"I liked Velma because she was a straight shooter, so to speak, blunt and practical. To give you a flavor, one of my favorite scenes in the musical is when the female inmates are playing a game of cards. One by one, they cheat. June sneaks a card from under her chair. Liz pulls one out from her wig. Annie has one hidden in her cleavage. All this time, Velma is smoking a cigarette. Finally she exhales a puff and deftly extracts the card that's been in her mouth all along. -- C

(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