Chicago is a musical

Musical theatre

Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...

 set in Prohibition-era

Prohibition in the United States

Prohibition in the United States was a national ban on the sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcohol, in place from 1920 to 1933. The ban was mandated by the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution, and the Volstead Act set down the rules for enforcing the ban, as well as defining which...

 Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

. The music is by John Kander

John Kander

John Harold Kander is the American composer of a number of musicals as part of the songwriting team of Kander and Ebb.-Life and career:Kander was born in Kansas City, Missouri, the son of Bernice and Harold S. Kander...

 with lyrics by Fred Ebb

Fred Ebb

Fred Ebb was an American musical theatre lyricist who had many successful collaborations with composer John Kander. The Kander and Ebb team frequently wrote for such performers as Liza Minnelli and Chita Rivera....

 and a book by Ebb and Bob Fosse

Bob Fosse

Robert Louis “Bob” Fosse was an American actor, dancer, musical theater choreographer, director, screenwriter, film editor and film director. He won an unprecedented eight Tony Awards for choreography, as well as one for direction...

. The story is a satire

Satire

Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...

 on corruption

Political corruption

Political corruption is the use of legislated powers by government officials for illegitimate private gain. Misuse of government power for other purposes, such as repression of political opponents and general police brutality, is not considered political corruption. Neither are illegal acts by...

 in the administration of criminal justice

Criminal justice

Criminal Justice is the system of practices and institutions of governments directed at upholding social control, deterring and mitigating crime, or sanctioning those who violate laws with criminal penalties and rehabilitation efforts...

 and the concept of the "celebrity criminal". The musical is based on a 1926 play of the same name

Chicago (play)

Chicago is a 1926 play written by Maurine Dallas Watkins. It was based on two unrelated 1924 cases of two women, Beulah Annan and Belva Gaertner, who were both suspected and later acquitted for murder, that Watkins had covered for the Chicago Tribune as a reporter...

 by reporter Maurine Dallas Watkins

Maurine Dallas Watkins

Maurine Dallas Watkins was an American journalist and playwright.She was born in Louisville, Kentucky, and attended Crawfordsville High School, followed by five colleges...

 about actual criminals and crimes she reported on.

The original Broadway

Broadway theatre

Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

 production opened June 3, 1975, at the 46th Street Theatre and ran for 936 performances.