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TEACHING GUIDE
The John Kander / Fred Ebb / Bob Fosse musical CHICAGO is described in its opening number as a ‘tale of murder, greed,
corruption, exploitation, adultery, and treachery—all those things we hold near and dear to our hearts’.
In short, CHICAGO is a parade of highly-creative Broadway show-stoppers making a satirical point about celebrity and the
judicial system (in this case, the American Judicial System – a subject made even relevant by the recent O J Simpson and
similar ‘celebrity’ trials around the world).
CHICAGO also touches upon issues witnessed in a variety of recent, less sensational celebrity trials and the accompanying
media frenzy which surrounded them : Jeffrey Archer, Nicholas van Hoogstraten, Paul Burrell (butler to the Princess of Wales),
Barry George (charged with murdering Jill Dando), Neil and Christine Hamilton, The Leeds United Footballers and Sloboban
Milosevic, the former Yugoslav president .
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INTRODUCTION
Live theatre can enrich a young person's life like few other experiences.
This CHICAGO Teaching Guide is intended to increase your students' enjoyment of CHICAGO while at the same time help them
to appreciate American theatre’s great musical comedy legacy.
One important show in that legacy is the sensational musical CHICAGO. The questions, assignments and background
information found in this teaching guide are designed to encourage your students to become familiar with CHICAGO’s story,
characters and themes.
In this CHICAGO Teaching Guide you will find historical data, theatre information and literary analysis. Suggestions for units
include both abstract and concrete questions. Projects can be adapted for individual, interdisciplinary and co-operative learning
groups.
We hope this guide will serve as a starting place for your own creativity in your classroom. We encourage you to adjust it to
the levels, needs and interests of your students. We believe informed theatregoers are the best audience. To encourage your
students to participate in the experience of live theatre, there are special group booking rates for your students to attend
CHICAGO at certain performances! Please contact the box office for details.
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THE EXPECTATION
For many of your students, seeing CHICAGO may be their first experience of live theatre.
To increase their enjoyment, it might be helpful to look at some of the unique qualities of this art form compared to movies,
television or video.
The live theatrical experience not only involves the actors and musicians on-stage, it also involves the audience in ways that
film and television cannot. In reality, although the audience is sitting in an auditorium and the actors on stage, there's very little
separating the audience from the performers. HOW THE AUDIENCE REACTS TO THE PLAY DEEPLY AFFECTS THE ACTORS and
can change the tone of the whole performance. Something as seemingly trivial as whispering or a moisy sweetwrapper can
distract the actors and other audience members.
Another difference of film, video or television is that the camera and editing define what the audience sees – each audience
member will see the same thing. In theatre, each member of the audience works as a camera and editor, choosing his or her
personal points of focus.
The wonders of movies and television are terrific in their own right, but often provide an isolated experience. Being part of the
communal magic when performer and audience connect at the theatre cannot be duplicated. The performance you and your
students will see of CHICAGO will happen only once. It is unique, special and personal. Though CHICAGO will be performed
hundreds of times, the performance you and your students will see belong only to that audience.
THE PREPARATION
Spending a little time with your students before seeing CHICAGO should heighten their emotional and educational experience.
The musical CHICAGO is based on actual historical murders written about in a 1926 satirical play by Maurine Dallas Watkins.
The character Roxie Hart is based on the real-life murderess Beulah Annan.
• Name some other plays and movies that are based on real-life persons and events.
• Is it possible for the authors of these plays and movies to write accurate stories about these real-life people or do
they have to fictionalise their stories for dramatic reasons?
The musical CHICAGO tells its story through a series of show-stopping songs.
• What are the four musical elements in the creation of a song? (Melody, harmony, rhythm and form)
• Why does music in musical theatre need lyrics?
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One of the healthiest ways of dealing with the intolerable is to make fun of it, or satirise it. CHICAGO is a satire on a judicial
system and how the media can at times influence the outcome of court cases.
• Discuss some recent examples of how the media have influenced the outcome of a trial.
• Discuss how TV programmes satirise recent events.
• Why do these programs remain so popular?
Working in the theatre requires a great deal of collaboration and teamwork.
• Have your students outline some of the problems they would have if they were part of the creative team that
writes the musical.
• What are some of the problems the author of the script might have working with the songwriters?
• What can they do to minimise these problems?
DISCUSSION
• Discuss and compare a recent, high-profile celebrity trial to the trial of Roxie Hart in the musical CHICAGO.
