Writer David Thompson on Adapting Chicago’s Script for Its Record-Breaking Broadway Revival

Chicago has been heating up Broadway for 29 years, in no small part due to its fast-paced, razor sharp script adaptation by David Thompson. Thompson sat down with Broadway.com Managing Editor Beth Stevens to discuss his journey with the record-breaking musical.

Thompson's iteration of Chicago was first conceived in concert form for a New York City Center Encores! production in 1996. Referring to the format, Thompson spoke of his approach to the material, which was all about “streamlining it and finding the absolute essence of what the story was.” Chicago has always taken its cues from vaudeville and though it may be less evident to modern audiences, Thompson believes that it still serves as “the engine to tell [the] story” through its song-and-skit style of performance.

The sensational story of Roxie Hart and Velma Kelly has been a part of the public consciousness since Chicago Tribune reporter Maureen Dallas Watkins wrote a play inspired by a real-life murder case in 1926. "She quit the newspaper business, she went to drama school, she wrote this play and the play called Chicago became a hit," Thompson explains. The true-crime component of Chicago proved to be newly relevant in the late '90s amid the O.J. Simpson trial. "The musical became the embodiment of so much of what we were experiencing culturally," Thompson says of this timely connection.

Today, he points out, "the sensational crimes that we follow have become a national diet. They're fun, they're awful, they can be any number of things. But they're not going away.” Neither, it seems, is Chicago. 

Watch the video below for the full interview.

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