NEW YORK — There’s only one Roxie Hart. And yet — stay with us here — there are many Roxie Harts.
The murderous, washed-up chorus girl is the beating, biting heart of Broadway’s mainstay musical “Chicago,” but no single actor owns her. She instead belongs to a revolving sisterhood of performers who, at a glance, have little in common — but all have donned a bowler hat and slinked across the stage.
There are the musical theater professionals far from household names. Others, much like Roxie herself, have notoriety but little stage experience. Some are ingenues on the cusp of fame. Some are world-weary, looking to reclaim the spotlight.
Since 1996, the list of Roxies has included Brooke Shields, Sandy Duncan, Marilu Henner, Christie Brinkley, Mel B, Gretchen Mol, Brandy, Robin Givens, Lisa Rinna, Ashlee Simpson, Jennifer Nettles, “Trading Spaces” host Paige Davis, “Pose” star Angelica Ross and Ariana Madix of “Vanderpump Rules.”
“‘Chicago’ is different,” says Barry Weissler, a lead producer with his wife, Fran. “It welcomes people constantly. There’s never a locked door where we’re concerned.”
Roxie isn’t a cute role: She kills her lover and tries to get her dimwitted husband to take the blame. She grows insatiably hungry for fame behind bars and, after an acquittal, teams up with rival Velma to cash in with a revue. “The name on everybody’s lips / Is gonna be Roxie,” she purrs.
The revival has lasted for decades, attributable in part to often casting celebrities to lead a show about the venality of celebrity.
“The casting of this show falls in line with the show itself,” says choreographer Greg Butler, who helps prepare actors in Los Angeles. “We talk about celebrity and how celebrity is glorified. And yet, in a way, we glorify it.”
Glorified though they may be, the stars still have to perform. So how does “Chicago” turn a reality star into Roxie?
Each Roxie needs to memorize their lines, sing and make it down a ladder in high heels. But there’s elasticity built into the role.
The secret about Roxie: She has two really big songs — “Funny Honey” and “Roxie” — but the role isn’t as physically taxing as Velma’s. And Roxie will always be taken care of.
“I always say when we bring these celebrities in, we must protect them so that everyone around them and every other part is a full-blooded Broadway pro,” director Walter Bobbie reveals.
In “Roxie,” the merry murderess is surrounded by smitten, superb male dancers.
“Roxie could simply stand there and have seven men adore her and the number is delivered,” Bobbie says.
Some Roxies need lots of work, including singing lessons. Some Roxies you leave alone. Take Pamela Anderson, who was a hit in 2022.
“Let her do whatever she wants,” Weissler says. “So she can’t do a somersault, she can’t do a split. It’s all right because she IS Roxie.”
The team tries to incorporate the star’s signatures. Underneath Anderson’s dress, for instance, the costume shop added fabric that looked like a bathing suit bottom, a nod to “Baywatch.”
“No one in the show tries to imitate anybody else’s performance. I always try to say, ‘I don’t want you to play Roxie. I want you to find the Roxie in yourself,’” Bobbie says.
It all begins, though, with landing a willing celebrity.
“When I approach an agent for a star — no matter how big or small — I always say, ‘Ask not what you can do for “Chicago” but what “Chicago” can do for you,’” says Duncan Stewart, who has landed castmembers for nearly two decades.
Stewart, ARC vice president and casting director, emphasizes the part’s glamour and razzle-dazzle in negotiations, as well as its relative ease. All you need is some training and the willingness to wear a black cocktail dress.
“You don’t have to dress up as a spoon or a fork. You don’t have to dress up in green paint and sing through the stratosphere,” he says. “You can rehearse for four weeks and you can do a quick six-week run. You can get your Broadway debut and legacy in under eight weeks.”
Sometimes a celebrity will mull a pitch for years. Sometimes they need just days.
“It’s all about the timing. It’s all about persistence and never accepting a no,” Stewart says. (If a target Roxie ages out of the role, he says, the offer shifts to Matron “Mama” Morton.)
Celebrities sign up for different reasons: Broadway is on their bucket list. Their latest tour sold poorly. They were recently divorced. They’re doing it for their kids.
“They need some way of saying to the world, ‘I’m worthy. I can prove my mettle,’” says Stewart.
Once or twice a year he goes to a newsstand and buys $400 worth of magazines — Ebony, People, Variety, you name it. He hands them to his staff, along with black pens.
His instructions: “There are no bad ideas. Circle everybody from these magazines and just write in black pen, ‘Roxie,’ ‘Velma,’ ‘Billy,’ ‘Amos,’ ‘Mama.’”
The names go into a spreadsheet, which goes to the marketing team and producers, who score the names from one to five. One is terrible. Three, four and five prompt him to pursue interest and availability.
