Liza in "Nowadays" “When you love people, I think you help out, if you can.” — Liza on joining “Chicago” Just two months after Chicago opened in June of 1975, Gwen lost her voice. Marsha Bagwell relates the story that she took Gwen to her own renowned ENT where he recommended surgery to explore the issue. During surgery, the ENT found a single piece of confetti that had landed on her vocal chord and adhered to it, causing a blister. Marsha explained that during the finale whe

Bob and Gwen on opening night. Photos by Martha Swope. Of opening night: “The audience adored it—they even applauded when the lights first went down—and there are things, very very positive things, for everyone to adore, not least the performers. Both the girls dance their hearts out, together, singly, or leading the splendid band of gypsies who make up most of the rest of the cast. Miss Verdon’s voice, all candy innocence and yet somehow naughtily suggestive of untold viciou

"Bobby had the audacity to present us as 'poetry in motion, two moving as one.' Each of our movements was perfectly matched to the microsecond. We went all-out on 'Hot Honey Rag,' as the emcee announced: 'Okay, let's pick up the pace, let's shake the blues away, let's make the party longer, the skirts shorter and shorter, let's make the music hotter. Let's all go to town in a fast car and keep it hot!' "And we did, changing into fringed skirts that whipped around in time to t

Chita and Gwen perform the new finale: Nowadays Chita: "Bobby and Freddy had always struggled with how to end Chicago. After Roxie is acquitted in her trial and Velma in hers (offstage), they put together a vaudeville act to take advantage of their notoriety. When Velma suggests the merger, Roxie has a ready answer: 'You're forgetting one thing. We hate each other.' Velma replies, 'Yeah, but there's only one business where that doesn't matter.' True. Like I said, Bobby was so

Original finale of Chicago Chita: "Bobby [Fosse] and Freddy [Ebb] had always struggled with how to end Chicago. After Roxie is acquitted in her trial and Velma in hers (offstage), they put together a vaudeville act to take advantage of their notoriety. When Velma suggests the merger, Roxie has a ready answer: 'You're forgetting one thing. We hate each other.' Velma replies, 'Yeah, but there's only one business where that doesn't matter.' True. Like I said, Bobby was so good a

Mary McCarty and Chita Rivera. Kander: Writing “Class” was fun in that way where we were able to just let go. Ebb: That was a duet for Velma and the prison matron. After we had written it, I remember having serious second thoughts about the number. Ebb: I almost talked myself out of that one. Funny songs actually terrify me. I'm at a loss there because very seldom do I think what I've written is funny. I would have cut "Class" in two minutes from my own fear of it before I

KANDER: I remember when we wrote "Razzle Dazzle," before we took it in and played it for Bob, you said with absolute confidence, "Try adding a couple of finger snaps to it. Bobby will love that." We added them, and then we took it in and played it for Bob, and as soon as he heard the finger snaps, he loved the song. -- Colored Lights: Forty Years of Words and Music, Show Biz, Collaboration, and All That Jazz by John Kander Fred Ebb, Greg Lawrence Jerry Orbach: "In Razzle Da

“‘When Velma Takes the Stand’ and the entire courtroom scene is an imitation of the many courtroom comedy sketches, a staple of vaudeville and burlesque. ‘When Velma Takes the Stand’ is also modeled on the many vaudeville acts that showcased the latest dance crazes, in this case, the Charleston. Denounced by moralists as the devil’s dance, the dance from hell, and other similar names, the Charleston found its roots in African dance and became popular in the American South aro

Barney Martin as Amos Hart on Broadway. Photo by Martha Swope, 1975. Did you know, “Mr. Cellophane” in Bob Fosse’s Chicago  was based performances by Bert Williams?  Williams was the first modern Black entertainment star: the first Black recording artist, one of the earliest Black leading men on film, and the first Black performer to star in a major Broadway production (Ziegfeld Follies) with white actors. His signature song, “Nobody,”  a hauntingly comic lament about being u

The first version of this number featured Gwen doing an Eddie Cantor--style number with the ensemble of men dressed as giant babies dancing behind her. In a conversation I had with Candy Brown, Michon Peacock, Lenora Nemetz, and Pamela Sousa, they said that Gwen hated that number (and they even felt they could see her discomfort in these pictures). What replaced it was "The Strut" which cut the ensemble down to two men dressed in suits and bowler hats dancing behind her. This

The first version of this number featured Gwen doing an Eddie Cantor--style number with the ensemble of men dressed as giant babies dancing behind her. In a conversation I had with Candy Brown, Michon Peacock, Lenora Nemetz, and Pamela Sousa, they said that Gwen hated that number (and they even felt they could see her discomfort in these pictures). What replaced it was "The Strut" which cut the ensemble down to two men dressed in suits and bowler hats dancing behind her. This

Photo by Martha Swope, 1975 “My Own Best Friend” was originally intended to be a solo for Gwen, but Gwen, being a dancer first, didn’t feel her voice had the strength to sustain the audience’s attention with a vocal solo at the end of Act 1, so she requested that it be a duet for her and Chita. When Liza stepped into the role of Roxie while Gwen was out with vocal problems, the number was turned back into a solo for Liza who had a stronger voice, and who the audience wanted t

From Chita Rivera's memoir: "One afternoon, Bobby was choreographing ‘I Can't Do It Alone.’ It's the number in the show when Velma, 'in an act of desperation,' tries to persuade Roxie to take her on as a vaudeville partner once they're sprung from jail. Bobby had me dancing on a chair for what seemed an eternity. The movements were small and subtle. "‘Make it less, Chita, less,’ he kept repeating. At one point, I wondered whether I was moving at all. Finally, on a break an

Jerry Orbach and Gwen Verdon Fosse knew vaudeville. Though he wasn't born until 1927, when he came of age as a performer in his teens, the people he learned from were all vaudeville veterans, and he danced old vaudeville numbers himself. Almost every song in the show is modeled on an actual vaudeville act or star. “They Both Reached for the Gun” recalls vaudeville's requisite ventriloquist specialty acts, while pointing out how celebrities are just puppets that can be made to

Michael O'Haughey. Photo from the collection of Patricia Zipprodt, NYPL. "Mary Sunshine, played by a man in drag in the original 1975 production, and her terribly optimistic 'A Little Bit of Good in Everyone' was (in that production) an imitation of Julian Eltinge, a famous turn-of-the-century drag queen and vaudeville star. Julian Eltinge "...she parodies the many 'sob sister' reporters of the 1920s. And even without the drag, Mary Sunshine still has her models in vaudeville

Jerry Orbach. Bottom right Susan Stroman Jerry Orbach: You know, "All I Care About is Love", which is a sort of classic hat and cane number with the girls with all the feathers. That’s Billy’s entrance. And he’s saying all he cares about is his love. He doesn’t want fancy cars or diamond rings or big cigars. And as he does it, he does a strip tease down to his shorts and t-shirt. And when I finished. I threw in Crosby imitations, Jolson imitations. A whistling chorus. It was

Mary McCarty as Matron Mama Morton Fosse knew vaudeville. Though he wasn’t born until 1927, when he came of age as a performer in his teens, the people he learned from were all vaudeville veterans, and he danced old vaudeville numbers himself. A working script of Chicago with lyric changes. Fosee Verdon Collection at Library of Congress. Almost every song in the show is modeled on an actual vaudeville act or star. When Matron Mama Morton enters, with a big ring and a fur, she

(L-R) Michon Peacock, Candy Brown, Graciela Daniele, Chita Rivera, Cheryl Clark, Pamela Sousa. Photo from Patricia Zipprodt's collection at NYPL FRED EBB: As I recall, "Cell Block Tango" was a very difficult number to write. It's not so much a song as a musical scene for six women, and each has to tell her personal story in the course of a musical refrain that keeps repeating. It was difficult because each of the stories had to be entertaining and also meaningful. Each one ha

Lenora Nemetz was the original standby for Gwen and Chita in Chicago. Below she tells the story of her audition, and when she made her Roxie debut during the out-of-town try-out in Philadelphia. “My friend Norman in Pittsburgh sent my picture to Bob Fosse, and he wrote back and told me to come in for an audition. Do you know what happened? I got on the wrong plane. I actually got on a place to Chicago. Then I got off and got a place to New York. Well, I auditioned for Bob and

Gwen Verdon sings "Funny Honey" Photo by Martha Swope, 1975. Fosse knew vaudeville. Though he wasn't born until 1927, when he came of age as a performer in his teens, the people he learned from were all vaudeville veterans, and he danced old vaudeville numbers himself. Almost every song in the show is modeled on an actual vaudeville act or star. “Funny Honey” starts out being an homage to torch song queen Helen Morgan's song “Bill” from Show Boat, a song about an ordinary man