Chicago has been staged in numerous productions around the world, and has toured extensively in the United States and United Kingdom. The West End revival became the longest-running American musical in West End history. Chicago surpassed Cats on November 23, 2014, when it played its 7,486th performance. It is the second longest-running show ever to run on Broadway, behind only The Phantom of the Opera. The 1996 Broadway production holds the record as the longest-running musical revival and the longest-running American musical in Broadway history. Chicago was revived on Broadway in 1996, and a year later in the West End. It debuted in the West End in 1979, where it ran for 600 performances. Bob Fosse directed and choreographed the original production, and his style is strongly identified with the show. The original Broadway production opened in 1975 at the 46th Street Theatre and ran for 936 performances, until 1977. The story is a satire on corruption in the administration of criminal justice and the concept of the "celebrity criminal". Set in Chicago in the jazz age, the musical is based on a 1926 play of the same title by reporter Maurine Dallas Watkins, about actual criminals and the crimes on which she reported. 1996 Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musicalġ997 Laurence Olivier Award for Outstanding Musical ProductionĬhicago is a 1975 American musical with music by John Kander, lyrics by Fred Ebb, and book by Ebb and Bob Fosse.