'Chicago' auditions this weekend

Auditions are this weekend for "Chicago," the Broadway hit that is slated to hit the Peoria Players stage in May.

Auditions will be at 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, Jan. 28 and 29, at Jump Start Gymnastics, 8820 N. Industrial Road in Peoria. Chas Killen is the director.

The show will open May 4 and continue through May 13 at Peoria Players, 4300 N. University St. Tickets will go on sale April 23.

An adult musical popular in community theatre circles, "Chicago" is set in Prohibition-era Chicago. According to Peoria Players, it is "a satire on corruption in the administration of criminal justice and the concept of the celebrity criminal."

The music was written by John Kander with lyrics by Fred Ebb. The book was written by Ebb and Bob Fosse, who choreographed the original original and whose style "is strongly identified with the show," Peoria Players said.

The show, which is now the longest running American musical in Broadway history, features songs such as "All That Jazz," "Razzle Dazzle," and "Mr. Cellophane."

For more information go to www.peoriaplayers.org.

About the Author

Paul Gordon is the editor of The Peorian after spending 29 years of indentured servitude at the Peoria Journal Star. He’s an award-winning writer, raconteur and song-and-dance man. He also went to a high school whose team name is the Alices (that’s Vincennes Lincoln High School in Indiana; you can look it up).