http://www.star-telegram.com/live/story/128279.html

'Chicago' cast dances into Dallas - and our hearts

By PERRY STEWART
Special to the Star-Telegram
DALLAS -- The ghost of Bob Fosse gleefully haunts Music Hall at Fair Park, where his antic choreography is replicated in a minitour of Chicago. This is of special note because star Lisa Rinna is about to join the Broadway production.
Answering the big question: Yes, soap diva Rinna is a credible song-and-dance performer. She warms to the Fosse dance numbers while bringing a fey, girlish quality to Roxie Hart, the aspiring nightclub singer jailed in 1920s Chicago for slaying her unfaithful boyfriend.

Terra C. MacLeod dances rings around everyone else as Velma Kelly, Roxie's jailhouse neighbor. MacLeod shows her stuff early on, dominating All That Jazz, still one of the best openings in musical theater. MacLeod and Rinna get together late in the show on a pair of duets, but neither number matches the pizazz of MacLeod's When Velma Takes the Stand.

Tom Wopat, the Dukes of Hazzard alumnus, mingles suave and sleaze expertly as the defense lawyer whose credo is Razzle Dazzle. And two satellite portrayals are joyous to behold.

Carol Woods is the jail matron who strikes a maternal pose on When You're Good to Mama. She and MacLeod are terrific on Class.

And Eric Leviton is Roxie's sweet nebbish husband whose signature song is Mister Cellophane. Director Walter Bobbie's sprintlike staging never flags.

Chicago

Through June 17

Music Hall at Fair Park, 909 First Ave., Dallas

$32-$75

817-467-2787 or 214-631-2787; www.dallassummermusicals.org

Be advised: Overall bawdiness

Run time: Two hours, 30 minutes, with one intermission

Best reason to go: The whole package, actually. Stars Lisa Rinna and Terra C. MacLeod are bolstered by a dynamite ensemble.