Nicholas Dante; Wrote `A Chorus Line'

NEW YORK - Nicholas Dante, co-author of "A Chorus Line," the longest-running show in Broadway history, died yesterday of complications from AIDS. He was 49.

Mr. Dante, who died in New York City's Roosevelt Hospital, was the fourth member of the "Chorus Line" creative team to die in recent years. Michael Bennett, the director and choreographer who conceived the show about the "gypsies" who dance in Broadway choruses, died of AIDS in 1987. Lyricist Edward Kleban died of cancer that year, and co-author James Kirkwood died of cancer in 1989.

Mr. Dante was a dancer whose own story - of a young gay man who is seen by his parents performing in a gay revue - became the affecting monologue for the character called Paul. "A Chorus Line" won the 1975 Pulitzer Prize for drama, and Mr. Dante and Kirkwood shared the Tony Award for best book of a musical, one of nine Tonys the show won. The show closed April 28, 1990, after running a record 6,137 performances.

Mr. Dante described his lonely childhood and his illness in a Jimmy Breslin column published March 31. "I grew up in the Forties, a Puerto Rican kid on 125th and Broadway, and obviously gay." Because of it, he told Breslin, "nobody would hang out with me. . . . I was terrified to go out where anybody could see me."