Chicago Exits Adelphi, Moves Home to CambridgeDate: 26 January 2006
As previously tipped (See The Goss, 3 Jan 2006), West End long-runner Chicago will move house this spring. It will finish at the 1500-seat Adelphi Theatre, where it opened in November 1997, on Saturday 22 April 2006 and reopen the following Friday, 28 April 2006, at the 1230-seat Cambridge Theatre, where the original London production of the Kander and Ebb musical opened in April 1979 and ran for 603 performances.
The 1975 musical, about a wannabe jazz star turned murderess, is based on the play by Maurine Dallas Watkins and has a book by Fred Ebb and Bob Fosse, music by John Kander and lyrics by Fred Ebb.
The current stage revival opened in 1996 on Broadway, where it continues to run, now in its third theatre. The subsequent London production reunited the US creative team. It’s directed by Walter Bobbie and designed by John Lee Beatty, with costumes by William Ivey Long, lighting by Ken Billington and sound by Rick Clarke. Musical supervision is by Rob Fisher and musical direction by Corin Buckeridge. Choreography is by Ann Reinking in the style of Bob Fosse.
Chicago won the 1998 Laurence Olivier Award for Outstanding Musical Production as well as the 1998 Critics' Circle Award for Best Musical. The current London cast features Sally Ann Triplett and Vanessa Leigh Hicks as murderesses Roxie Hart and Velma Kelly with Pop Idol’s Darius Danesh as their super-slick lawyer Billy Flynn. From Monday, 30 January 2006, Linzi Hateley (last seen as Mrs Banks in Mary Poppins, for which she was Whatsonstage.com Award-nominated) will return to the role of Roxie and Debbie Kurup (Rent, Tonight’s the Night, West Side Story) will play Velma.
No further productions have yet been announced for the Adelphi, though Michael Grandage’s much-anticipated revival of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s Evita is widely tipped to open there (See The Goss, 3 Jan 2006). A press conference to officially announce the production is scheduled for next Tuesday, 31 January 2006.
At the Cambridge, Motown compilation musical Dancing in the Streets is currently booking until 22 April 2006 but may thereafter move to another West End theatre itself.
- by Terri Paddock