• Discuss what the authors of CHICAGO seem to be saying about (in their case) America's judicial system, and
about the relationship between fame and notoriety. Give specific examples from the show to back your points.
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STUDENT ACTIVITIES
• REVIEW THE SHOW. After seeing CHICAGO on stage, write a review of the production by evaluating the acting,
staging, choreography, script, music, lyrics, scenery, lighting, and costumes. Tell how each contributes or detracts
from the overall quality of the production.
• INTERPRET THE SHOW AS A NEWS EVENT. Produce an "Evening News" report on the events of this play.
• CREATE TWO DIFFERING TV ACCOUNTS (or newspaper accounts) (such as GMTV / BBC News or The Sun /
Guardian) of the events of the play.
• MODEL A TV TALK SHOW. Create a show with one student playing the host, and other students playing guests
Roxie Hart, Velma Kelly and Billy Flynn. The rest of the class can play the studio audience. The host and
audience should ask the "guests" questions about the events that occurred in CHICAGO. If your school has video
equipment, it would be fun to tape the student show.
• CREATE A POSTER EXEMPLIFYING A CHARACTER IN THE PLAY. Use appropriate colours, shapes, etc to reveal
the character.
• WRITE A CHARACTER ANALYSIS of one of the CHICAGO characters. You may want to consider the following
questions: What motivated this character's speech, song and actions? What are the character's desires or
intentions? How does this character interact with others?
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THE STORY
Act One
As a jazz band plays a brief Overture we find out that Roxie Hart has just killed her former lover Fred Casely. Fellow murderess
Velma Kelly sings the song All That Jazz.
“It’s just a noisy hall
Where there’s a nightly brawl
And all that jazz!”
Roxie’s husband, Amos Hart, admits to police that he was coerced into committing the murder of Fred Casely, causing Roxie to
lament Amos’ stupidity in the song Funny Honey. She is thrown in the Cook County jail with Velma and other Merry
Murderesses who sing about their ‘innocence’ in the song The Cell Block Tango. Roxie also meets the overly friendly Mama
Morton, the jail matron, who sings When You’re Good to Mama. Roxie, Velma and the Murderesses all hope to get out of their
murder raps by hiring shyster lawyer Billy Flynn. Billy sings about his love of legal procedure in the song All I Care About.
Billy loves to practice law by manipulating the local gossip columnist Mary Sunshine (who sings her journalistic creed in the
number A Little Bit of Good). Billy coaches Roxie in a sob story: Runaway marriage, foolish affair and then We Both Reached
for the Gun. Soon the headlines scream ‘Roxie Rocks Chicago!’ Roxie muses: ‘If this Flynn guy gets me off, and with all this
publicity, I could get into vaudeville.’ She sings Roxie.
Still in jail but glowing in new-found fame, both Roxie and Velma (singing I Can’t Do It Alone) find themselves no longer the
hottest item in the media. A new murderess now grabs all the attention. To gain attention back, Roxie and Velma team up to
sing My Own Best Friend.
Roxie faints. She makes a dramatic announcement to capture attention: she says she’s pregnant. All Velma can do is shake
her head and sing All That Jazz. Flashbulbs pop…Roxie is the centre of attention…the curtain falls.
Act Two
The Second Act opens with Roxie singing to her supposed baby in the song Me and My Baby. Amos realises he’s been used
and calls himself Mr Cellophane.
“Mister Cellophane
‘Cause you can look right through me
Walk right by me
And never know I’m there”
Velma demonstrates her sense of showmanship in the song When Velma Takes the Stand.
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Roxie resents being ordered around by Billy, so she fires him. But once she finds out that one of the Murderesses is hanged,
she hurries back to Billy, who prepares for his big courtroom performance by trying to look like the legendary lawyer Clarence
Darrow. He tells Roxie: ‘It’s all a circus, kid. A three-ring circus. These trials—the whole world—all show business. But
kid, you’re working with a star, the biggest.’
Billy sings the song Razzle Dazzle. In a court, after using Amos to soften the jury’s heart, Billy questions Roxie about events
leading up to the killing. She recounts that Fred Casely forced his way into her bedroom. She testifies, ‘We both reached for
the gun. But I got it first.'’ Billy asks, ‘Then it was his life or yours?’ Roxie goes to the jury, pats her stomach, and answers,
‘And not just mine! And I closed my eyes and shot.’ Billy asks, ‘In defence of your life?’ Roxie replies, ‘To save my husband’s
innocent unborn child!’
