Chicago: The original, non-musical 1926 play at Peabody's Black Box Theater

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2. Chicago: The original, non-musical 1926 play

'Chicago' is a 1926 play written by Maurine Dallas Watkins that is best known as the inspiration for the 1975 Broadway musical of the same name. The play, while fiction, is a satire based on two unrelated 1924 court cases involving two women, Beulah Annan (the inspiration for Roxie Hart) and Belva Gaertner (the inspiration for Velma) who were both suspected and later acquitted of murder, whom Watkins had covered for the Chicago Tribune as a reporter.Watkins wrote the script (originally titled Brave Little Woman) as a class assignment while attending the Yale Drama School. The play debuted on Broadway at the Sam Harris Theatre in late December 1926, directed by George Abbott, where it ran for 172 performances.This production is in a style of an old time radio show, with actors reading their lines from their script on music stands with minimal movement.Actors will be in full costume, hair and make up to make you feel you are back in time.The production is approx 2 hours in length with one intermission