Characters: 15 male, 3 female

Scenery: Interior

Winner of multiple Tony Awards including Best Musical, Kiss of the Spider Woman revamps a harrowing tale of persecution into a dazzling spectacle that juxtaposes gritty realities with liberating fantasies. Cell mates in a Latin American prison, Valentin is a tough revolutionary undergoing torture and Molina is an unabashed homosexual serving eight years for deviant behavior. Molina shares his fantasies about an actress, Aurora (originated on Broadway by Chita Rivera) with Valentin. One of her roles is a Spider Woman who kills with a kiss.

"Thrilling."-- N.Y. Times.

"Compelling, beautiful, funny and moving.... Has] a cinematic fluidity and a poetic charge."-- N.Y. Daily News.

"Creates an entire world out of a prison cell.... Dazzling."-- Newsweek.

Premiering in 1975 and the hit of the 1997 Broadway season in a production that originated at City Center's Encore! series, Chicago won six Tony Awards including Best Revival and later the Academy Award as Best Picture of the Year. In roaring twenties Chicago, chorine Roxie Hart murders a faithless lover and convinces her hapless husband Amos to take the rap...until he finds out he's been duped and turns on Roxie. Convicted and sent to death row, Roxie and another "Merry Murderess" Velma

Composer John Kander and lyricist Fred Ebb are the longest-running song-writing partnership in Broadway history, having first joined forces in 1962. The creators of such groundbreaking musicals as "Chicago," "Cabaret," and" Kiss of the Spider Woman," Kander and Ebb have helped to push American musical theater in a more daring direction, both musically and dramatically. Their impact on individual performers has been great as well, starting with the handpicked star of their first musical: an untested nineteen-year-old named Liza Minnelli (who writes of this experience in her introduction).
"Colored Lights" covers the major shows of Kander and Ebb's partnership, from "Flora, the Red Menace" (starring a then-unknown Liza) to "The Visit," their newest show, which is set to star another Kander and Ebb favorite, Chita Rivera. The pages and musicals in between reveal what has made theirs such an important and long-lived musical partnership--and one so valued by the artists they have worked with. In recounting the genesis and controversies of "Cabaret," reflecting on the superstar mentality of such artists as Frank Sinatra and Barbra Streisand, and recalling their work with Bob Fosse on "Chicago" (as well as their thoughts on the Oscar-winning film version), John Kander and Fred Ebb provide a history not only of their own lives but also of the American musical theater of the late twentieth century.