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

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