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    Inside a ‘Hadestown’ Star’s Home in Harlem

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    ‘I’ve been here a while,’ said Lillias White, who plays Hermes in the Tony-winning musical. ‘Hence the clutter.’Lillias White may pay the rent, but her rescue dog, LaKee, is inarguably the host and star of the house, a very packed one-bedroom apartment on the top floor of a building in Harlem.LaKee (pronounced “Lucky”), a Chihuahua mix, is the first to respond to a knock on the door — way ahead of Ms. White or the resident Bengal cat, Mr. Jaxson Ifya Nasty. And she is first in the entryway to greet visitors. Effusively.To be clear, Ms. White, 72, a star of the Tony-winning musical “Hadestown,” is warm and welcoming. (See the show now; she’s leaving March 17.) But it’s a daily battle not to be upstaged by LaKee, even considering Ms. White’s many Broadway credits (“Fela!,” “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying,” “Once on This Island” and “Chicago,” among others); her awards, notably a Tony for her performance as a streetwise hooker in the 1997 musical “The Life”; and her experiences as a solo act (she’ll be teaching a cabaret master class at the 92nd Street Y in early March).Ms. White moved into the apartment more than 30 years ago, at a difficult time in her life. “My two kids and I were living with my mother in Coney Island, because I’d lost my apartment in Brooklyn,” she said. “I’d gotten divorced, and I lost everything.”That’s Mr. Jaxson Ifya Nasty, the cat, next to a statue bequeathed to Lillias White by the proprietor of the Hell’s Kitchen bakery Amy’s Bread.Tony Cenicola/The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Patti LuPone Says She Resigned From Stage Actors’ Union

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      The actress left months ago, and revealed her exit on Monday after her name arose during discussion of the errant reprimanding of a “Hadestown” patron who was using a captioning device.The much-honored stage actress Patti LuPone said on Monday that she resigned from the labor union Actors’ Equity months ago, revealing the news after her history of reprimanding cellphone-using audience members was invoked in a new controversy about the policing of electronic devices.The drama that consumed the corner of social media obsessed with theater began to unfold last week when a “Hadestown” audience member with hearing loss said she had been reprimanded by one of that show’s current stars, Lillias White, while using a theater-approved captioning device mistaken for a cellphone.“On a daily basis, actors are confronted with digital devices illegally capturing their work,” the musical’s producers said in a statement on Monday. “In this case, following a terrible miscommunication, in the middle of a live performance, Lillias mistook the closed-captioning device for a cellphone.”The “Hadestown” incident, for which the show apologized, prompted significant criticism of White. Then, on social media, LuPone’s name was cited in the discussion because she had in the past been celebrated for seizing a cellphone from a texting theater patron.Some of the criticism directed toward White was ugly. “The discourse on social media around the incident has devolved into racist, ageist and other abhorrently discriminatory language we unequivocally condemn,” the production said.The tenor of the criticism of White, who is African American, prompted some on social media to recall that LuPone, who is white, has been lauded on occasions when she has chastised misbehaving theatergoers.Because the patron White reprimanded was using a device for legitimate purposes, it is an imperfect comparison. But LuPone turned to Twitter on Monday in an apparent effort to distance herself from the situation, writing: “Quite a week on Broadway, seeing my name being bandied about. Gave up my Equity card; no longer part of that circus. Figure it out.”LuPone left the union over the summer, long before the “Hadestown” incident, upon finishing her Tony-winning run in a revival of “Company.”