Book by Fred Ebb and Bob Fosse
Music by John Kander, Lyrics by Fred Ebb
Based on the play, "Chicago"
by Maurine Dallas Watkins

A sexy, black comedy of jazz-age music, murder and mayhem

This record-setting Broadway hit by the authors of "Cabaret" and "New York, New York" sparkles with marvelous songs, including "Mister Cellophane," "Razzle Dazzle," "Me and My Baby" and the show-stopping "All That Jazz."

Nov. 22 - Dec. 22, 2002

A 'Chicago' worthy of Broadway

By DAMIEN JAQUES
Journal Sentinel theater critic

Last Updated: Nov. 23, 2002

Memo to Fran and Barry Weissler, the producers of the long-running Broadway revival of "Chicago":

Come to Milwaukee and see the Skylight Opera Theatre's new production of your musical. When you need to replace performers in your Broadway company, you'll find them here.

Take Tari Kelly as soon as the Skylight production closes Dec. 22 and put her into your Broadway cast, playing that other Kelly girl, Velma. She's ready.

Not far behind her should be Angela Iannone, whose Roxie Hart has more depth and texture than the many other Roxies this critic has seen. Ray Jivoff's timid Amos Hart is in the same league with Joel Grey's portrayal in the revival's original cast, and Diana Carl's Mama Morton, the Cook County jail matron, is ready for the big time. Don't overlook Branch Woodman playing Billy Flynn, either.

The darkly entertaining creation of composer John Kander, lyricist Fred Ebb and director- choreographer Bob Fosse, "Chicago" is a veritable orchard of juicy parts for performers. The musical is a larger-than-life opportunity for singers, actors and dancers to show their stuff, and we are seeing that stuff here.

The Skylight's "Chicago," which opened Friday night, is bold, brazen, brassy and cynical. We wouldn't want it any other way.

"Chicago" the musical is based on a 1926 play of the same name. The murder trials of several philandering female killers in the Windy City in the '20s inspired Maurine Dallas Watkins to write the comedy.

Fosse enlisted Kander and Ebb to help him develop the piece into a musical in the 1970s, and the show enjoyed a two-year run on Broadway. However, a revival mounted on Broadway in 1996 became a much larger hit and is still running.

Fosse shrewdly placed the murder trials of Velma Kelly and Roxie Hart, the two principal characters, in the context of a vaudeville show. Following the illegal exploits of a large cast of flamboyant characters in 1920s Chicago had become a form of entertainment for the public. "Chicago" vividly reflects that.

Song and dance tell each woman's sordid little story. The Kander and Ebb score is one show-stopper after another. Fosse's trademark slouching, sexy style is the perfect choreographic fit for this tale of rancid passion.

Biting tone is more important to "Chicago" than plot. A breezy amorality is, upon closer inspection, a carefully placed tongue in cheek.

When director Walter Bobbie revived the musical in '96, he employed a stripped down and streamlined style that cut straight to the dark heart of the piece. The scenery consisted of the show's hot jazz band placed in a box in the middle of the stage. Actors were clad in black - lingerie for the women - and sat on chairs at the side of the stage when they weren't performing a number.

That was a departure from Fosse's more opulent original staging in 1975. Skylight director and choreographer Russell Garrett chose a middle ground. The spare look predominates, but he has added a lot of visual comic business that you won't see in Bobbie's revival.

Musical numbers are graphically illustrated. For example, "Me and My Baby," which features an allegedly pregnant Roxie singing about her defense-strategy fetus, includes a chorus of dancing men in diapers.

The plaintive poignancy of "Mister Cellophane" is undermined some by having Jivoff deliver it in an Emmett Kelly-style clown suit. That's overkill. The song is such a comic gem and Jivoff sings it so well, he deserves to do it without having to visually state the obvious.

Kelly and Iannone define their characters to a much greater degree than usually seen in this musical. This more clearly distinguishes Velma from Roxie and makes them more interesting.

The Velma played by Kelly has a harder and more cynical edge than Iannone's Roxie, who is a manipulating, self-centered ditz. Both are shameless.

Kelly's Herculean energy, technical proficiency with song and dance, ability to create and project a character, and compelling stage presence are quite the exciting package. Her range reaches from the exhausting dance number "I Can't Do It Alone" to sitting and singing the outrageously droll "Class" with a very funny Carl.

Iannone, known in Milwaukee for her straight acting, shows us she is equally adept and at ease at hoofing and belting her way through an audacious musical.

Garrett's choreography effectively conjures the distinctive Fosse style and look, right down to the bowler hats.

Book by James Magruder
Music by Jeffrey Stock
Lyrics by Susan Birkenhead

Although Hermocrates and Hesione have tried to protect Agis, their nephew and rightful heir to the throne of Sparta, from the outside world, he is now ready to reclaim his throne from his mortal enemy, Princess Leonide, whose father killed Agis' parents long ago. However, Leonide has fallen in love with Agis and vows to do whatever it takes to win his love. To accomplish that she dons four different disguises and seduces not only Agis, but Hermocrates and Hesione as well, all in the course of a single afternoon. Complications and comic confusion reign in this new musical, based on Pierre Marivaux's 18th-century comedy.

