ESAP Theater students present Ao Ritmo do Crime at Teatro Municipal Constantino Néry

Directed by Filipa Guedes, second-year theater students from ESAP present a version of the musical Chicago at the Café-Concerto of the Constantino Néry Municipal Theater. Amid musical numbers, trials, and public confessions, a troupe of performers revisits the crimes of passion that shook the city of Chicago in the 1920s. The stories take shape through music, movement, and speech, in a constant interplay between truth and performance.

At the center of the narrative is Roxie Hart, an aspiring artist who, after committing a crime, discovers an unexpected opportunity for fame in the judicial system and the media. By her side—and against her—appear figures such as Velma Kelly, also accused of murder, and an influential lawyer who turns trials into spectacles.

As the cases unfold, the stage becomes a space where everything is performative: justice, innocence, guilt—and even identity itself. In a cabaret-inspired setting, the performers take on multiple roles, exposing the mechanisms of media manipulation and questioning to what extent the truth matters when what is at stake is the public’s attention.

Between biting humor and social criticism, this show offers a reflection on the construction of narrative, the thirst for notoriety, and the collective fascination with scandal—themes that, though rooted in the 1920s, remain disturbingly relevant today.

CAST: Beatriz Magalhães, Beatriz Oliveira, Fàtima Bellod, Hélia Viterbo, Kinga Suwała, Luísa Loureiro, Maria Beatriz Ramos, Matilde Neto, and Miqueias Rodrigues.

BOOK: Fred Ebb and Bob Fosse

MUSIC: John Kander

CHOREOGRAPHY: Bob Fosse

TRANSLATION AND ADAPTATION: Filipa Guedes

COSTUMES: Júlia Leite

DIRECTION: Filipa Guedes

ASSISTANT DIRECTOR: Lara Ferreira