I had planned to do A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum for the middle-camp show in 2003, but before I had even started writing the script I went and saw Chicago at the movies, and decided right away that I'd have to do it. That the film won the Best Picture Oscar in the spring certainly didn't hurt. As I had already settled on The Phantom of the Opera for upper camp, Chicago would have to be the second show, even though it is better-suited for older performers (and audiences…)

Everyone wanted to be in this show. At the request of the directors, I expanded the middle-camp auditions to the subbie division. I had mixed feelings about this, as many of the juniors who had been in Grease as inters the year before were looking forward to having first-dibs on the major roles, but of course the upside was that we'd have more and better talent across the board. All told, we had over 50 campers in the cast, by far the largest all-camper cast in a non-lower-camp show to date. We have continued to have all three divisions (inter, junior, subbie) in the middle camp show in the years since and have been, I think, the better for it; Little Shop of Horrors and Mamma Mia! certainly benefited from having more experienced performers in the lead roles.

Chicago was probably the most dance-intensive show we ever attempted, and fortunately we had an outstanding choreographer, Sarah Davis, to handle it. With a little help from Jamie and Margo Rubin, Sarah put together some terrific dance numbers for Chicago, probably the best we've ever had on the Pontiac stage.

Most of the major players from Grease took the leads in this show, including Lori Davidson as Roxie Hart, Brandon Dinetz as Billy Flynn, Michael Warren as "Mr. Cellophane" Amos Hart, and Rachel Greenfader as Matron "Mama" Morton. A surprise this year was Amanda Mondre, who had always had great acting and speaking ability but had added song and dance to her  repertoire this year. She had a fantastic audition and we cast her as Velma Kelly.

The set for Chicago was very simple; I liked the plain black backdrop we used in Les Misérables and thought it would be appropriate here, but with white rope lights to accent the structures and platforms on the stage. Through an incredible amount of time and effort, using nothing more than a hammer and nails, I managed to fashion a giant red "C" using red rope lights on the back wall of the stage. I had slightly too much rope lighting to loop around three times, and not enough for four, so I had to double-over some of the lighting to make it look even. It came out great, but it was very difficult to do, and I left it in place for more than a week after the show, through two more evening activities.

Obviously, some of the racier aspects of the show's lyrics and dialogue would have to be toned down, but even then what remained might have been the most risqué show we ever attempted in camp. This one probably had more innuendo than even The Rocky Horror Picture Show. I recall someone coming up to me a few days before the show, telling me that we really needed to do a show that had an "edge." I think this one succeeded in that sense, and spectacularly so.

The show was in fact so successful, and the directors liked it so much, that they asked me, Sarah and the cast to do the whole thing on Visiting Day. Traditionally we had done a scaled-down version of the middle show for the parents, with no costumes or makeup and maybe half of the script, but this time we did the entire production a second time, which was a first. Flyers were put up around camp and an extra page added to the Visiting Day program, enticing everyone to come and see it.

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