“When the run of ‘Company’ ended this past July, I knew I wouldn’t be onstage for a very long time,” LuPone said in a statement emailed in response to a question about her tweet. “And at that point I made the decision to resign from Equity.”Her departure came after a change in union rules that eliminated a cap on dues collected from high-earning performers. She had expressed concern about the change and the way it was communicated, according to people familiar with the thought process behind her resignation.Her spokesman, Philip Rinaldi, when asked about the issue, said only: “It was a number of issues that led to her decision. Patti was an Equity member for 50 years.”It is not clear what the statement means about her professional future. But this is not the first time LuPone, 73, who also won Tonys for her work in “Evita” and a revival of “Gypsy,” has said she was going to step back. In 2017 she said she expected “War Paint” to be her final musical; a year later she was back onstage in “Company” in London.In some instances, it is possible for performers who are not members of Equity to perform on Broadway. It is also possible to rejoin a union.The “Hadestown” controversy has also renewed discussion about monitoring audience behavior. The playwright Jeremy O. Harris urged reconsideration of such policies, saying, “Having a more realistic relationship to technology as well as more generous read of the actions of others would stop things like this from happening.” More

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      Lillias White Finds Her Goddess for ‘Hadestown’

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      “I can’t do anything today!” Lillias White said as she emerged, somewhat flustered, from the elevator outside the Tricorne costume shop on the sixth floor of a Midtown Manhattan office building on a recent Tuesday morning. Her face was hidden behind white sunglasses and a navy and green star-patterned mask.“All you have to do is stand,” Michael Krass, the costume designer for the Broadway musical “Hadestown,” reassured her.White, 71, was here for her second costume fitting as the next narrator of “Hadestown,” a role she will perform eight times per week beginning on Tuesday. A veteran stage actress who won a Tony Award in 1997 for playing a middle-aged prostitute in the Cy Coleman musical “The Life,” she will become the first woman to play the Hermes character, now called Missus Hermes.“I’m looking forward to doing what I do vocally,” she said. “And I’ll probably get some notes about reining it in, but” — she grinned — “I want to give the people what they came for.”Krass and Katherine Marshall, the owner of Tricorne, ushered her down the hallway, past racks of costumes for the Broadway musical “Wicked” and the HBO series “The Gilded Age,” to a fitting room lined with a semicircle of mirrors.The first order of business was the shoes: White, who is onstage nearly the entire two-and-a-half-hour show, had put in a specific request for her boot heels. They should be no higher than two inches, so her feet wouldn’t hurt.“I got a pedicure last night,” she told Krass, flashing hot pink toenails peeking out from sparkly white wedge sandals, as Pam Brick, a draper, and Siena Zoe Allen, the show’s associate costume designer, arrived to assist.Then it was time for the big reveal: The suit. Krass stepped out into the hall so she could change.The original look for Hermes, who was conceived as a vagabond, was a brown rumpled suit and muddy boots, Krass said. But then in a fitting, André De Shields, who won a Tony Award in 2019 for originating the role on Broadway, asked: Why is it rumpled?That led to De Shields’s now-iconic dapper silver suit, which was closely tailored with 1970s-style bell bottoms.“But for Lillias,” Krass said, throwing his arms wide, “she has a big love and joy that fills the room. She needs something expansive to match that.”White had changed into a silver pantsuit made from the same English wool as De Shields’s costume, topped by a collared, 1950s-style swing coat — shorter in the front and longer in the back — whose sweeping folds cascaded over gray trousers and low-heeled black boots that would later be painted silver.“For Lillias, she has a big love and joy that fills the room,” Michael Krass, the show’s costume designer, said. “She needs something expansive to match that.”Sabrina Santiago for The New York TimesAnd she had a surprise in store: After scrutinizing the V-neck of the jacket, which closed with a single button, she threw it open to reveal a gleaming black-and-silver vest.“I feel pretty,” she sang, grinning at her reflection.Then her face turned serious.“It’s a graveyard,” she sang — a line from the show’s opening number, “Road to Hell,” — raising her legs and stomping her feet as she looked in the mirrors on either side. She mimed shoveling. Crouched. Straightened up. Beamed. She and Krass agreed: The suit fit well. More

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      Review: In ‘Black No More,’ Race Is Skin Deep, but Racism Isn’t