Having heard about Roxie’s courtroom charade, Mama Morton and Velma reminisce about the good old days in the song Class.
The jury finds Roxie not guilty, but another sensational murder steals the press’ attention before Roxie can capitalise on her
notoriety. Amos remains loyal to Roxie, but she tells him there is no baby. She wonders about the world in the song
Nowadays.
The scene changes as a night club emcee announces a new act: ‘Chicago’s own killer-dillers—those two scintillating
sinners—Roxie Hart and Velma Kelly’ Yes, the deadly duo have joined forces as a new vaudeville team. They’re a hit as they
sing the reprise of All That Jazz.
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THE LOOK
The design of CHICAGO comes as a surprise to many – a stark black set, performers in minimal black costumes and carefully
focussed lighting. But its very simplicity is its power, the audience really sees and hears the performance with no distractions,
whilst the design of the show subtly enhances the subject and themes of the story. The band are firmly positioned centre
stage, emphasising the importance of music to the show, allowing the band to literally take part in the action and also to
emphasise the theme of justice by having a symbolic jury on stage throughout the action. The minimal costumes serve as a
reminder of the vaudeville age, whilst allowing the performers freedom of movement and emphasising the role of sex in the
lives of the characters. Each member of the ensemble has a costume allocated to them, chosen by William Ivey Long to best
suit their appearance and body shape, rather than to reflect a specific character they play. Only the characters Roxie and
Velma change their costumes throughout the show, the ensemble rely on props and performance to indicate their different
characters to the audience. Billy Flynn and Amos Hart are the only characters to wear any other colour than black; Amos dons
Fosse’s trademark white gloves as he performs ‘Mr Cellophane’. The action is often enhanced by pinpoint spotlights, focussing
the audience’s attention on one character as they perform. During ‘Cell Block Tango’ the lights fall in bars to give the
impression of a prison cell. A solid red wash of light is used for emphasis whenever a murder or death occurs and Roxie’s trial
is given the full vaudeville treatment with a row of footlights to illuminate her ‘performance’ on the stand.
THE THEMES
CHICAGO is a stylised piece of theatre, making no attempt to portray anything in reality, the piece is showy and unreal, like the
justice system it portrays. The element of guilty or not guilty is irrelevant, the amount of fame and publicity gained is more
important, which makes CHICAGO very topical today as we live in a society that thrives on fame and notoriety. As Aaron says:
“What the hell has innocence got to do with it?”
CHICAGO focuses on the theme of celebrity and what people will do to achieve it. Neither Roxie nor Velma murder purely for
publicity, but once they have they are eager to exploit their newly found fame to the full. As Roxie points out “I always
wanted my name in the papers.” The relationships between Roxie and Velma, their lawyer Billy Flynn and gullible journalist
Mary Sunshine point up the themes of a corrupt society, manipulation and the fickleness of both the media and the public.
There is always a new star, and Roxie must go to extremes to hold on to her fame: Billy: “They’d love you a lot more if you
were hanged. You know why? Because it would sell more papers.” Luckily for her, she only has to go as far as claiming to be
pregnant.
Another theme of CHICAGO is the importance of having a gimmick and selling yourself. Velma has worked out exactly how to
‘play’ her trial, even down to the shoes she will wear; unfortunately all her ideas are passed on to Roxie by Billy Flynn, proving
that everyone is only out for themselves and there is no longer anyone with ‘class’.
The idea that a murderer can be a star is reinforced by the audience’s response to the characters; not only in the story of
CHICAGO do Roxie and Velma gain fame but also as the real audience watch the show they empathise and support the
characters, cheering for them at the end when they achieve the fame they desire. But as Billy says: “You’re a phoney
celebrity, kid. In a couple of weeks, nobody’ll even know who you are. That’s Chicago.”
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The trial of Roxie Hart is presented as pure vaudeville entertainment, lit by footlights and underscored by music. A ghostly
American flag hangs aloft, and the oaths are taken at dismissively high speed, “Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah… truth…
truth… truth. Selp-you God.” The trial scene re-enacts the events of Fred Casely’s murder, the audience are aware of the
lies being told as they saw the ‘real’ events at the opening of the show. Roxie is acquitted but we never hear the judge’s
verdict, as another more sensational murder interrupts and takes the limelight away from Roxie. So CHICAGO shows a harsh
and cynical view of the American judicial system, both then and now. For many the obvious connection to prominent trials in
both America and the UK in recent years makes CHICAGO such an exciting piece of theatre; as Walter Bobbie points out
“CHICAGO’s plot was shocking in 1926, cynical and satirical in 1975, and today feels like a documentary.”
