www.ensembleartsphilly.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n\u201cPhiladelphia has a long and rich history of presenting Broadway, not only at our Academy of Music and Miller Theater on Broad Street, but at the Forrest Theatre, as well. Owned and operated by our partners at The Shubert Organization, the Forrest even hosted \u2018Chicago\u2019s\u2019 pre-Broadway run before the show opened in New York in 1975,\u201d said Frances Egler, vice president of Theatrical Programming and Presentations. \u201cNow more than 50 years later, \u2018Chicago\u2019 returns to Philadelphia for the first time since 2009, a testament to its longevity through the decades and place as one of the most popular musicals of all time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Set in the Roaring Twenties, \u201cChicago\u201d is the story of Roxie Hart, a housewife and nightclub dancer who murders her on-the-side lover after he threatens to walk out on her.<\/p>\n
Desperate to avoid conviction, she dupes the public, the media and her rival cellmate, Velma Kelly, by hiring Chicago\u2019s slickest criminal lawyer to transform her malicious crime into a barrage of sensational headlines.<\/p>\n
\u201cChicago\u201d is one of the longest-running musicals on Broadway.<\/p>\n
Tim Canali, who is part of the ensemble touring the country, feels they are introducing \u201cChicago\u201d to a whole new group of fans.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe amount of people who have never heard of \u2018Chicago\u2019 is fascinating,\u201d said Canali. \u201cThey just come and say, \u2018Oh, hey, there\u2019s a new show in town.\u2019 They come to see it, having no context. We share this story with them that they have no reference for.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s actually been one of my favorite things, talking to people at the stage door or just talking to people around town who we are their first exposure to \u2018Chicago.\u2019 Their first exposure to this story. That\u2019s been really cool for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
This is also Canali\u2019s first time in a Broadway touring show.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is my first tour and first run of \u2018Chicago,\u2019 \u201d Canali added. \u201cIt\u2019s been really, really lovely and a wonderful first tour experience. This show in particular, just on paper is very special to me. I think it\u2019s a beautiful piece of American theater and the themes that it delivers are really important and pertinent. Getting to share those stories with America has been kind of a dream.\u201d<\/p>\n
Canali is a NYC-based actor, singer, dancer and circus artist. Recently he\u2019s enjoyed flying high in the off-Broadway circus play \u201c(in)Tangible,\u201d crafting combat for striking newsboys, choreographing a world premiere love-affirming musical, and performing in numerous diverse theatrical productions around the world.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn this day and age, you got to do it all,\u201d Canali said. \u201cI took my very first dance class my sophomore year at Muhlenberg College. I was totally hooked, so a bit of a late bloomer on that start. \u2018Chicago\u2019 is a great vehicle for people who kind of want to do it all, because you have to do everything. Everybody has to sing and dance.\u201d<\/p>\n
The show comes to Philadelphia as the last stop on the tour that started in 2025. Canali expects to see a few familiar faces in the audience.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do have a few people either making the trip from New York or even some of my former Muhlenberg teachers are able to make the trip,\u201d said Canali. \u201cSome haven\u2019t seen me dance since college, so it\u2019s a nice full-circle moment.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the first time in 17 years, \u201cChicago\u201d is coming to Philadelphia. The legendary musical with themes seemingly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":183606,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[858,28,69,71,70,1483,289,10918],"class_list":["post-183995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-ontap","tag-pennsylvania","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-theater","tag-things-to-do","tag-top-stories-tth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183995"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183995\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/183606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}