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      A new musical imagines the invention of a decolorizing process. Will it save Black Americans from hatred or destroy them?The 1931 Afrofuturist novel from which the new musical “Black No More” takes its name is hardly subtle, starting with its subtitle: “Being an Account of the Strange and Wonderful Workings of Science in the Land of the Free, A.D. 1933-1940.” George S. Schuyler’s satire is basically a thought experiment in which a procedure that decolorizes Black people solves America’s race problem but creates a new one when there’s no one left for haters to hate.The New Group’s musical version, which opened on Tuesday at the Pershing Square Signature Center, makes the smart decision to borrow only the novel’s rudiments. It dumps most of the silly names (Ezekiel Whooper, Rufus Kretin), thin caricatures (of W.E.B. Du Bois and Marcus Garvey, among others) and weirdly jovial tone in favor of a more serious look at internalized racism and the conundrums of assimilation.The result, directed by Scott Elliott, is a gorgeous mess. Though it forefronts Schuyler’s central question — Is the goal of racial progress the ennoblement of Blackness or its disappearance into a “chromatic democracy”? — its tone is jumpy and its storytelling lumpy. The book by John Ridley, who wrote “12 Years a Slave,” makes only halfway repairs to the original, while introducing new problems that music and dance can’t solve.But oh, what music and dance! That the score is the work of many hands — lyrics by Tariq Trotter of the Roots; music by Trotter, Anthony Tidd, James Poyser and Daryl Waters — seems to have been an advantage here, helping to establish the show’s various moods and personalities.With nods to Kurt Weill, “Hamilton,” hip-hop, gospel, jazz, spoken word and Tin Pan Alley, among other aptly diverse inspirations and traditions, the songs reveal the characters’ yearnings and aversions, which often amount to the same thing. As well, under Waters’s musical supervision, they offer plenty of opportunities for phenomenal singing from the cast of 26, accompanied by a terrific band of seven.Lillias White, center, as a beauty impresario modeled on Madam C.J. Walker.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesThe choreography, by Bill T. Jones, is likewise thrilling, sometimes illustrating specific ideas (like the differences between Black and white social dancing) and other times expressing the overall conflict between racial pride and frustration. Because that conflict remains unresolved in the story, Jones often declines to resolve it in movement; numbers build from tension to frenzy without the overfamiliar Broadway-style climax.But the sung and danced elements of “Black No More” prove too exciting for its wobbly book to support. Making the inventor of the decolorizing process the narrator — his name, alas, is Dr. Junius Crookman — immediately sets the story on a strange footing; a neutral figure in the novel, he is here an amoral villain, and in Trotter’s uneven performance (excellent with the rapping, stiff with the acting) a bit too Dr. Evil. This immediately sidelines the actual central character, Max Disher, creating a blurry focus from which the show never fully recovers.Still, by the time Disher (Brandon Victor Dixon) becomes Crookman’s first patient, submitting to what looks like a dental procedure, “Black No More” has efficiently set up his reasons for choosing whiteness. Though he enjoys the “sporting life” he leads in Harlem, his safety there from the stings of overt racism comes at a cost. In “I Want It All,” his introductory song, he explains that he is never a whole man within his community’s confines, but merely “three-fifths” of one.For others, though, Harlem is “heaven’s gate” and “the Mecca of the Black race.” Disher’s best friend — a man named Bunny in the novel but here a woman named Buni — can’t understand why anyone would leave a place “where a person knows what they’re in for.” (Buni is played by Tamika Lawrence, a stunning singer.) For Agamemnon (Ephraim Sykes), a character new to the story, Disher is simply a traitor, selling out the dream of Black excellence.From left: Dixon, Tamika Lawrence and Tariq Trotter in the musical.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesBoth are especially unimpressed by Disher’s baser motivations: to make more money in a more exciting career (he’s an insurance salesman) and to hook up with the white woman from Atlanta he falls in love with one night in a club.That woman, Helen Givens — played by Jennifer Damiano in a Veronica Lake wig — is the musical’s most radically revamped character; she is much more complicated than the unreconstructed racist of the novel. Unfortunately, in their attempt to give her greater agency, the musical’s authors make her motives and choices almost incoherent.As the story begins to pile on plot — it feels too hasty even at a long two hours and 30 minutes — the problem spreads to everyone else. Especially after Disher and Givens marry in Georgia, and a baby of likely mixed race impends, the musical pushes too hard toward tragedy, winding up well short at melodrama.Jennifer Damiano, center left, with Dixon and other ensemble members.