"Roxie Rocks the Tibbits"

Chicago, the musical opens this week.  It is the most requested production in the history of Summer Theatre.  It has a long history on stage and screen.  Former Chicago Tribune reporter Maurine Dallas Watkins (left) took a play-writing course and decided to base her play on two real life murderesses in Chicago who she had reported on.  Both women had gotten off with a false pregnancy defense.  Her play, Chicago, opened on December 30, 1926 with the famed director George Abbott at the helm.  The play ran 172 performances, a very respectable run in the 1920's.  





Roxie Hart, as Watkins named the anti-heroine, was played by Francine Larrimore  (right).  These pictures are from a few years earlier, a play called Nobody's Business.  She appeared in more than 20 Broadway productions, including plays by Noel Coward and S.N. Berhrman.



The play was immediately purchased by Cecil B. de Mille's production company.
The movie, a silent, came out in
1927.  Directing credit is given to Frank Urson, but many believe de Mille himself directed the picture.  Here Roxie is played by Phyllis Haver (left and right).  While a slightly more moral tale than the play, it is not as sanitized as the next time Hollywood used the play....




It took almost twenty years for Hollywood to get back to Chicago.  This time they called it Roxie Hart and she was played by Ginger Rogers.  Here are two posters for the film:

The story is basically the same but the production code was in full effect and it is at times barely recognizable as the same story-- it's worked around to prove Roxie is truly innocent of the murder....









John Kander, Fred Ebb and Bob Fosse bought the play for a musical and started to refashion the story to give equal weight to the other murderess, Velma.  She is a minor character in all the other versions.  Here are the original "merry murderesses"  Chita Rivera and Gwen Verdon as Velma and Roxie (left).  It opened on June 3, 1975 and ran for 936 performances.  The original poster art is on the right.

Chicago, was revived in 1996.  It is still running on Broadway.  It has racked up 6496 performances.  

 So far.

The very successful movie version was released in 2002.

Don't miss Chicago at the Tibbits--July 12 through July 21, 2012.

                                                                                                                                  Charles Burr

                                                                                                                                  Artistic Director

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