Katalin Hunyak, the unfortunate Hungarian girl accused of murdering her husband with an axe, pays the ultimate price for not
playing the media/ justice game. Persisting in pleading not guilty and unable to afford the likes of Billy Flynn to concoct her
defence, she becomes the first woman to be hung in Cook County for 47 years – performing “her famous Hungarian rope trick”.
So CHICAGO functions on many levels, both as pure entertainment, as social comment and an uncanny combination of the two,
when it becomes difficult to separate manipulation within the story from manipulation of the actual audience.
THE CITY
Chicago is the third largest city in the United States and in the 1920’s, at the height of the Prohibition laws, the city became
notorious for it’s bootleggers and gangsters. Chicago was the home of Al Capone and murder and mayhem were the order of
the day – culminating in the St Valentine’s Day Massacre in 1929. People drank illegal, bootlegged alcohol in the speakeasy
(an illegal saloon) and criminals grew rich on the profits to be made from producing illegal alcohol. Chicago was so notorious it
became the media’s dream, with new stories for journalists every day and every gangster, murderer or criminal becoming a
media star. Then as now, books were written, plays performed and films created to tell tall stories of Chicago life, further
compounding the reputation of the city. This Chicago is the home of Velma and Roxie, one a second rate vaudeville performer
who wants to make it big, the other desperate to be a star. In that environment it is little wonder that murder, jail and the
court room seem the ideal places to get their names and faces known.
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THE PRODUCTION
In the fall of 1995, when the enterprising City Center ENCORES! Series announced its spring season, there were some
rumblings of resentment over the selection of the John Kander-Fred Ebb-Bob Fosse musical vaudeville, CHICAGO, as part of the
series. After all, in its short existence ENCORES! had produced concert versions of vintage musical from the '30s, '40s, and
'50s, including ALLEGRO, CALL ME MADAM, OUT OF THIS WORLD and LADY IN THE DARK; shows that may either have been
forgotten and might not be given full-scale revivals, CHICAGO wasn't really a show that was waiting for a re-discovery.
But there it was, and on May 2, 1996 CHICAGO played its first of 4 performances to a capacity audience that can best be
described as jubilant. The starry cast featured Ann Reinking (who also choreographed in the style of Bob Fosse) Bebe
Neuwirth, James Naughton, Joel Grey, Marcia Lewis and D. Sabella under the direction of ENCORES! Artistic Director Walter
Bobbie and Musical Director Rob Fisher. Critics and audiences alike watched and listened to a show that was so immediate
and energizing that by intermission there was talk about moving it straight to Broadway. However, a staged concert with two
weeks rehearsal and a full-scale Broadway production are two very different animals. What worked for 4 performances may
have been the quality of a "theatrical event" that the audience experienced.
Enter Barry and Fran Weissler, the successful producer of shows ranging from OTHELLO starring Christopher Plummer and
James Earl Jones to William Finn's FALSETTOS to the hugely successful revival of GREASE!. After winning a bidding war for
the Broadway rights to CHICAGO, they found themselves with a unique challenge - how to change the perception of the show
from a fantastic concert experience into a unique and powerful total production of the show.
There was no doubt that the show itself delivered what a Broadway audience craves - gorgeous musical, astounding
choreography and truly memorable performance for a cast of stars, but how do you tell the public that this show isn't just
another revival? The answer is marketing. On Sunday, June 23rd, a large advertisement in the New York Times set the tone:
this production of CHICAGO wasn't simply going to be a transfer of a successful concert. The concert was only the inspiration;
this was going to be a new production of a show that was going to startle and provoke is by its sheet thrilling showmanship.
In the next few months the ads became edgier and more provocative than the standard Broadway audience was use to
experiencing. And that was the point. When CHICAGO began preview performances at the Richard Rodgers Theatre on
October 29th, it was a concert no more - here was a fully realized, energized production of a great musical. Walter Bobbie and
Ann Reinking had refined CHICAGO into a black diamond of a show - sharp, dark and dazzling. Instead of large scenic effects,
the production was built around the galvanizing energy and personality of the performers and their songs. And the show was
ready to deliver what the artwork promised.
