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

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

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

In a 2004 A&E biography special on Liza Minnelli, composer John Kander told this story of the origin of the Theme from New York, New...

As New York, New York prepares for its first preview this Friday on Broadway, I got curious and wanted to find out more about the history...