Chita Rivera is truly a living theater legend. Her Broadway career spans 60 years starting in 1953 when she was hired as a dancer for Cole Porter's musical Can-Can, stretching to 2013 when she turned 80 starring as Princess Puffer during the Roundabout Theatre Company's revival of The Mystery of Edwin Drood at Studio 54.
But Rivera also has an amazing performance history in Chicago, largely via visiting Broadway touring companies starting in the 1950s with Call Me Madam with co-star Elaine Stritch at the Shubert Theatre. Rivera adds to her long Chicago-area legacy with her one-night-only show Chita: A Legendary Celebration at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 27, at Moraine Valley Community College in Palos Hills.
Windy City Times got to speak with Rivera in advance of her upcoming show. The interview started with an apology, since I wasn't sure if she minded when I called her "a living theater legend" when I said I was so honored to speak to her.
"The good word is 'living,'" said Rivera with a laugh. "That's the word. Call me a 'living' anything."
Rivera was the first Latino American to receive a Kennedy Center Honors award in 2002, and she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009. No doubt these honors stem from Rivera's cemented place in theater history by originating roles in a number of iconic musicals.
Rivera was the original Anita in West Side Story in 1957, the original Rose in Bye Bye Birdie in 1960 and the original Velma Kelly in the musical Chicago in 1975. Rivera also won her two Tony Awards for Best Actress in a Musical for The Rink in 1984 and in 1993 for Kiss of the Spider Woman: The Musical—both works penned by the out songwriting team of John Kander and the late Fred Ebb.
Rivera recalled it was Kander and Ebb, along with choreographer Ron Field, who pressured her to put together her first nightclub act. It was something to keep them all busy when there were rehearsal delays to the musical Chicago when director/choreographer Bob Fosse suffered a heart attack ( an event that became slightly fictionalized in Fosse's 1979 Academy Award-nominated film musical All That Jazz ).
"[When Fred Ebb] put the stuff together, he said here you'll do 'America' from West Side Story,' and I said, 'Oh, no, no. I don't want to do anything that I've done before,'" Rivera said. "[But Ebb stressed] 'you have to give them what they expect.' And I have learned that's absolutely true."
Rivera said her show in Palos Hills will feature a jazz combo backing her on songs from shows she has done, plus lots of great backstage anecdotes about working and performing with esteemed collaborators and co-stars. Rivera wasn't specific about which ones, but they're bound to be good considering how Rivera has worked with the likes of Jerome Robbins, Bob Fosse, Gwen Verdon and Liza Minnelli.
"In your entire career, to have been fortunate enough to been in so many shows in which you originated—and in the golden age of Broadway there were hits all over the place—original American musicals that you were a part of it, you've got to do it," Rivera said, joking that she's not about to do an evening of folk songs anytime soon.
In addition to her show highlighting her amazing Broadway career, Rivera is also awaiting the next potential chapter with her starring role as the vengeful wealthy widow Claire Zachanassian in Kander and Ebb's musical The Visit, inspired by Friedrich Durrenmatt's 1956 play. Longtime Chicago theatergoers will remember that Rivera starred in the regional world premiere of The Visit at the Goodman Theatre in 2001. It's a musical Rivera revisited this past summer at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in Massachusetts in a thoroughly reconceived production by Tony Award-winning director John Doyle.
"I always felt it needed a European approach because it's a European story. John Doyle just did a fabulous job and I'm mad about Roger Rees," Rivera said about the show's new director and her new co-star. "I don't like to talk about it, but things look quite good right now for it."
To end the interview, I hesitated to offer Rivera the customary theatrical wish of good luck by saying, "Break a leg." After all, Rivera's left leg required extensive surgery after it was broken in 12 places following a 1986 car accident involving a New York taxi. Rivera also had to briefly leave the national tour of Kiss of the Spider Woman at the Chicago Theatre when she suffered a mid-performance knee injury in 1995.
"That was in Chicago? Oh, you're right," Rivera said, excusing her memory lapse of the Chicago touring incident. "But you see, that's the kind of person I am. In order for me to survive, I have to laugh and I have to forget about the bad stuff."
Chita Rivera stars in Chita: A Legendary Celebration at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 27, at Moraine Valley Community College, 9000 W. College Parkway, Palos Hills. Tickets are $40 and $35 for seniors and students; call 708-974-5500 or visit www.morainevalley.edu/fpac.
Chita Rivera is also scheduled to perform her cabaret show, Chita's Back, from Tuesday, Oct. 7, through Saturday, Oct. 11, at Birdland, 315 W. 44th St., New York. There is a $40-$50 cover charge and a $10 food and drink minimum; call 212-581-3080.
