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I love musicals! Always have! So when the classic musical Chicago opened here in Berlin I decided to feature it on Sarah´s Music. The Theater des Westens, one of Germany´s most historic and beautiful musical theatres, is showing the original Broadway production – sex and scandal in the heart of Berlin! Chicago has been described as a musical for the advanced…it´s not your typically heart-warming musical like Lion King or Mamma Mia. Its raw, blatantly sexy and the music is fabulous. The scantily clad singers certainly can’t hide behind their costumes in this production! And one of my favourite things about this production is that the band is on stage the whole time and is included in the action.
The TDW is truly a stunning theatre, as you can see in this episode and also in the photos in the Making-of Gallery. We spent the whole day there so were able to experience the whole build up to the show in the evening – I love the atmosphere in a theater when it´s empty, it has almost a holy air about it. The first interviews were with Artistic Director Markus Brühl and MD Jochen Kilian – I could have talked to them all day about the running of a musical theatre. I loved what Markus said about routine being their biggest enemy – to do the same show at such a high level 8 times a week takes such dedication. Another highlight for me was filming with Caroline “Velma Kelly” in her dressing room. After all the bustle around the stage, it was so peaceful in there and so interesting to see her pre-concert routine. Thanks for sharing that with us, dear Caroline!
Nigel “Billy Flynn” looked so gorgeous in his tuxedo that I almost forgot my questions and Caroline produced the most incredible Horn Challenge considering she was wearing mountains of red lipstick! I had forgotten my spare mouthpiece which meant lots of mouthpiece-polishing afterwards…
The band for Chicago are fantastic, thanks to them all for playing the exit music especially for us- twice! Skip, Friedrich, Alex and Shay were fun to interview and I loved sitting up there with them- a real bird´s eye view of the show! My team and I were wonderfully looked after all day by Michaele Pruemmer, and as you can see, a great day was had by all of the Sarah´s Music team. If you get a chance to go and see this production anywhere in the world where it is showing, do it and let us know what you think!
