‘Working’ returns to its Chicago roots

The newly revised version of the 1978 Broadway musical “Working” at the Broadway Playhouse at Water Tower Place is a Chicago homecoming for all intents and purposes. And if there are any plans for a subsequent New York transfer, people close to the production aren’t saying so.

“We are very invested in making this successful in Chicago and that’s why we’re utilizing Chicago actors,” said “Working” producer Jed Bernstein. “We want Chicago to feel a sense of ownership about this production.”

The story roots of the musical “Working” stretch back to the late Pulitzer Prize-winning Chicago author Studs Terkel’s 1974 book “Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do.”

Terkel’s interviews with Americans about their relationships to their jobs inspired composer/lyricist Stephen Schwartz (“Wicked,” “Godspell”) to turn the book into a musical revue featuring songs by himself and a variety of other songwriters.

Though a flop on its original Broadway outing (running only 24 performances and 12 previews), “Working” developed a strong following around the rest of the country with productions in school, college and community settings.

With the aid of director Gordon Greenberg and Nina Faso, Schwartz turned his attention to updating and revising “Working” about eight years ago, with new songs by Tony Award-winning composer/lyricist Lin-Manuel Miranda (“In the Heights”) and new musical arrangements by Alex Lacamoire. This revised “Working” was subsequently tweaked in productions at the Asolo Repertory Theatre in Sarasota, Fla., and the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego.

“Our first notion was to find interviews with new kinds of jobs to update this piece to reflect very specifically newfangled professions,” said Greenberg. “We soon realized that the most powerful aspect of the show was in all of the original interviews and all of the sort of gems and great truths that Studs Terkel pulled from the original material. Then it was looking at the core of all these professions and finding that the more things changed in the world, the more they stayed the same.”

For the Chicago production at the newly renovated Broadway Playhouse at Water Tower Place, Greenberg has cast six local actors including Jeff Award-winners like E. Faye Butler, Barbara Robertson and Gene Weygandt who play a variety of roles ranging from construction workers to hedge fund managers.

In the production itself, Greenberg also highlights the behind-the-scenes theater workers by allowing audiences to see what happens backstage.

“The audience can sometimes think that we’re just having fun hanging out backstage,” said E. Faye Butler, who likes how Greenberg is presenting the performers as workers themselves. “But we’re always preparing for our next scene if that’s a costume change, a wig change or checking lines.”

Butler is also pleased to be appearing in a show with such strong Chicago roots.

“You can hear Chicago in the voices of the people in the show,” she said. “We all sound like Midwesterners and that’s nice to hear.”

“Working”

Location: Broadway Playhouse at Water Tower Place, 175 E. Chestnut St., Chicago, (800) 775-2000 or broadwayinchicago.com

Showtimes: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday, 8 p.m. Friday, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday and Wednesday through May 8

Tickets: $67.50-$77.50