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesAnd yet, melodrama can be effective, especially when sung; the “melo” part of the word, after all, means music. Except for Sykes, who gets a great gospel number (“Lord Willing if the Creek Don’t Rise”), the women are more successful than the men at pushing past the confusions of the plot. (Dixon, usually a riveting performer, seems strangely recessive here.) And do not ask why Madame Sisseretta Blandish, the beauty impresario modeled on Madam C.J. Walker, sings not only in her salon but also in a nightclub; when it’s Lillias White doing the singing, who cares? She makes even the gibberish of scat syllables piercingly specific.Though Disher is the one who undergoes the most dramatic change — he eventually becomes the “Grand Exalted Giraw” of a Klanlike organization — I found myself more interested in Madame Sisseretta. In part that’s because she’s not allegorical; she’s a practical businesswoman who understands that her vanishing trade in hair straighteners and skin lighteners is different only by degree from Crookman’s. In the song “Right Amount of White” — “Just a little pinch of French/Just a slight touch of Dutch/Just a little bit of Brit” — she establishes the show’s themes and relevance with humor and theatrical specificity that’s mostly absent elsewhere.As “Black No More” continues its development process, it will surely need to find more breathing space like that between the whimsy of the novel and its current chaotic gloom. (Except for Qween Jean’s sexy costumes, the design is almost punitively cold.) I hope the authors can do so without losing what’s already beautiful about this promising work — keeping in mind that beauty, if not (according to “Black No More”) Blackness, is only skin deep.Black No MoreThrough Feb. 27 at the Pershing Square Signature Center, Manhattan; thenewgroup.org. Running time: 2 hours 30 minutes. More

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      In 'Black No More,' the Evolution of Black Music, and a Man’s Soul

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      The new show “Black No More,” inspired by a 1931 satirical novel about race relations, has “the point of view of people who are very much products of now.”A Black man in New York City, during the Harlem Renaissance, is hoping for a life without bigotry. This is Harlem after all, a Black enclave, the epicenter of culture and creativity. Here, he’d have an easier time in getting along.Or so he thought. He soon learns that utopia is an illusion, that racism prevails no matter the location. In the North, he discovers, the racism is subtle: He’s somehow not the right fit for his job, though his supervisor, a white man, says he’s doing well. Others think he’s too uppity, so he is let go.Distraught, he undergoes a procedure to turn himself white and retreats to Atlanta. There he sees how prejudiced whites speak of Black people when they aren’t in the room: The “n” word is tossed around with the hard “-er.” He soon realizes that his new skin tone can’t save him, either. The life he wants means nothing if he loses his soul along the way.This is the plot of “Black No More,” a new musical presented by the New Group and inspired by George S. Schuyler’s 1931 novel of the same name. The show, an expansive, Afrofuturistic take on race relations in America now in previews at the Pershing Square Signature Center in Manhattan, is set against an equally vast arrangement of jazz, gospel, R&B, hip-hop and reggae meant to connect the past and present. By using older and newer styles of music, coupled with the protagonist’s struggles to rise above the same discrimination endured today, the show explores how little race relations have progressed.Jones, far right, working on the show’s choreography with cast members, including Lillias White, center.Douglas Segars for The New York TimesAnd it almost didn’t see the light of day.The screenwriter John Ridley, who wrote the show’s book, was inspired to adapt the story after reading Schuyler’s novel over a decade ago, before he’d written his Oscar-winning adaptation of “12 Years a Slave.” “I read it and was really taken with the wit and unbridled satire,” he said. “So much of the writing was timely and timeless and painful and painless.”He initially wrote it as a screenplay in 2013, but couldn’t get financing for a sci-fi-inspired film about Black existence. Someone suggested trying to have it produced as a play, but that also proved to be a tough road. Of the stage directors he reached out to, Ridley said that Scott Elliott, the artistic director of the New Group, was the only one who expressed interest. He read the novel and thought it would work best as a musical. “It had the possibility to be an amazing theatrical satire, but with humanity in it, with