Chicago occurs as musical, first performed inside 1975, based on a play Chicago by Maurine Dallas Watkins. Its book was by Bob Fosse and Fred Ebb, music by John Kander, and lyrics by Fred Ebb.

A play Chicago was Watkins' retelling of deuce super public lawsuits for slaying that occurred inside Chicago in 1924, those of Beulah Annan and Belva Gaertner. Watkins experienced been the newsman for the Chicago Tribune and later wrote the play according to her coverage.

Gwen Verdon read the play & asked her ex-ex Bob Fosse about the possibility of creating the musical theater according to it. Moat approached Watkins for permission to adapt her play however was systematically refused. He found a rights from either her estate ensuing her demise around 1969 leading to the development of Chicago: The Musical Vaudeville, which processed a play's comparison between "justice" & "show-business" expressed by conceptualizing a plot as a series of vaudeville acts.

A play was produced around 1975, starring Chita Rivera as Velma Kelly, Gwen Verdon as Roxie Hart, and Jerry Orbach as Billy Flynn. Liza Minnelli served as a replacement for Gwen Verdon for a year around 1975, & her Broadway "comeback" generated publicity which helped lengthen a rerun of the indicate. Once Verdon left a indicate, Moat's girlfriend Ann Reinking stepped into the role.

When a share of the City Center "Encores!" Series, the show was revived in 1996, directed by Walter Bobbie and choreographed "in the style of Bob Fosse" by Ann Reinking. It starred Joel Grey, James Naughton, Bebe Neuwirth, and Ann Reinking. This versiin, which transferred to Broadway, opened on November 14, 1996 & is however running off when of October 2005. These are likewise continues to play in the West End at the Adelphi Theatre.

A musical theater was adapted for the moving picture Chicago in 2002, starring Renée Zellweger as Roxie and Catherine Zeta-Jones as Velma. A story wwhen told by staging a music hall acts as fantasies of Roxie Hart, by eliminating a bit of songs, & by changing a role of Mary Sunshine from either male to female.

A 2002 film won a Oscar for Best Picture, and Zeta-Jones won Best Supporting Actress.

The Numbers and the Vaudeville acts they were modelled on
"Overture" - performed by the pit-band "All That Jazz" - the total around court to renowned speakeasy performing artist Texas Guinan "Funny Honey" - modeled in Helen Morgan, singing "Bill" "Cell Block Tango" - a "merry murderesses" evoke a "ethnic numbers" ofMusic hall, & a demise by hanging is staged as a "tightrope" act "When You're Good to Mama" - the "Sophie Tucker"-type double-entendre song, swimming on the perceived gayness of the character "All I Care About" - the striptease according to Sally Rand & her fan dance, with a performing artist sculpturesque in clarinettist and bandleader Ted Is Everybody Happy? Lewis "Little Bit of Good" - the female-impersonator redolent of Julian Eltinge singing a Jerome Kern parody as Marilyn Miller "The Press Conference Rag" aka "We Both Reached for the Gun" - the ventriloquist act "Roxie" - an autobiographical, data-based could have-higher comedy routine "I Can't Do It Alone" - half of the "double-act" (or even an gymnastic "sister-act") "My Own Best Friend" - a torch song, subverted per fact the singers come praising themselves "Me and My Baby" - the cakewalk, a la Eddie Cantor "Mr. Cellophane" - the clown total redolent of Bert Williams' 1915 Follies song "Nobody" performed wearing a costume of Emil Jannings from the final scene of The Blue Angel "When Velma Takes the Stand" - evokes music hall's court comedy sketches, & staged as a parody of Rudy Vallee's numbers featuring collegial chorus boys sustaining megaphones "Razzle Dazzle": a attorney Billy Flynn assumes a persona of Clarence Darrow in a juggling circus work. "Class" "Nowadays" - in the style of bandleader Ted Lewis "Hot Honey Rag" - in the style of bandleader Ted Lewis