musical.today Chicago The Musical
What Chicago The Musical actually is
A chorus girl shoots her lover, hires the best lawyer in Illinois, and turns her own murder trial into a career. That is the plot, and it was the news: Roxie Hart and Velma Kelly are two real defendants from Cook County in 1924, renamed.
Music by John Kander, lyrics by Fred Ebb, book by Ebb and Bob Fosse, from Maurine Dallas Watkins's 1926 play. Roxie wants to be famous, Velma was famous first, Billy Flynn sells acquittals at a flat rate, and the press is the third party in every scene.
The staging is deliberately bare: the band sits on stage in full view, the numbers are announced like vaudeville turns, and the dancing is Fosse — angled hips, turned-in knees, a hat, a held pause. That look started as a budget decision at a 1996 concert staging and has outlived every set the show ever had.
If you know one number it is "All That Jazz". The others people leave humming are "Cell Block Tango" and "Razzle Dazzle". It is a satire about celebrity and crime, played for laughs and sex rather than sentiment, and it is billed for teenagers upwards rather than for small children — the venue for your run publishes the age guidance.