real people, not like ‘wink-wink satire,’” Elliott said.There was just one problem: Ridley didn’t like musicals. “I was like, ‘Well, yeah, but that’s OK,” Elliott said. “Let’s go on this journey together and see what happens.” Ridley’s view on musicals changed after meeting with Tariq Trotter, better known as Black Thought of the Roots, and seeing “Hamilton.” He said that show convinced him that musicals can be vehicles for sending a strong message.They enlisted Trotter, who wrote the lyrics and developed the music with Anthony Tidd, James Poyser and Daryl Waters, and the Tony-winning choreographer Bill T. Jones. Jeffrey Seller, the lead producer of “Hamilton,” owns the commercial rights. And with all the star power (Broadway veterans, including Brandon Victor Dixon, Lillias White and Ephraim Sykes), it seems “Black No More” could very well be destined for Broadway.John Ridley with the show’s associate director Monet during a recent rehearsal. Marc. J. FranklinAmong other themes, the show holds up a mirror to those in the Black community who aspire to whiteness. The protagonist, Max Disher (played by Dixon), decides to lighten his skin after meeting a white woman, Helen Givens (Jennifer Damiano), in the Savoy Ballroom during a night out. That he’d be willing to sacrifice his identity after a chance encounter with the woman is a longstanding critique of some Black men: No matter how much they’re supported by Black women, they still see dating white women as the ultimate societal prize.The musical also delves into the internal baggage that comes with Blackness, the weight of external pressure applied by those who look like you but don’t know your circumstances. How do you stay true to yourself without disappointing your peers? And what does it mean to be real Black anyway?“For me, the lesson to be learned is that there is a cost,” Dixon said. “There is a cost to the choices we force each other to make to become happy, accepted members of society. It’s time for us to re-examine those costs. Is this the construct in which we can really rise and grow and evolve as a human population?”“Black No More” begins amicably, with a flurry of Black and white ensemble dancers gliding in unison across the stage, surrounding a barber’s chair used for the skin-altering experiment. Out walks Trotter, who plays Junius Crookman, the doctor performing the procedure. He paints Harlem as a deceptive place where dreams don’t always come true. “You’ll find all things … both high and low,” he says in his opening monologue. “Here where every Black baby must try to grow.”The music of “Black No More” largely fits this era, smoothly transitioning from swing jazz to big band to soul. Some of the verses have a rap lilt to them — Trotter, after all, is the lead vocalist of the Roots — but his writing here explores a broad range of musical textures, conjuring old Harlem while conveying music’s full spectrum. After Max becomes white, the music becomes softer and more delicate, sounding almost like bluegrass or folkish in a way. Near the end of the show, two white women sing over what sounds like an R&B track, a genre typically associated with Black women. “Black No More” is full of this sort of cross-pollination.“I’ve always been very big on allowing the universe to sort of write the songs, allowing the material to work itself out,” Trotter said. “These songs represent the different elements of Black music. What we arrived at is something that feels like an education in the evolution of Black music, which, at its core, would be the evolution of American music.”Tamika Lawrence and Brandon Victor Dixon during a dress rehearsal.Douglas Segars for The New York TimesThe Harlem Renaissance is widely seen as an artistic movement in which Black creators like Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston and Duke Ellington made landmark work. Indeed, the Renaissance helped change how Black people were viewed culturally; from it came a new, fearless creative generation. Yet the Renaissance had its detractors. Some said the literature only catered to whites and the Black middle-class. Even one of Harlem’s most famous establishments — the Cotton Club — was only for whites. “Black No More” demystifies Harlem as a mecca by wrapping its arms around it, wiping off the glitter while celebrating its charm.“The show, in my mind, is a critique of a critique,” said Jones, who is also choreographing the new Broadway musical “Paradise Square.” “We’re trying to make a musical about a historical novel, but with the point of view of people who are very much products of now. For God’s sake, we are post-George Floyd.”