Stewart then puts together a dossier with background details on the potential Roxie — perhaps she played saxophone in high school or sang with a band. He delivers the report and any YouTube footage to the Weisslers.
With their green light, the offer goes out — contingent on a successful boot camp.
Like the military, Roxie’s boot camp is meant to build volunteers up — with a lot less screaming.
“We try to meet them where they are,” says Butler, an associate choreographer since 2005 who performed in the show for 14 years and was a dance captain.
“They have something that you can’t really teach them. They understand the idea of celebrity,” he says. “They are pulling from life.”
Butler usually asks the Roxie-to-be to draw on what they know: red carpets, news conferences, getting their pictures taken by paparazzi. They go from there.
“Ultimately, your feet are probably going to have to leave the ground and you’re probably going to have to kick. So I’m going to have to teach you how to punch your foot,” he tells his starry students.
He started one session with Rita Wilson by asking her if she had a favorite pose. “And she was like, ‘Oh my God! I have this pose,’” Butler says. “We used it and then she starts to build from that.”
The original “Chicago” debuted on Broadway in 1975, directed by Bob Fosse. Butler credits Ann Reinking — the iconic Fosse collaborator who originated Roxie in the 1996 revival and created the choreography in Fosse’s style — with cracking how to accommodate the skillset of each successive Roxie. Vocal coaches also help find the right keys and approach to each song.
One of the harder things Roxie faces comes during the song “Hot Honey Rag.” In a sequence nicknamed The Cakewalk, the actor must dance backward while executing a series of intricate hand movements. Trained dancers, like Reinking, rely on their strong cores. But Melanie Griffith, primarily a film actor, struggled with The Cakewalk. The two experimented with different ideas as Griffith prepared to become Roxie in 2003.
“She just started doing a move and Annie saw her do this thing and she went, ‘Oh my, God! OK. Do that again,’” he recalls.
What Griffith had done was fan her hands over her head and make her hips and hands move at the same time.
“Annie, said ‘That’s it. That’s your move,’” he recounts. “So now there’s a step in the show that we call The Melanie, just in case I have an actress where The Cakewalk does not look awesome on them.”
Some elements may be tweaked but make no mistake: It’s hard work.
“There’s new parts of my body that are sore that I didn’t know would actually get sore,” says Alyssa Milano, one of the newest Roxies, in the middle of her boot camp. “And I’ve been a dancer all my life.”
The Roxies who don’t have extensive stage or dance backgrounds may feel vulnerable.
“I tell them that falls right in line with Roxie Hart,” Butler says. “I’m like, ‘Honey, you are halfway there.’”
Melora Hardin was more than halfway there. “The Office” star arrived not only able to sing, but also as a lifelong dancer, first in ballet and then in jazz.
Hardin was taught a few numbers in a Valley studio before flying to New York to perform in front of Weissler and his team.
She could tell they liked it.
“Barry walks me to the window and kind of puts his arm around my shoulder and asks, ‘Where have you been? Why haven’t I met you before?’” she remembers.
She got the job on the spot.
Fast-forward and Hardin in late 2008 made her Broadway debut, with her husband and two young daughters in the audience. When fans threw her roses, she’d try to toss them to her girls. She laughs that the crowd seemed more impressed by her somersault than nailing her Fosse steps.
“It’s definitely something that I will hold as one of the most joyful times of my life,” says Hardin. “I couldn’t have asked for a more wonderful experience.”
Roxie has been kicking for more than 11,000 performances on Broadway, despite recession, storms, a pandemic and an Oscar-winning adaptation. “Chicago” is the second longest-running show in Broadway history, behind only the now-closed “The Phantom of the Opera.” In all, the musical has been seen by more than 32 million people across 36 countries and more than 500 cities.
“The show changes from actor to actor, from country to country, from city to city, from company to company,” says Butler.
But Butler has his favorites. He still gets excited whenever one of his Roxies slays: “It’s like giving birth. I’m just like, ‘Oh, my God, my little baby’s about to step up!’”
Trends come and go, but “Chicago” endures, fed by a plot replete with celebrity culture, greed and media manipulation. “It keeps becoming more relevant, not less. More,” says Weissler.
Bobbie bristles at critics who deride the revolving door as a gimmick: “You can call it stunt casting all you want. There’s an authenticity to it.”
He argues that “Chicago” will always be different than most other Broadway shows.
“The guy doesn’t get the girl. The girl gets the girl,” he says with a laugh. “This is about a romance with show business.”
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This story has been corrected to remove Jinkx Monsoon from the list of Roxies; the “RuPaul’s Drag Race” winner played Matron “Mama” Morton.
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Illustrations by Annie Ng.
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Mark Kennedy is at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits
