Chita Rivera. Photo by Martha Swope, 1975 "At the beginning of almost every performance of Chicago, when the stage manager called ‘Places, please,’ I took my position in an elevator in the basement below the playing area. It would whisk me, standing in a large cylindrical drum, up to center stage to begin the show. Before that, however, I paced the floor, giving myself a pep talk. "Invariably, the stagehands asked, ‘Who you gonna be tonight, Chita?’ Of course, my first obli

The song title, “All That Jazz” as become an everyday expression, used in conversations to mean “and everything else.” But do you know where that phrase came from? Sure its the title of the opening number in Kander & Ebb’s “Chicago,” and later the title of Fosse’s semiautobiographical film, but in interviews, lyricist Fred Ebb has revealed the true origin of the phrase! While he was researching the 1920, he was reading a book from Time-Life series “This Fabulous Century” on t

Photo by Martha Swope, 1975. NYPL Interview by Michael Kantor for PBS, 2003 Jerry Orbach: I played Billy Flynn, the lawyer, and I gave him a certain kind of world-weary insouciance. He was very, very tough, very cold, calculating, but could be very charming. Michael Kantor: How was Chicago untraditional, would you say? You know, you were in a bunch, you saw so many traditional musicals. Wasn't there a sort of almost cynical view that Fosse brought to it? Jerry Orbach: Chicag

John Kander and Fred Ebb. Photo by Martha Swope. John Kander and Fred Ebb were a music and lyrics team who had worked together on Flora, The Red Menace (1965), Cabaret (1966), The Happy Time (1968), Zorba (1968) and 7 0, Girls, 70 (1971). They joined the creative team for Chicago in with Bob Fosse. John wrote the music, and Fred wrote the lyrics and co-wrote the book with Bob. After Chicago (1975) they were known for The Act (1978), The Rink (1984), Kiss of the Spide

Bob Fosse in the house of the 46th Street Theatre during rehearsals of Chicago, 1975. From Chita Rivera's memoir : "On the first days of a rehearsal for a new Broadway musical, all companies are brimming with hope and nervous energy. The ones for Chicago, in the autumn of 1974, felt different. There was the excitement of a potential hit in the making, and there was loads of laughter as we read through the script written by Freddy. He gave it warmth and wit; Bobby gave it sat

To learn about the history of the 1975 musical Chicago, we must actually look back over 100 years to 1924. Our story begins with two real-life murderesses, Buelah Annan (left) and Belva Gaertner (right), who were charged with killing their husbands in Cook County, Chicago. Their stories were sensationalized in the newspapers by journalists, including reporter Maurine Dallas Watkins, whose articles highlighted the women's beauty and the unlikely prospect of either of them bei

After Suzanne's 6-year absence from NYCB, the first work Balanchine choreographed on her was Tzigane. The ballet was made in just 6 days...

THE Donizetti grande pas de chat as shown by 5 NYCB icons. (top left) Merrill Ashley. Photo by Martha Swope, 1979. (top center) Patricia...

Happy birthday to NYCB! On this day in 1948, New York City Ballet held its first performance which included Symphony in C! Tonight a...

Raymonda Variations has been described as, “an adorable confection, concocted of marzipan, diamond, youth, and nostalgia” in “candy floss...

(5/12) Titania, Queen of the Fairies (top, left) Suzanne as Titania and Nolan T’Sani as her Cavalier, 1975. (top, center) Suzanne as...

Duo Concertant was choreographed by Balanchine in 1972 for the Stravinsky Festival and it contains 5 movements. “To the first movement,...