The opening night on November 14 was nothing less than electrifying. Each number was a home run for the performers, and
the audience's cheers kept the show's pace at a fever pitch. Broadway had rediscovered the greatness that is CHICAGO and
embraced it.
The reviews, highlighted by a front page picture in the New York Times (local and national editions) were never less than
glowing for every aspect of the production - the performers: "radiant" Ann Reinking (Stearns, USA Today); "sensational" Bebe
Neuwirth (Kissell, Daily News); "commanding and funny" James Naughton (Zoglin, Time Magazine); Joel Grey's "pure showbiz electricity" (Brantley, New York Times); "simply fabulous" Marcia Lewis (Daily News); D. Sabella's "stunning voice and
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style" (Daily News); "the delightfully inventive" direction (New York Times); the choreography ("a reminder of a whole lost
vocabulary of Broadway dance" - Time Magazine); the designer ("John Lee Beatty's witty evocation of a giant witness box in a
courtroom...down to the last flesh-framing inch of William Ivey Long's sleek costumes, in shades of black and white, set off by
Ken Billington's expert film noir lighting" - New York Times) and the orchestra under the "sublime" leadership of Rob Fisher
(New York Times).
As for CHICAGO itself, the critics acknowledged that here was a show that had truly been ahead of its time ("A musical for the
ages" - New York Times.) And as Vincent Canby said in his ecstatic Sunday Times review, "Even the Kander and Ebb score so
suddenly revealed to be on par with - and maybe even better than - the scores for CABARET and KISS OF THE SPIDER
WOMAN. Mr. Kander's music, which makes free use of Dixieland, rag, soft-shoe, and jazz jolts the senses one minute and a
few minutes later, soothes then with harmonies of irresistible sweetness, which act as counterpoint to some of the most
caustic lyrics Mr. Ebb has ever written."
It may have taken Mr. Canby and his fellow critics twenty years to fully appreciate CHICAGO, but better late than never. This
production doesn't negate the original one than was so superbly realized by Bob Fosse and company - it celebrates the artistry
that created it; the sheer guts and glory that is the American Musical.
1996, Bill Rosenfield
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CREATIVE BIOGRAPHIES
CREATIVE TEAM
JOHN KANDER and FRED EBB
Composer and Lyricist
Theatre credits include: Flora, the Red Menace; Cabaret; The Happy Time; Zorba; 70, Girls, 70; Chicago; The Act; Woman of
the Year; 2 X 5; The Rink; And the World Goes 'Round - The Kander & Ebb Musical; Kiss of the Spider Woman and Steel Pier.
Film credits include: Cabaret; Norman Rockwell: A Short Subject; Lucky Lady; New York, New York; Funny Lady; Kramer vs.
Kramer; A Matter of Time; Places in the Heart; French Postcards; Stepping Out. Television credits include: Liza with a Z (Liza
Minnelli); Goldie and Liza Together (Goldie Hawn and Liza Minnelli); Ol' Blue Eyes is Back (Frank Sinatra); Baryshnikov on
Broadway; An Early Frost and Liza in London.
Maurine Dallas Watkins
Author
In 1926, Maurine Dallas Watkins moved out of the amateur playwriting ranks and into the Broadway limelight with her satiric
comedy, CHICAGO. After the great success of CHICAGO, Ms. Watkins was offered many commissions. She accepted only one.
This was to adapt for the theatre Samuel Hopkins Adams' story REVELRY. After REVELRY's modest 48 performance run on
Broadway, Ms. Watkins never had another play on Broadway. Maurine Dallas Watkins was born in Louisville, Kentucky. She
attended Hamilton College, Indiana and Butler College, Radcliffe and finally to Yale for a session with Eugene O'Neill's and
George Abbott's playwriting teacher, the legendary George Pierce Baker of the drama division. After her formal education, Ms.
Watkins decided that she needed more experience and closer contact with real-life. So she moved to Chicago and was hired as
a reporter for the Chicago Tribune. Several of her stories took her to the criminal courts. There she gathered her material for the
play CHICAGO. Convinced she needed more knowledge of the playwriting technique, she left the Tribune, returning to Yale and
re-entered Professor Baker's class. It was as part of her class work that she wrote the first draft of CHICAGO. Produced by Sam
H. Harris and directed by George Abbott, CHICAGO opened December 30, 1926 at the Music Box Theatre in New York. Maurine
Watkins described her one hit play as "an honest attempt to say something I believed terrifically".
