Chicago” Next UMaine Musical Production
Contact: Tom Mikotowicz, (207) 581-1965, George Manlove (207) 581-3756
ORONO — The UMaine School of Performing Arts’ Music and Theater Departments are collaborating to bring the sensational vaudevillian razzle-dazzle musical “Chicago” to Hauck Auditorium this month.
A cast of 19 characters with an equal number of stage hands and technicians have been at work since October, polishing their singing and dancing, and memorizing lines for one of the most resilient and relevant musicals of the century. The show opens at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 10 at Hauck Auditorium on the Orono campus and runs Feb. 10-12, 17-19, with 2 p.m. Sunday matinees on Feb. 13 and Feb. 20. Admission is $10.
Director Tom Mikotowicz, associate professor of theater, says the popular show, successfully revived several times since it was written in 1926 — including as an award-winning movie in 2002 starring Richard Gere, Renee Zellweger and Catherine Zeta-Jones — will delight and dazzle the audience.
Written first as a play set in the Roaring Twenties, “Chicago” was made into a Broadway musical by Bob Fosse in 1975. The story focuses on two murderesses on death row who vie for the spotlight and the headlines, hoping the publicity will catapult them to fame, freedom and successful stage careers. It also is about “how the justice system can be overhauled by the media,” Mikotowicz says.