“Black No More” was originally slated to premiere in October 2020. But then the pandemic shut down theaters, forcing shows to postpone or cancel their runs. And in May 2020, Floyd was murdered in Minneapolis by the police officer Derek Chauvin. Protests ensued. Coupled with outcries over the deaths of Breonna Taylor in Kentucky and Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia, these rebellions felt different. The precinct in which Chauvin worked was burned. In New York City, protesters and law enforcement regularly clashed, intensifying the already-strained relationship between certain residents and the police.Near the end of “Black No More,” over an aggressive rap beat, a white antagonist asserts that Black lives don’t matter, a perceived reference to the modern-day Black Lives Matter movement. Within the context of the musical, he’s upset that his sister got involved with a Black man. Yet the subtle nod acknowledges the cloud of George Floyd hanging over this musical.“We just happen to be in a space where certain audiences are ready to receive what we’re trying to say, as opposed to pre-2020,” said Tamika Lawrence, who plays Buni Brown, Max Disher’s best friend. “There are certain cultures in America — white cultures, specifically — that I think are now ready to have tough conversations and ready to see this kind of art.”Trotter concurred. “I think some people may take offense,” he said. “Some people may be appalled, some may take it as a challenge to widen their scope, to tear some of the bandages off these bullet wounds that we deal with as a society.”“Black No More” is presented with the hope that Black and white people can find common ground somewhere. That we can at least see one another’s differences and be respectful of them.Just don’t do something drastic like change your skin color. As the musical teaches us, the grass isn’t greener.“What it says is, ‘Look at yourself, take a look at where we are, take a look at where we’ve come from, how far we’ve come and how far we still have to go,” Trotter said of the show. “It speaks to a commonality that we all share as humans, as people, as inhabitants of this planet. I don’t think we’re ever going to exist in perfect harmony, but I think there’s a possibility for us to coexist in peace.” More

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      ‘Chicago’ Pops the Cork on 25 Years of Razzle Dazzle

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      Bebe Neuwirth, Joel Grey, Chita Rivera, John Kander and others discuss the Broadway revival’s surprising early success and its lasting legacy.When “Chicago” had its debut in 1975 no one expected it to become the longest-running American musical in Broadway history.The reviews were mixed. Walter Kerr wrote that it was “altogether too heavy to let the slender, foolish story breathe.” And though the show had a two-year run, it was dwarfed in impact by “A Chorus Line.”It “seemed too chilly, in those days, to be truly loved,” Ben Brantley wrote two decades later, reflecting on the show’s themes of “murder, greed, corruption, violence, exploitation, adultery and treachery.”But then came the “Encores!” production, in 1996 at City Center, a streamlined reworking that bubbled “like vintage Champagne,” Brantley wrote.The delirious reception to the concert staging was “like ice cubes down your back,” John Kander, the musical’s composer, recalled recently. “The original production was not exactly what you’d call a blockbuster.”That four-night concert event propelled the show back to Broadway, where the revival opened 25 years ago, on Nov. 14, 1996, at the Richard Rodgers Theater. (The same theater in which the show debuted in 1975, though back then it was known as the 46th Street Theater.)“This new incarnation,” Brantley wrote in his review, “makes an exhilarating case both for ‘Chicago’ as a musical for the ages and for the essential legacy of Fosse.”Six Tony Awards, three Broadway houses, an Oscar-winning film adaptation and over 30 international reproductions later, this Jazz Age satire has become both a cultural touchstone and a New York City landmark. And the show has continually renewed itself through headline-grabbing cast replacements, which have included Broadway veterans (like Norm Lewis and Jennifer Holliday), singers (Patti LaBelle, Usher and Mel B), screen actors (Brooke Shields and Patrick Swayze) and even media and reality TV figures (Wendy Williams and NeNe Leakes).Adapted from the journalist Maurine Dallas Watkins’s 1926 play, based on the sensationalist murder trials she covered, the vaudeville-style musical follows the ascent to fame of the down-on-her-luck chorine Roxie Hart after she murders her lover. She soon becomes a media spectacle, thanks to her sleazy lawyer, Billy Flynn; but her husband, Amos, and the vaudevillian, Velma Kelly — in the same jail as Roxie for double homicide — are none too pleased.A stable of frequent collaborators made up the creative team: John Kander