The Chicago story
Last Thursday, November 3rd, in the wee hours of the morning the Chicago Cubs triumphed over the Cleveland Indians breaking a 108 year curse to win the World Series of Baseball. Next Monday, November 14th, the latest revival of the musical Chicago will celebrate 20 years on Broadway. While I applaud the drama of a World Series show-down (though a wonderful town, Cleveland must be singing, “Why, oh why, oh why, oh-“), I’ll stick to my area and focus on the Windy City’s musical triumph. This week we’ll dip into the play that inspired the musical, and its many adaptations.

Souvenir program for Chicago, 1976. Museum of the City of New York. Theater production files.
The story of Chicago begins in the unlikely town of Louisville, Kentucky with the birth of Maurine Dallas Watkins on July 27, 1896. The only child of a preacher and a schoolteacher, young Maurine moved with her family Indiana where she graduated top of her high school class. In college in Massachusetts, Watkins took a play writing workshop led by George Pierce Baker. (Baker also taught Eugene O’Neill, Hallie Flanagan, and George Abbott to name a few other major American theater artists.) By 1924, Watkins was a reporter with the Chicago Tribune writing about high profile murder cases.
![Florence Vandamm. [Francine Larrimore as Roxie Hart in Chicago.] 1926. Museum of the City of New York. 48.210.887.](https://mcnyblog.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/48-210-887.jpg?w=547)
Florence Vandamm. [Francine Larrimore as Roxie Hart in Chicago.] 1926. Museum of the City of New York. 48.210.887.
It was reporting on the separate trials of accused murders Belva Gaertner and Beulah Annan that inspired Watkins to write her first play,
Chicago. A satire on fame and a justice system fueled by media frenzy, Watkins developed her play in Baker’s new workshop at Yale University, and it was the first work by a Drama Department student to be publicly produced. When it was performed in New Haven, a professor at Yale’s Divinity school denounced the work as “
vial, immoral, blasphemous and a storm of nastiness.” Despite this controversy (or perhaps supported by it), the play opened on Broadway’s Music Box Theatre on December 30, 1926 and enjoyed a run of over 170 performances.
![Florence Vandamm. [Chicago theater still.] 1926. Museum of the City of New York. 48.210.1109.](https://mcnyblog.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/48-210-1109.jpg?w=547&h=439)
Florence Vandamm. [Chicago theater still.] 1926. Museum of the City of New York. 48.210.1109.
Considered a success, the play was adapted on film; Cecile B. DeMille produced a silent screen version in 1927 and Ginger Rodgers starred in the 1942
Roxie Hart adaptation. But when actress, dancer, singer
Gwen Verdon read the play in the 1960s, things started to get musical. Verdon’s husband, the established director, choreographer, and hit-maker
Bob Fosse, contacted Watkins several times about adapting her play into a musical. It was not until several years after Watkins death in 1969 that her estate granted Fosse permission. With John Kandor and Fred Ebb composing the music and lyrics, Fosse’s musical opened on June 3, 1975.
![Friedman-Abeles. [Bob Fosse in rehearsal for Pleasures and Palaces.] 1965. Museum of the City of New York. F2013.41.5733.](https://mcnyblog.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/f2013-41-57.jpg?w=547)
Friedman-Abeles. [Bob Fosse in rehearsal for Pleasures and Palaces.] 1965. Museum of the City of New York. F2013.41.5733.
The original musical starred Gwen Verdon as Roxie Hart, a woman who shoots her married lover both killing him and jump starting her own career in show business. Under guidance of savvy lawyer Billy Flynn (played by “Law & Order” stalwart
Jerry Orbach), Hart is not the only young woman seeking fame through a high profile trial case. In the end she teams up for a stage act with Velma Kelly (the incomparable
Chita Rivera), another acquitted murderess.
![Unknown. [Chita Rivera as Velma Kelly and Gwen Verdon as Roxie Hart in Chicago.] 1975. Museum of the City of New York. 75.166.15.](https://mcnyblog.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/75-166-15.jpg?w=547&h=435)
Unknown. [Chita Rivera as Velma Kelly and Gwen Verdon as Roxie Hart in Chicago.] 1975. Museum of the City of New York. 75.166.15.
Chicago‘s initial Broadway run achieved a very respectable 936 shows, but
the revival in 1996 has since blown that figure out of the water. At 8,295 shows and counting, it’s still the second longest running Broadway musical of all time (
The Phantom of the Opera is the longest), but it’s the longest running American musical and the longest running revival ever. Winner of the Tony Award’s Best Musical Revival, the show has spawned numerous national tours and a 1997 revival in London’s West End which only closed in 2012. And, in 2002, director Rob Marshall adapted the show again for film that won the Academy Award for Best Picture. Tonys, Oscars, World Series whatsits (is it rings? – I should stick to theater), and accolades of all sorts, folks, that’s Chicago.
![Unknown. [The six merry murderess, Velma and the Girls performing “Cell Block Tango” in Chicago.] 1975. Museum of the City of New York. 75.166.7](https://mcnyblog.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/75-166-7.jpg?w=547&h=433)
Unknown. [The six merry murderess, Velma and the Girls performing “Cell Block Tango” in Chicago.] 1975. Museum of the City of New York. 75.166.7.
Teachers interested in learning more about this history of music, dance and fashion can join us for Rhythm & Power, a New York at Its Core Seminar Day for K-12 educators on February 11, 2017.
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About Morgen Stevens-Garmon
Associate Curator, Theater Collection
Museum of the City of New York