CHICAGO 15 Years In

Bianca Marroquin

I lucked into a free ticket to CHICAGO, but then so many others did too. This performance was full of fans who won free tickets on Facebook. I did not win my ticket on Facebook, but rather someone else did and it was handed off to me, but there I was. I had seen the show twice on the road in Sacramento about twelve years ago and outside of the movie, haven’t thought about the show since. In fact, I would sometimes walk by the Ambassador Theatre and be re-surprised that CHICAGO was still running. This is quite an amazing success story when you consider this is a revival of a show that ran only two years the first time out. This production started as a City Center Encores! concert and is more or less exactly the same as that concert production with the lines memorized. The show is produced in the simplest way and yet it is as chic as a late 1990’s Vogue photo spread––a look that still holds up as sexy. The whole show holds up, even without a star stuck in to boost ticket sales. The low maintanence of the production accounts for some of its longevity.

Right now there is “nobody” in it. There is, however, a cast of talented people, most of whom have been in and out of the show for years––on the tour, Broadway and playing it in London. Bianca Marroquin as Roxy comes from the Mexico production originally and Leigh Zimmerman as Velma was in the opening night cast as “Kitty.” Zimmerman is long and fierce, is a beautiful dancer of the Fosse style and can really belt out her numbers. It took me a bit to warm up to Marroquin, but eventually found her to be quite clever and delighted in the way she found new original ways to deliver the old lines. Although she is short of stature, Marroquin kept up with Zimmerman all the way with high kicks and tremendous energy. Colman Domingo, lately from SCOTTSBORO BOYS, has taken over Billy Flynn. He may not be inspired, but he keeps the entertainment going. LaVon Fisher-Wilson tears it up as “Mama” Mortan and R. Lowe’s drag soprano is truly amazing for Mary Sunshine. The show is in top form, though it doesn’t seem nearly as fresh and exciting as it did a decade ago. A few of the long term chorus boys have put on a few pounds and are doughier than their revealing costumes allow. As a group, the chorus is not nearly as ferocious as they once were.

In the audience of this special performance were past cast members Chita Rivera, Uta Lemper and director Walter Bobbie. Seth Rudeski hosted a pre-show giveaway of prizes and everyone walked away with a t-shirt. This was the kind of performance where the songs received applause at the beginning of the numbers as well as the end. A theater full of devoted fans is not a bad crowd with which to pay another visit to CHICAGO!

Uta Lemper signing autographs outside of CHICAGO

BILLY ELLIOT in Chicago

The Chicago Billys

The Chicago production of BILLY ELLIOT at the Oriental Theatre launches the first national tour version and the last production to be personally staged by the original creators. From here on out, this version will be the version, recreated by associates and assistants as the creators move on after a decade of living with BILLY ELLIOT from film to London to Australia to Broadway and now the road. There will be many Billys on the road. The original Broadway boys are already gone and replaced, though Tommy Batchelor has joined the Chicago show after being established as the fourth Broadway Billy. The other Chicago Billys are Giuseppe Bausilio, J. P. Vernes and the actor I saw, Cesar Corrales. Little Mr. Corrales is incredibly charming, a good actor, an adequate singer and a spectacular dancer. He has incredible little dance tricks mixed in to the choreography that are jaw dropping. His tap dancing is ferocious and he is especially fast in his tapping while jump roping moment. As usual for any Billy, his “Electricity” number is a show stopper in the literal sense: the show cannot continue because the audience is too busy cheering and shouting bravos. Cesar Corrales is magnificent.

The anchor of the production is the one Broadway name, Emily Skinner, who is just about perfect as Mrs. Wilkinson. She handles her big numbers with great showmanship, belting out her big notes in signature style and finds several very touching moments when she connects emotionally with Billy. Her reading of Billy’s letter from his mother is particularly beautiful and her good-bye to him at the end is heartbreaking. Armand Schultz is perfectly sound as “Dad,” and he is far less hammy than Greg Jbara on Broadway, though he still manages to get the laughs in the usual places. Cynthia Darlow as “Grandma” is able to move a lot more than Carole Shelley and so her song, “We’d Go Dancing,” has an added exuberance. At the performance I saw, Gabriel Rush played Michael (Keean Johnson from the Broadway show alternates performances), and the character pleases the crowd as usual. Rush has his own version of the usual comic bits and the scene and song, “Expressing Yourself,” just works––as outlandish as it is. Blake Hammond is particularly greasy and eccentric as Mr. Braithwate, which makes him all the more enjoyable a character.

The set, which is more or less the same in all ways, has some key differences. Billy’s stairway to his cage-like bedroom sides out from the side, but the top deck is able to revolve to match the effect during the “Angry Dance” just as it plays on Broadway. The miners aren’t able to descend at the end of the show, and the large union drape simply lowers to fade them out of the picture, though a rear drop of added spot lights mimic the lights on the miners’ helmets, creating the effect of double the people. The metal box that Billy climbs into during the “Angry Dance” is assembled on stage rather than rising from the ground, but otherwise that dance and all the others are exact to the original staging.

This new production is as thrilling as the Broadway and no one is getting anything second rate on the road. Some shows can be diminished on tour, but BILLY ELLIOT plays with equal success and is positioned to astonish the cities of the nation.