and Fred Ebb wrote the music and lyrics; Ebb and Bob Fosse wrote the book; and the choreography, of course, is Fosse’s.Ann Reinking, Fosse’s protégée and romantic partner, played a vital role in keeping his legacy alive. Reinking, who died last year, adapted his work for the revival; she also filled in as Roxie in the original production (replacing Fosse’s wife, Gwen Verdon), and starred, again as Roxie, in the revival.In advance of the anniversary, which will be celebrated Nov. 16 with a special performance, I spoke about the musical’s history and legacy with several important figures. Here are edited excerpts from our conversations.From Encores! to BroadwayBebe Neuwirth, seated, won the Tony for best actress in a musical for playing Velma.Sara Krulwich/ The New York TimesJAMES NAUGHTON (played Billy Flynn, Roxie’s lawyer, in 1996 and 2004) That first opening night at Encores! left a tremendous impression on me. I was standing backstage and, at the end of the first number, “All That Jazz,” the audience exploded. It was the kind of sound you just don’t hear very often in the theater, or certainly not often enough.JOHN KANDER (composer) I had never experienced anything like this. Fred [Ebb] and I didn’t know much about what Encores! was going to do, so we were totally unprepared.JOEL GREY (played Amos Hart, Roxie’s simpleton husband, in 1996 and in London in 1998) I remember standing next to Jimmy Naughton backstage, and we looked at each other in pure amazement and joy.WALTER BOBBIE (director) I thought the score deserved to be heard again because “Cabaret” had kind of eclipsed it. I was watching the O.J. Simpson trial at the time I started reading the script and thought it felt completely newly minted. It is astonishing to me that the show is almost 50 years old, yet it doesn’t feel that way. It still feels vital: it has theatrical muscle, the characters are vivid, and its issues are ongoing in our public discourse.Joel Grey as Roxie’s husband, Amos, “achieves the miracle of turning passivity into pure show-biz electricity,” Brantley wrote in his review.Sara KrulwichFRAN WEISSLER (Broadway producer) Barry [Weissler] and I were so blown away by the Encores! production that we ran home to call Kander and Ebb and ask for just a little piece of it. Fred Ebb finally told us we could have the whole show. He said, “To tell you the truth, no chandelier is dropping, there’s no French Revolution, or a helicopter onstage; nobody wants to do it.”BEBE NEUWIRTH (Velma Kelly in 1996; Roxie Hart in 2006; and Matron “Mama” Morton in 2013) Pretty much every time you do anything onstage, there’s talk of it going to Broadway. When these talks happened, I was like, “Yeah right,” but then it really transferred, and just kept going and took on a life of its own.The Reinking FactorAnn Reinking updated Bob Fosse’s choreography for the revival and her Roxie was “the most entertainingly erotic cartoon character since Jessica Rabbit,” Brantley wrote.Sara Krulwich/The New York Times NEUWIRTH The strength and longevity of this production would not have been possible without Annie. She had such respect for Bob, and was incredibly attuned to his very specific style.WEISSLER There was nobody like her. She was not only stunning and amazingly talented, with the greatest legs I’ve seen in my life, but she was so kind and giving in her direction to the performers.NAUGHTON I don’t think there are many pieces that are as focused on performers as “Chicago.” Given Walter and Annie’s decision to keep the brilliant, bare-bones Encores! staging when we went to Broadway, when you look at this show, it is pure performing.BOBBIE I said this when I gave my speech at the reopening performance on Sep. 14: “Chicago” has turned into the legacy of Ann Reinking. She really carried the legacy of [Fosse’s] choreography through to this production, which sort of sharpened the aesthetic of his work.Stunt Casting? Or Flexible Casting?Usher took on the role of Billy Flynn when he joined the cast for a few months in 2006.Evan Agostini/Getty ImagesBARRY WEISSLER (Broadway producer) The word “stunt” really comes from the unexpected. The onlooker doesn’t believe that a singer like Usher can play Billy Flynn, so they start calling it a stunt. It’s not a stunt: We don’t take anyone that can’t fulfill the stage work. And there have been people — even important people in the music world — who couldn’t cut it onstage, so didn’t make it into the show.KANDER No matter how bizarre the casting might seem, it always seems to fit right into our original intentions. You could cast a Bulgarian tap dancer as Billy Flynn and, if intelligently cast, it will still be that character, but with whatever personality that performer brings.LILLIAS WHITE (Matron “Mama” Morton, jail matron, in 2006 and 2021) The show is