Randolph Lobby, 1st Floor North

The play Chicago originally premiered on the New York’s Broadway stage in 1926. Since that time, it has been reshaped into three major motion pictures, and a long-running musical still popular on Broadway today. Lead characters Roxie Hart and Velma Kelly have become almost folkloric figures associated with the play’s namesake city. Not as well-known is the fact that the characters were based on two real-life murderesses of 1920s Chicago, and that playwright Maurine Dallas Watkins based it on her experiences as a Chicago Tribune reporter. On display will be seldom-seen posters, photographs and original artifacts documenting the play’s evolution over the past nine decades.