Chicago: The Musical

Chicago
Original Broadway poster art
Music	John Kander
Lyrics	Fred Ebb
Book	Fred Ebb Bob Fosse
Basis	Chicago, play by Maurine Dallas Watkins
Productions	1975 Broadway 1977 Buenos Aires 1979 West End International productions 1996 Encores! 1996 Broadway revival 1997 West End revival 1997 1st North American tour 1997 2nd North American tour 1998 Melbourne 1998 Vienna 1999 North American tour 1999 Gothenburg 1999 Tokyo 1999 Utrecht 2000 North American tour 2001 Buenos Aires 2001 UK tour 2001 Mexico City 2002 Moscow 2003-2008 North American tour 2003 Montreal 2004 Milan 2004 Paris 2004 Sao Paulo 2005 Johannesburg 2005 Cape Town 2006 UK tour 2007 Copenhagen 2007 Seoul 2008 Cape Town 2008 Seoul 2008 Copenhagen 2008 Tokyo 2009 UK tour 2009 Bangkok 2009 Brisbane 2009 Sydney 2009 SeongNam 2009 Hoorn 2009 Madrid 2010 SeongNam 2010 Perth 2010 Jeon-Joo 2010 Singapore 2010 Hong Kong 2010 Nishinomiya 2010 Tokyo 2010 Bilbao 2010 Buenos Aires 2011 UK tour 2013 Chile 2014 North American tour 2015 Stuttgart 2015 Berlin 2015 Seoul 2016 UK tour 2016 Munich 2017 Copenhagen
Awards	Tony Award for Best Revival Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album

Chicago (1975) is an American musical with music by John Kander, lyrics by Fred Ebb, and a book by Ebb and Bob Fosse. Set in Prohibition-era Chicago, the musical is based on a 1926 play of the same name by reporter Maurine Dallas Watkins about actual criminals and crimes she reported on. The story is a satire on corruption in the administration of criminal justice and the concept of the "celebrity criminal."

The original Broadway production opened in 1975 at the 46th Street Theatre and ran for 936 performances until 1977. Bob Fosse choreographed the original production, and his style is strongly identified with the show. Following a West End debut in 1979 which ran for 600 performances, Chicago was revived on Broadway in 1996, and a year later in the West End.

The Broadway revival holds the record as the longest-running musical revival and the longest-running American musical in Broadway history. It is the second longest-running show in Broadway history, behind only The Phantom of the Opera, having played its 7,486th performance on November 23, 2014, surpassing Cats. The West End revival ran for nearly 15 years, becoming the longest-running American musical in West End history, and it has enjoyed several tours and international productions. The 2002 film version of the musical won the Academy Award for Best Picture.

The musical Chicago is based on a play of the same name by reporter and playwright Maurine Dallas Watkins, who was assigned to cover the 1924 trials of accused murderers Beulah Annan and Belva Gaertner for the Chicago Tribune. In the early 1920s, Chicago's press and public became riveted by the subject of homicides committed by women. Several high-profile cases arose, which generally involved women killing their lovers or husbands. These cases were tried against a backdrop of changing views of women in the Jazz age, and a long string of acquittals by Cook County juries of women murderesses (jurors at the time were all men, and convicted murderers generally faced death by hanging). A lore arose that, in Chicago, feminine or attractive women could not be convicted. The Chicago Tribune generally took a pro-prosecution "hang-them-high" stance, while still presenting the details of these women's lives. Its rivals at the Hearst papers were more pro-defendant, and employed what were derisively called "sob-sisters" – women reporters who focused on the plight, attractiveness, redemption, or grace of the women defendants. Regardless of stance, the press covered several of these women as celebrities.