'White Christmas' arrives in Chicago

Theater fans dreaming of seeing “Irving Berlin's White Christmas” in Chicago finally get their wish this week as the popular stage adaptation of the 1954 holiday classic comes to the Bank of America Theatre.

Now theater fans might wonder how other cities like Boston, Los Angeles and even Buffalo, N.Y., each got their own seasonal stand-alone Broadway-caliber productions of “White Christmas” long before Chicago ever did. But it wasn't so much a snub as scheduling and occupancy issues.

“We were just lucky to have tremendous shows already in the theaters,” said Broadway in Chicago Vice President Eileen LaCario, pointing out that the wildly successful long Chicago runs of “Wicked” and “Jersey Boys” plus hosting prestigious world premiere engagements of “The Addams Family” and “The Pirate Queen” all helped to create a theater logjam that kept “White Christmas” from the Windy City.

A stage adaptation of “White Christmas” first bowed in the summer of 2000 at the outdoor MUNI in St. Louis. The property was later picked up, revised and expanded with extra Irving Berlin songs like “Happy Holiday” and “I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm” by a team of Broadway veterans like director Walter Bobbie (“Chicago”) and choreographer Randy Skinner (“42nd Street”) for a San Francisco production in 2004. Since then, the show has been produced in stand-alone holiday stagings in major U.S. cities, in the U.K. and on Broadway for two seasons in 2008 and 2009.

“Several years ago we really wanted to play Chicago,” said choreographer Randy Skinner, echoing LaCario's theater logjam assessment. “I remember those discussions and I kept saying, ‘Let's wait on Chicago.' And now with the changeover in the show's rights, it truly is a tour.”

Indeed, the touring rights to “White Christmas” were recently acquired by Atlanta-based Theater Of the Stars, which incorporated scenic elements from its own regional production of the show plus Broadway costumes by designer Carrie Robbins.

Former Roosevelt University student Shannon M. O'Bryan plays the Vera-Ellen role of Judy Haynes, and has been with various incarnations of the show, including the 2004 San Francisco debut and the first Broadway engagement.

“We do a nine-minute tap number called ‘I Love a Piano' to open up the second act and it seems to be the crowd favorite.” O'Bryan said, adding that her personal favorite is a ballroom dance number in the first act. “It's so amazing to actually do that style of dancing onstage because I grew up watching Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers musicals.”

O'Bryan also reports that the show has moved audiences at previous tour stops in Tampa, Fla., and Charlotte, N.C., to drop their inhibitions and sing along with the show's title song, so she can't wait to see how Chicago audiences react.

Since the Marriott Theatre in Lincolnshire has already announced “White Christmas” as part of its 2011 season, Broadway in Chicago's LaCario stresses that if audiences want to incorporate the show as part of their downtown Chicago holiday traditions, the time to see it is now.

“To be able to have ‘White Christmas' playing just off State Street it just seems so perfect,” LaCario said.