MAY 2021: Director tells Rudy, “Darling, do about half that much sniveling.”
MAY 2021: Kimberly Guilfoyle’s 27 unsolicited audition tapes to play the Mama Morton prison-warden role yield 27 swirling vortices of huffiness, cleavage.
JUNE 2021: Prop master suggests simulating a rain of tommy-gun shells by using the hundreds of rolled-up dollar bills he found in Don Jr.’s dressing room.
JUNE 2021: Director worries that Don Jr. is being upstaged by Rudy’s mouth foam.
JUNE 2021: Rudy masters new bit of choreography only after dance captain encourages him to think of it as “the stop and frisk.”
JUNE 2021: Don Jr. says Roxie’s gun in “We Both Reached for the Gun” is “the Hunter Biden laptop of Chicago.”
AUGUST 2021: Rudy punctuates American Lawyer interview with simple shoulder isolation.
AUGUST 2021: Rudy absentmindedly refers to female chorus member as a “chlorine.”
SEPTEMBER 2021: Opening night attended by three QAnon supporters and Jeanine Pirro’s sober coach.
SEPTEMBER 2021: Times review calls production “rich in twitchiness, teeth.”
MAY 2022: Rudy launches zealous campaign to re-count Tony votes.
JUNE 2022: Director says she’d like to transition to film with participation of Eric Trump, “the next Gary Busey.”
Henry Alford is a New York–based writer and the author of And Then We Danced