Patrick Swayze joins the National Tour of Chicago

Patrick Swayze, international film star, joins the national tour of the award winning musical, CHICAGO for the Los Angeles engagement which is continuing its three-week engagement, January 7-25, at Hollywood’s historic Pantages Theatre.  This marks a return to the live stage for Mr. Swayze, who made his Broadway debut in Goodtime Charley starring Joel Grey and went on to wow audiences in the starring role in Grease!

Patrick Swayze is a true renaissance performer delivering captivating performances with diverse roles in the acclaimed films, Dirty Dancing, Ghost, and his Golden Globe nominated performance in To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar.  A classically trained dancer, he has performed with the Harkness Ballet Company, the Joffrey Ballet and was a principal dancer with the Eliot Feld Ballet.  Most recently, he and his wife Lisa Niemi developed, wrote and starred in the film One Last Dance, which was screened at the 2003 Worldfest Houston Film Festival, the 2003 Philadelphia Film Festival and the San Diego Film Festival to favorable notices.

Also starring in the Los Angeles engagement of CHICAGO will be Bianca Marroquin as “Roxie Hart” and Reva Rice as “Velma Kelly.”  Ms. Marroquin starred in the successful Mexico City production of CHICAGO and then went on to make her Broadway debut in the role.   Reva Rice’s stage credits include the Broadway productions of Starlight Express, Fosse and CHICAGO and the first national tour of Smokey Joe’s Café.   The cast also includes Carol Woods as “Matron Mama Morton,” Ray Bokhour as “Amos Hart” and R. Bean as “Mary Sunshine.”
Produced by Tony Award winners Barry and Fran Weissler, under the Tony Award(r)-winning direction of Walter Bobbie, and spotlighting the Tony Award(r)-winning choreography by Ann Reinking in the style of the legendary Bob Fosse, CHICAGO features the music and lyrics of master Broadway multi-award-winning composers John Kander and Fred Ebb, with book by Mr. Ebb and the late Bob Fosse.
CHICAGO, winner of 6 Tony Awards(r) including Best Musical Revival and a Grammy Award for its cast recording, has the distinction of being Broadway’s longest running revival, having logged over 2700 performances, and is still playing to standing-room-only crowds at the Ambassador Theatre in its 7th year in New York.  The show’s story about two real-life murderesses and the charismatic lawyer who turns them into media celebrities could easily be a page pulled directly from today’s newspapers.
The immense worldwide success of CHICAGO spawned the current Academy Award winning film version, which has raised public awareness of this classic Broadway musical to new heights.   But seeing it live is an experience that audiences don’t soon forget – with all that jazz, all that style, all that music, and all that dancing adding up to an intoxicating concoction.