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Performances start at 8 pm, except for matinees (m), which start at 2:30
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Last updated August 12, 2008
Albany, Oregon
Play Ball, aka
Chicago
by Maurine Dallas Watkins
directed by John Elliott
Performances: September 12, 13, 19, 20, 21(m), 25, 26, 27, 2008
If you liked the 2002 musical, you'll love the play that started it all: Newspaper reporter Maurine Watkins' wicked satire of crime and corruption in flapper-era Chicago. When Roxie Hart is charged with a crime of passion, it triggers a hilarious send-up of the police, the press, and big-city crime and punishment.
Watkins' play went on to fame as a 1927 silent movie adaptation, the 1942 film Roxie Hart ( starring Ginger Rogers) , the 1975 broadway musical and the wildly popular 2002 film musical. Now see the play that started it all!
Suitable for teens and adults.
What the critics said:
"Professor John Clark Archer of the Yale divinity school pronounced [the play] vile, immoral, and blasphemous. He said the play was true to Chicago life, because he lived there last summer, but that it was an offense against public decency." -- New Haven, Connecticut, Dec. 30, 1926.
".. one of the season’s wisest plays. ... a roistering piece of reporting, crammed with the blood and odor of life. Newspapermen who saw it the opening night, pounded their palms with glee over the murderous caricature of American justice. They told each other during intermission that this Maurine Watkins knew her inside stuff on jazz slayings, police, prosecutors, shyster defense lawyers, sentimental juries, and all the rest of the rigmarole going to make up the great American sport so flagrantly blazoned in the yellow press." -- Clare Ogden Davis, Success Magazine, September 1927.
Cast of characters
- Roxie Hart - Caren Parmenter
- Eric Jones - Jake
- Chuck Skinner - Billy Flynn
- Cynthia Harvey - Mary Sunshine
- Pat Pardue - Amos Hart
- Loren Dunn - Babe
- Michelle Steele - Mrs. Morton / Ensemble
- David Neiman - Harrison / Bob Lee / Ensemble
- Leslie Hogan - Liz / Clare Ogden Davis / Ensemble
- Erin Matthews - Velma / Reporter2 / Ensemble
- Arlin Roler - Sgt. Murdock / Clerk
- Paulie Lime - Moonshine Maggie / Reporter1 / Ensemble
- Melissa Brown - Kitty / Photog1 / Maurine / Ensemble
- John Sams - Yale Divinity School Professor John C.
Archer / Judge - Scott Harvey - Fred / Sgt. Patterson / Bailiff / Ensemble
- Rosie Petersen - Lucia / Reporter3 / Machine-Gun
Rosie / Ensemble
Director
Chicago is John's eighth directing effort at ACT. His previous shows here have included Wonder of the World, Hedda Gabler, The Underpants, Charley's Aunt and The Lion in Winter. He lives in Albany with his wife, Patty, and two absolutely gorgeous daughters.