WALTER BOBBIE
Director
Mr Bobbie has received Broadway's Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics' Circle awards as Best Director for Chicago. He was
artistic director of City Center's acclaimed Encores! series, where Chicago began, and where he also directed its premiere
production of Fiorello! and co-adapted Du Barry Was a Lady. Other credits include: Christopher Durang's For Whom the
Southern Belle Tolls (Ensemble Studio Theatre), Durang Durang (Manhattan Theatre Club) and Andrea Martin's Nude, Nude,
Totally Nude (New York Shakespeare Festival). He conceived and directed Rodgers and Hammerstein's A Grand Night for
Singing (Rainbow and Stars, and Roundabout Theatre) and received Tony nominations for Best Book and Best Musical. Mr
Bobbie is also an actor whose appearances on Broadway and off-Broadway include: Guys and Dolls, Assassins, Getting
Married, Anything Goes, Cafe Crown, Driving Miss Daisy, I Love My Wife, A History of the American Film and the original
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Grease. He has appeared in many films, television series and is a frequent guest on radio with Garrison Keillor's A Prairie
Home Companion.
Ann Reinking
Choreographer
One of seven children, Ann grew up in Seattle, Washington. She was in the sixth grade when she first saw a classmate dance.
'I knew, then, I had to dance,' she recalls. She started ballet lessons and persuaded her parents to install a barre in her room so
she could practice at home. The work paid off. As a teenager, she won a Ford Foundation scholarship to study with the San
Francisco School of Ballet for three consecutive summers. After apprenticing with Robert Joffrey, she completed high school
and moved to New York. Her first job was with the Corps de Ballet at Radio City Music Hall. She went on to Broadway, films,
television and more awards including a Tony nomination for her performance in Dancin' and for best actress in Goodtime
Charley with Joel Grey. She topped that with an astonishing number of awards for her work as Maggie in Over Here including
the Theatre World Award, the Clarence Derwent Award and the Outer Critics' Circle Award.
Her film debut was as Troubles Moran in Movie, Movie. She then starred in All That Jazz, Annie, and Micki and Maude. In
1990, she took a career hiatus to marry and give birth to a son. Her familial commitments didn't stop her from co-starring with
Tommy Tune in Bye Bye Birdie, which they took on a national tour. Ann continues to work with more emphasis on her
choreography. 'Have to keep growing,' she contends.
Ann divides her time between New York and Tampa where the actress / singer / dancer / choreographer is artistic director of
the Broadway Theatre Project, a residential programme that brings together working professionals with gifted young people.
'Musical theatre is an American art form which must be kept alive,' says Reinking. Her recent credits include: choreographing
and starring in the current Broadway revival of Chicago, for which she won a Tony award as choreographer; choreographing
two ballets for the Joffrey Ballet of Chicago; the national tour of a revival of Applause starring Stephanie Powers; Bye Bye
Birdie with Vanessa Williams and Jason Alexander for ABC-TV, and a ballet Ritmo y Ruido for Ballet Hispanico.
William Ivey Long
Costume Designer
West End credits include: Smokey Joe's Cafe, Crazy for You, Woyzeck, Welsh National Opera. Other credits include: Cabaret;
Steel Pier; Chicago (Tony nomination), 1776; Big; Smokey Joe's Cafe; A Christmas Carol (Madison Square Garden); Laughter on
the 23rd Floor; Six Degrees of Separation; Assassins (1991 Obie Award); Crazy for You (Tony, Dora, Outer Critics' Circle
awards); Guys and Dolls (Drama Desk Award); Lend Me a Tenor (Drama Desk and Outer Critics' Circle awards); Nine (Tony,
Drama Desk, Maharam awards); Robert Wilson's Hamlet Machine; Leonard Bernstein's A Quiet Place and Trouble in Tahiti;
Mick Jagger for the Rolling Stones' Steel Wheels tour, Siegfried and Roy at the Mirage Hotel and dance designs for Paul
Taylor, Twyla Tharp, Peter Martins, David Parsons and Dan Wagoner for the London Contemporary Dance Theatre.