The Midwest premiere of a 1997 Tony Award-nominee.

Actress beat her own path to Broadway

By Damien Jaques
Journal Sentinel theater critic

Last Updated: Jan. 26, 2000

There is a standard script for stage actors who dream of performing on Broadway.

Go to college at a high-profile theater training school. Spend some time working in the provinces and then move to New York. Wait tables or take temporary office jobs while attending more classes.

Learn to tolerate endless auditions and frequent rejection. Make every effort to be seen in small, obscure, out-of-the-way shows. Offer your first-born in exchange for getting an agent. Maybe you'll make it.

Madison native Tari Kelly didn't follow the script. She just turned 30, but when it comes to Broadway, it's "been there, done that."

Without an agent, Kelly was cast in a huge Broadway hit on her first try. She has toured extensively with several Broadway road companies. She has been directed by Harold Prince and taught dance steps by choreographer Susan Stroman.

But now she is working by choice at the Skylight Opera Theatre in Milwaukee and the Fireside Theatre in Fort Atkinson.

"I feel more respected here, more appreciated," the vivacious Kelly recently explained while sitting in the Skylight's conference room. "At this point in my life, that is what I need."

Kelly plays a leading role, a princess named Leonide, in the Skylight's staging of the new musical "Triumph of Love" that opens Friday in the Cabot Theatre at the Broadway Theatre Center.

This is the actress' second show for the Skylight. She dazzled audiences with her sparkle and ability to sell a song in "The World Goes Round" last spring.

No wonder. She has caught some of the musical theater's most astute eyes.

The Tari Kelly story begins with dance lessons started at 5 and community theater when she was 13. After high school, she spent a year at the theater school at De Paul University in Chicago.

"They emphasized straight acting. They looked down on musicals there," the actress said. "I knew musicals is what I wanted to do."

Kelly transferred to the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point for her sophomore year, but was soon seduced by the Fireside Theatre. Cast in a summer show, the Fireside persuaded her to stay into the fall. She never returned to college.

Dinner theater gigs in St. Louis and Indianapolis, as well as recurring work at the Fireside, kept Kelly busy until she received a call from an actor friend in Toronto. He was in the hugely successful Harold Prince revival of "Show Boat" that had begun in Canada, and told Kelly about auditions that were being held in Toronto for the upcoming Broadway production. She flew there for a tryout.

"I had never had an audition for Broadway," she recalled. "When Hal Prince walked into the room, I thought, 'Oh my God, there he is.' "

If Kelly felt intimidated by auditioning for the legendary director, it didn't prevent her from being cast in the Broadway company. She was in the ensemble and understudied the roles of Kim and Ellie for a year. The actress left "Show Boat" to go on the road with "Beauty and the Beast," where she again understudied a character while playing a "silly girl" in the ensemble. That job culminated in a four-month stay at the Kennedy Center in Washington.

Eager to return to playing a character every night, Kelly went back to the Fireside for productions of "Nunsense" and "Fiddler on the Roof" before "Show Boat" called again. Back on the road with that hit, she understudied Ellie until the actress playing the role quit. Kelly grabbed her chance.

"I had a private audition for Prince, and I was the most scared I have ever been," she recalled. "He sees so many actors, but he liked me a lot." Enough to give her the part.

Kelly wrote the director a note of thanks for the audition. "It was my pleasure. You're good," was his response.

Playing opposite Cloris Leachman and Dean Jones, Kelly made her debut as the principal actress in the role at the Kennedy Center. But she is content to now be living in Madison with her husband, Patrick, a music director and composer, and working in Wisconsin.

"Part of me misses New York a lot," she said. "It is the center of theater and I love theater. But the quality of life isn't nice. You can't see the sky. I miss the clean air."

Kelly said her husband thinks she belongs in New York. "I don't have the desire. I don't have maybe the patience to deal with the politics that goes on out there. Like a lot of jobs, some of it is who you know.

"I feel good about being where I am now and doing the roles I am doing. I still don't have an agent because I guess I am not pushy enough. I guess I don't want one bad enough to get one."

Skylight artistic director Richard Carsey is glad Kelly is not enamored of New York because he likes having her in his casting pool. "Tari absorbs things so fast," he recently said. "She can take it all in and put it right back out there on stage. She is so smart."

After "Triumph of Love" closes, Kelly will do "Brigadoon" and "Once Upon a Mattress" at the Fireside. After that, maybe she will take another shot at New York, or try Chicago.

"Triumph of Love" is a new musical written by relatively unknown theater artists. Jeffrey Stock wrote the score, Susan Birkenhead penned the lyrics, and James Magruder was responsible for the book. The piece is based on Pierre Marivaux's 18th century romantic comedy of the same name.

A Broadway production quickly closed last season, but Carsey saw it and immediately identified it as a Skylight show.

"It has a real charm to it, and the score is so eclectic," he said. "It has everything from hot jazz to music with a Sondheim influence. The lyrics are smart and funny."

Carsey believes the musical didn't belong in a big Broadway theater. "It was a very intimate production performed in a really large space. It is really a tiny little clockwork piece, and they were trying to blow it up. It became crass rather than charming."

Look for the charm to return, starting Friday at the Cabot Theatre.

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