeared in Meredith Willson's Here's Love and the short-lived Bajour.

With a contemporary pop score by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, a wisecracking book by Neil Simon and Bennett's well-received production numbers, including "Turkey Lurkey Time", the show ran for 1,281 performances.

[6] Over the next few years, he earned praise for his work on the straight play Twigs with Sada Thompson and the musical Coco with Katharine Hepburn.

[4] In 1973, Bennett was asked by producers Joseph Kipness and Larry Kasha to take over the ailing Cy Coleman–Dorothy Fields musical Seesaw.

He later claimed that the worldwide success of A Chorus Line became a hindrance, as the many international companies of the musical demanded his full-time attention.

Television talk-show host Phil Donahue devoted an entire program to the original cast, during which they reminisce and recreate some of the musical numbers.

[12] Bennett had another hit in 1981 with Dreamgirls, a backstage epic about a girl group like The Supremes and the expropriation of black music by a white recording industry.

[15] In 1985, Bennett abandoned the nearly-completed musical Scandal, by writer Treva Silverman and songwriter Jimmy Webb, which had been developing for nearly five years through a series of workshop productions.

[16] The show was sexually daring, but the conservative climate and the growing AIDS panic made it unlikely commercial material.

[20] In act 2 of Company, Bennett defied the usual choreographic expectations by deliberately taking the polish off the standard Broadway production number.

The various phases of construction/rehearsal of the number are shown, and because the show is about professional dancers, the last performance of the song-and-dance routine has all the gloss and polish expected of Broadway production values.

"What Michael Bennett perceived early in Robbins' work was totality, all the sums of a given piece adding to a unified whole".

[33][34] Bennett's memorial service took place at the Shubert Theatre in New York City (the home at that time of A Chorus Line) on September 29, 1987.