very clear; you see who’s who, and what’s what, from the very beginning. It’s lasted this long because its numbers, with great music and stunning dancing, come up very quickly, so if you like musical theater, you’re going to love this. It’s simple: when you’re good to Mama, Mama’s good to you.CHITA RIVERA (Velma in the 1975 production, and Roxie on the U.S. tour in 1999) Liza Minnelli joined our original production’s cast because she realized it was a wonderful piece, and that it would be great for her. When Gwen [Verdon, the original “Roxie”] got sick, she expressed that she would like to take on the role, and people ate it up.BRANDY NORWOOD (Roxie on Broadway in 2014 and 2017; Los Angeles in 2016; Washington, D.C., in 2017) I didn’t want to be the new R&B chick that comes in and messes everything up. It was the music that sustained me; these are the kind of solid, jazzy numbers I saw myself singing, and I knew I could put my own flavor into them without disrespecting their very Broadway style.GREY When they called me about Encores!, I thought, “No, I can’t play Amos: that’s a big, seven-foot, overweight mechanic.” I didn’t see myself in that. But, after Annie [Reinking] called me, I realized the show just has these great solo spots that could be tailored for each actor.Cross-Cultural RelevanceRyoko Yonekura, who originated the role of Roxie in the Japanese-language production in 2008, made her Broadway debut in 2012, after learning the role in English.Masahiro NoguchiPAULO SZOT (Billy Flynn in 2020 and 2021) I saw [“Chicago”] on Broadway years and years ago, and then, after seeing a production in Paris, knew I had to do it. People just love the script, and the choreography. I’ll be starring in a São Paulo production next year, and I know everyone there will relate to its message and humor.BIANCA MARROQUÍN (Roxie in Mexico City in 2001 and on Broadway, on and off, from 2002-2018; Velma on Broadway in 2021) There was a similar case to the plot’s going on in Mexico when I played Roxie there 20 years ago: Gloria Trevi, a pop star who was in jail at the time, popped the big news that she was pregnant — it’s the same thing! When I’d say the line about how I was going to have a baby, people would lose it.WEISSLER At one point, we wanted to have a Japanese presence in New York, and Japan wanted an American presence in their company. So we brought in Ryoko Yonekura and taught her Roxie, phonetically, and Amra-Faye Wright learned Japanese phonetically and played Velma in the Japanese company. You don’t get that with most Broadway shows.BOBBIE I’m very pleased that we’ve never had issues with ethnicity, going back to our first national tour, which was headed by Obba Babatundé and Jasmine Guy. We have been really vigilant about this for 25 years, and it was not something that we went talking about, we just did it. [When the show reopened after the shutdown, four of its five leads were played by Latinx and Black actors.]Crime ContinuesBrandy Norwood played Roxie on multiple occasions and in multiple cities. “Roxie never stopped dreaming,” Norwood said, “she was going to turn that whole world into her own vaudeville.”Jeremy DanielANA VILLAFAÑE (Roxie in 2021) This show is still incredibly relevant, especially after the pandemic, when we’ve been living on our phones in a completely different way. Roxie has this famous line — “You want to know something? I’ve always wanted to have my name in the papers” — but now it’s not about your name in the paper, it’s about how many followers and likes you have online. I started reading the script on my phone and realized its themes of fast fame, and this obsession with who we are versus who we appear to be, immediately translated to what I am usually looking at on my phone.NORWOOD You fall in love with these characters who are always doing what they want to do, even if it’s dark. Roxie never stopped dreaming, and it didn’t matter if she was just hanging around in bars, she was going to turn that whole world into her own vaudeville. That was her way of coping with the fact that she wasn’t everything she dreamed she was.KANDER We were certainly aware of the piece’s darkness when we created it. There are two ways of dealing with catastrophe: One is that you can pick up banners and yell about it, and the other is to do the same thing by simply holding the evil up to ridicule, and making an audience feel entertained before they realize what it is they’re seeing.RIVERA It seems to be an American thing where, much later, somebody else says something’s brilliant, and critics come back and agree. I go, “Why couldn’t they acknowledge it?” when thinking about the original, but the revival just came along at a better time. Kander, Ebb, and Bob Fosse are true artists, and something that’s really great will last forever. More