March 23--Here's a tagline "Chicago" the musical -- and Chicago the city -- did not need.
"Killing it Worldwide."
The new slogan, or tagline, in advertising parlance, was unveiled here Tuesday as part of the long-running Broadway musical's 20th anniversary celebration. Based on a play about a pair of Cook County murderesses penned by former Chicago Tribune reporter Maurine Dallas Watkins, the John Kander, Fred Ebb and Bob Fosse musical "Chicago" has both promoted and bedeviled its namesake city since its creation in 1975, with the current 1996 revival proving especially long-lasting.
Chicago, of course, is trying to overcome both debilitating gun violence on its streets and an international reputation in popular culture for gangster-fueled lawlessness that has been attached to the city for generations despite efforts to replace it with something more-tourist friendly.
In theatrical parlance, "Killing It" references a successful performance that pleases an audience -- a claim this particular production, which appeals to many international tourists in New York, justly can make.
But "Killing It," of course, has another meaning -- one hardly necessary for a glamorous song-and-dance show celebrating "all that jazz" (and, sure, the city's rat-a-tat-tat past) with stylized and inoffensive panache.
A gallery of edgy new promotional images by the photographer Max Vadukul, featuring both current and former cast members, accompanied the new slogan.
"The word 'kill' in the commonly used theatrical vernacular -- 'killer performance,' 'killer finale,' 'killer score' -- also references the show's cartoon storyline about the dancing and singing merry murderesses of 1920s Chicago," the producers of "Chicago" said Wednesday in an emailed statement to the Tribune. "We don't want to sound glib or insensitive, and take your observation seriously. We are horrified, angry and sad about what happened (Tuesday) in Europe."
"Chicago" will be back in Chicago again from May 10-15.