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ABOUT BOB FOSSE
From the early 1950s to the late 1970s, Bob Fosse was one of Broadway's biggest and brightest creative stars. His
extraordinary energy and inventiveness as a director and choreographer turned out one hit after another, including Pajama
Game (1954), Damn Yankees (1955), How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (1961), Sweet Charity (1966),
Pippin (1972), and Chicago (1975).
What made him a legend in his own lifetime was the way that he blew apart the old, balletic conventions of American
musical theatre, and broke down the barriers between dancer, choreographer and director.
His early introduction to life and art was shown in his highly autobiographical film, All That Jazz (1979), where he has to
literally tear himself away from the 'showgirls' to appear on stage with his favourite accessories of top hat and cane. Hats
were to be a favourite prop throughout his career - Shirley MacLaine used a collapsible top hat in her dance routine to If They
Could See Me Now in the film version of Sweet Charity, and Liza Minnelli's bowler hat became her Sally Bowles' trademark in
the film of Cabaret.
Even more characteristic than the props he gave his dancers was Fosse's rejection of balletic symmetry which can be seen
most clearly in the extraordinary line up of dance hostesses in Hey, Big Spender. The girls all slump rather than stand, their legs
turned inwards, with ankles and elbows jutting out. In a way, Fosse seems almost to be teasing the audience, for from such an
apparently unpromising start he launches his dancers into the explosively energetic, exuberant dance routines that make such
an impact in CHICAGO.
In getting the best out of his dancers, Fosse had several advantages. First his own extensive experience, from vaudeville and
burlesque to Broadway shows. Second, his success meant that he was able to audition the best dancers that America had to
offer: his painstaking search for the right person for each role is graphically detailed in the opening sequence of All That Jazz.
More than this, however, was his approach to casting. He had an idea in his mind of a type of person rather than a particular
look - he seemed to be searching for a personality rather than a face, and in one of the many interviews that he gave during his
career, he described how he would look for a dancer's ability to draw something out of themselves during their performance.
As he said, he could be an incredibly demanding choreographer, and his dancers needed not just to have ambition, but to have
dancing in their soul.
His other successful ingredient was that he was prepared to listen to his dancers - the chorus as well as the stars, and to
experiment with ideas of their own. Not all ideas would be accepted or used, but he was at least prepared to try things out in
a way that showed his awareness that, however distinguished, you can always learn and adapt from others.
Bob Fosse's determination that dance be an integral part of a musical number rather than just a decoration for a song and his
desire to express a song through the medium of dance as well as through the voice, was what made him unique - and uniquely
successful. In 1973 he achieved the unrivalled feat of winning an Oscar (for Cabaret), two Tony Awards (for Pippin) and an
Emmy (for Liza with a Z). On Sept 23, 1987, Gwen Verdon, his ex-wife and a Broadway legend in her own right, was with
him on the eve of the first preview of his revival of Sweet Charity when he died of a heart attack, aged 60.
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The newspapers made much of the fact that his death had been foretold in All That Jazz, but it is for his life and his legacy of
work on stage and film that he will be remembered. His career could have been predicted by the title of the show in which, as
a young dancer, he made his Broadway debut back in 1950 - Dance Me a Song.
ANN REINKING
Big Blue Eyes is Back – a choreographer’s view
It is a classic Broadway scene - the vast theatre, the lighting desk halfway down the stalls, technicians talking urgently into
headpieces, lighting cues being set up, cups of coffee being sipped.
On stage the dancers are getting ready for one more take, their black tops and leggings hugging their bodies, while further back
the musicians are perched on a stepped bandstand. And yet... despite the American accents, the jokes about the different
meanings of words like 'bum' (bum bags are the battery packs that work the singer/dancers' microphones) and the fact that
one of Broadway's biggest stars is about to take the rehearsal, the theatre is the Adelphi in the heart of the West End in 1998.
Fresh from a triumphant return to the stage, after some years absence, in the New York production of CHICAGO, Ann Reinking
had come to Britain but as choreographer only - she had other commitments in the States, not least a then seven-year-old son,
that precluded her appearing as the star as well in that production.
British audiences may have missed a great opportunity to see her as a dancer but we can at least appreciate the work of one of
the liveliest, and most experienced, of modern American choreographers.
Ann Reinking's background is as a dancer in commercial theatre, but her initial training was in ballet. Her change of direction
was pure show-business: messing around with fellow dancers after a rehearsal with the Joffrey Ballet, she started singing.
Robert Joffrey heard her and suggested she try for roles in musical theatre. "I think you'd do very well." Little did he realise
that he was launching the career of one of America's most popular dancers, whose trademark long legs go all the way up to
her big blue eyes - a cartoonist's dream.
Her work as a choreographer had a similarly unusual start. She was appearing in a Maxim Gorky play, The Barbarians, when
the director asked her to choreograph a show, involving 17 numbers, danced by non-professionals. Rising to this challenge,
she discovered that she had a talent not just for inventing dance routines but as a teacher.
In any branch of theatre, crafts that have been learned by one generation are passed on to the next. In dance this is a literally
hands-on experience and, having benefited from the experience of her two dance teachers, Marion and Illara Ladre, who were
themselves products of the Ballets Russes, Ms Reinking strongly believes in giving back to the community such skills as she
has learned and developed.
The practical result of this has been the Broadway Theatre Project, which aims to train young people, often from inner city
areas, in the three skills needed for a career in musicals - acting, singing and dancing. Beginning with a summer school in
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Tampa, Florida, where she was living eight years ago, this programme has spread to such an extent that it now helps students
from 23 American States and from Canada.
Her commitment to the Project meant that her contract for the Broadway show released her early, so that she could teach her
summer students' course. This love of dance, and her ability to communicate quietly and without fuss, was very evident in
rehearsals at the Adelphi. Amid the organised chaos, lit by a single spotlight on an otherwise darkened stage, Ann Reinking
was showing a young dancer how she wanted him to move - her hands on his shoulder, she led him firmly into the limelight.
WALTER BOBBIE (director)
Telling the story – a director’s view
Walter Bobbie is director of a show that is set in the Chicago of Al Capone, but he sees it as an essentially modern piece,
relevant to today.
One reason for the starkness of his production is that he doesn't want to clutter it with associations of time any more than with
unnecessary props or scenery. What he wants is an overriding image, an energy and an immediacy. In his own words: "I want
to tell the story tonight."
The immediacy comes largely from the writing of Kander and Ebb, who grab the audience with All That Jazz (surely one of the
best opening numbers ever written) and hold it through a succession of hits that include Cell Block Tango, When You're Good to
Mama, Razzle Dazzle and Class.
The energy comes from the music, lyrics and, crucially, from the dancing. The first show Walter Bobbie saw on Broadway was
a Bob Fosse musical, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, and when he staged his revival of CHICAGO at the
City Center's Encore! Great American Musicals in Concert he wanted the dancing to be a tribute to the whole of Bob Fosse's
career, and not just to his work on CHICAGO when it premièred in 1975.
The show's scenic design (John Lee Beatty), costumes (William Ivey Long) and lighting (Ken Billington) all combine to
illustrate Walter Bobbie's concept of CHICAGO: that the characters are driven by sex, ambition and greed, and that they find
themselves trapped rather than liberated as a result.
The minimal set and the lighting emphasise the sense of claustrophobia and reflect an overall design of bars, constriction,
prison. The device of lighting an otherwise gloomy stage with spotlights serves to reinforce the isolation of the characters, and
the action takes place almost entirely in the prison or the courthouse.
This is reflected in the fact that the band - who are as much a feature of the production as the cast, rather than the usual
unseen crowd in the orchestra pit - take center stage in a giant, tiered, jury box. Their raucous enjoyment of Ralph Burns'
orchestrations are a reflection of the interactive role between jury and defendants in trials, and also refer to the wider
enjoyment of, and involvement in, the courtroom drama by the general public.
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On a less intellectual level, their exuberant performance is also a simple expression of pleasure in the music, a pleasure that
lies at the heart of Mr Bobbie's original attraction to CHICAGO as an underrated masterpiece that deserved updating and revival.
His position as artistic director of the Encore! series gave him the platform he needed to bring CHICAGO back to the public's
attention, and its success has confirmed his desire to continue as a director rather than return to the stage as an actor.
He is convinced that CHICAGO's appeal is international as well as timeless, that the lack of a conventional set serves to make
it more accessible than an American courtroom backdrop would have done. The fact that the London cast includes Australians,
Americans and a German emphasises this fact, and it is hoped that there will be productions on the continent and in Australia
as well. But, however well CHICAGO travels and whatever the local talent, it will always remain exactly what Walter Bobbie
has so spectacularly proved -a Great American Musical.
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