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Sweet Charity 60 No. 1 - The Inception
Photo by Ralph Morse for LIFE Magazine, 1966 From Life Magazine, March 25, 1966 by Thomas Thompson: "Last year, Gwen decided she wanted to return to the stage [after a 5 year retirement], and Fosse started searching for an idea. One day they went to see a Fellini movie called Nights of Canaria. One their way home afterward, Gwen said: ‘It didn’t do a thing for me.’ But it did something for Bob. He stayed up all night working out a musical treatment for the plot. Fellini’s he

Lauryn Johnson
Jan 29


Chicago 50 - No. 24 - All That Jazz
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

Lauryn Johnson
Nov 15, 2025


Chicago 50 - No. 18 - Rehearsals
Chris Chadman, Ron Schwinn, Gwen Verdon, Gene Foote, Dick Korthaze rehearse onstage following a musicians’ strike which shut down nine Broadway musicals for 25 days in 1975. Rehearsals began October 26, 1974 at Broadway Arts. After the first table read, Fosse was admitted to the hospital for chest pains. His doctors said he was going to have a heart attack. Fosse's doctors called Broadway Arts to inform Gwen. Gwen was found in a studio alone with Chita, knitting needles in ha

Lauryn Johnson
Nov 12, 2025
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