Chicago (play)

Chicago is a play written by Maurine Dallas Watkins. The play, while fiction, is a satire based on two unrelated 1924 court cases involving two women, Beulah Annan (the inspiration for Roxie Hart) and Belva Gaertner (the inspiration for Velma), who were both accused and later acquitted of murder, whom Watkins had covered for the Chicago Tribune as a reporter.

Watkins wrote the script (originally titled Brave Little Woman) as a class assignment while attending the Yale Drama School. Produced by Sam H. Harris, the play debuted on Broadway at the Music Box Theatre on December 30, 1926, directed by George Abbott, where it ran for 172 performances.

The play serves as the inspiration for the stage musical of the same name. To avoid confusion between the two and to maintain the musical's copyrights held by the show producers and creators, the play is now titled Play Ball when it is performed.

Annan, the model for the character of Roxie Hart, was 23 when she was accused of the April 3, 1924, murder of Harry Kalstedt. The Tribune reported that Annan had played the foxtrot record "Hula Lou" over and over for two hours before calling her husband to say she killed a man who "tried to make love to her". She was found not guilty on May 25, 1924. Annan's husband Albert, a car mechanic who emptied his bank accounts to pay for her defense only to be publicly dumped the day after the trial, served as the basis for Amos Hart. Kalstedt served as the model for Fred Casely. Velma is based on Gaertner (also known as Belle Brown), who was a cabaret singer. The body of Walter Law was discovered slumped over the steering wheel of Gaertner's abandoned car on March 12, 1924. Two police officers testified that they had seen a woman getting into the car and shortly thereafter heard gunshots. A bottle of gin and an automatic pistol were found on the floor of the car. Gaertner was acquitted on June 6, 1924. Lawyers William Scott Stewart and W. W. O'Brien were models for a composite character in Chicago, "Billy Flynn".

At 7 AM on April 3rd, 1924, Roxie Hart, a 23-year-old described in profile as having the hint of a Raphael angel with a touch of Medusa, kills Fred Casely in her South Side apartment. Several hours later, Roxie's husband Amos confesses to the Sergeant by saying that Casely was attempting a robbery, and that he killed him in self-defense. When Amos learns that Casely was the victim through Jake, the reporter dictating the confession, and after an encounter with Assistant State Attorney Harrison, he recants, and Roxie is instead charged with the murder.

Jake reassures that she'll be acquitted, and that he'll get her in touch with prolific defense attorney Billy Flynn to take her case, before following up that he'd personally like her dead because of the paper sales of such a sensational headline, and that he plans to use her trial to make money while it's still relevant. Harrison, Jake, and photographer Babe talk with Amos and Roxie over the possible fame they could receive from their incident, to the latter's refusal. The reporters pressure them, stating their short deadlines and lack of "society dames" who hardly make news, to which Roxie accepts, and is taken to jail.

Two days later in the Women's Ward of the Cook County Jail, Roxie, dressed in high-society fashion, complains to the kindly Matron Mrs. Morton about the Salvation Army songsters in the Men's Ward. She discovers that day's tabloid and finds herself on the front cover, nicknamed "The Jazz-Slayer", and is overjoyed with the amount of pictures of her on the inside. Velma, a fellow murderess in the ward, expresses sympathy for Roxie's situation, commenting on the shamelessness of the reporters who did her story. As Roxie and Mrs. Morton clip her columns and pictures from the paper, they notice the inaccuracies of what had transpired in comparison to what was printed, notably the fact that Roxie wasn't wearing a turban on her arrest.

Velma doubles down on the predatory nature of the tabloid reporters, claiming they deliberately minced words to imply her expensive clothing wasn't authentic, and leaves to get a cigarette. Mrs. Morton warns Roxie to not believe everything the paper says, due to how much it could influence her worldview and opinion of both others and herself. Velma then reveals she had hired another inmate named Lucia to act as maid, due to her 14-year sentence and status as an Italian immigrant.