F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel “The Great Gatsby” has held its place on high school literature and college “required reading” lists for a century, and with good reason.
Fitzgerald and his publishing contemporaries like Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner and John Steinbeck (and later scribes J.D. Salinger and Harper Lee) are the roster of book cover literary great names to give us some of the most cherished modern-day classics.
Fitzgerald died young at age 44 in 1940, a victim of his alcoholism and life’s other demons that haunted him in his lifetime, such as his wife Zelda being institutionalized from 1930 until her death at age 47 in 1948. (Hollywood gossip columnist Sheliah Graham became Fitzgerald’s gal-pal in his final years from 1937 to 1940.)
Long after his death, as well as the death of Fitzgerald and Zelda’s only child, daughter Frances “Scottie” Fitzgerald, who died at age 64 in 1986, continued to celebrate the legacy and mystique of her father’s most famous and elusive character, Jay Gatsby. Scottie wanted him to live on in hearts, minds and new media opportunities to introduce the party-throwing playboy to further generations.
“The Great Gatsby,” reimagined as a musical stage story, opened on Broadway in April 2024 and won the 2024 Tony Award for Best Costume Design.
Following an overseas “sit-down” four-month run in South Korea, a new U.S. national tour of “The Great Gatsby” launched in February. Now, Broadway In Chicago is hosting the musical tour run at Cadillac Palace Theatre, 151 W. Randolph St., through May 3.
Set in the Roaring Twenties, the story follows the details of the novel about eccentric and mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby, who will stop at nothing in the pursuit of the lost love of his youth, Daisy Buchanan. Long Island society wealth, bootleg booze and the glittering fashion and elegance of the bygone era set the atmosphere, backed by the music and lyrics by Tony Award nominees Jason Howland and Nathan Tysen, book by Kait Kerrigan, staged by award-winning director Marc Bruni, and all the right moves by choreographer Dominique Kelley.
The Estate of F. Scott Fitzgerald said: “This production is a big, bold, Broadway version of ‘The Great Gatsby.’ It’s thrilling to see these indelible characters and iconic moments from the novel come to life on stage. This stage production, which honors the novel and its history while also speaking clearly to today’s audiences, is a terrific new iteration of this classic work.”
The scenic and projection design is by Paul Tate dePoo III, and the Tony Award-winning costume designs are by Linda Cho.
One of the most popular novels of all time, “The Great Gatsby” continues to be a New York Times perennial best seller. It has sold over 30 million copies worldwide since its release in 1925 and continues to sell more than 500,000 per year.
The novel has been translated into more than 42 languages and has been adapted into television shows, radio plays, video game nods and multiple films, most recently the 2013 blockbuster Baz Luhrmann feature film starring Leonardo DiCaprio in the title role. This North American musical tour is produced by Chunsoo Shin, OD Company and NETworks Presentations.
“We changed a few things for this tour,” said Jake David Smith, who plays Jay Gatsby, when we chatted last week.
“The previous runs used lighting and effects to have the orchestra pit at those various venues serve as the swimming pool at Gatsby’s mansion. Now, the swimming pool finale scene uses the stage area farther back for that effect. But this production really has kept all of the bells and whistles of the Broadway run, including Gatsby’s signature yellow Rolls Royce that glides across the stage.”
Senzel Ahmady, who plays Gatsby’s love interest Daisy Buchanan, describes the Tony award-winning costumes as “a feast for the eyes” and “ages-old glamour for a new generation.” Her last time touring through Chicago was to play Princess Jasmine in Disney’s “Aladdin” in May 2023.
“Fun fact about the white gown I wear during the stage bows at the end,” Ahmady teased me last week while visiting post-show.
“That dress was originally created and used in the early incarnation of this show back in October 2023 in the pre-Broadway previews at Paper Mill Playhouse in New Jersey to showcase in the big ‘La Dee Dah party scene.’
“When it was decided to create a new gown for that scene, Eva Noblezada, who was playing Daisy, pleaded that another place in the show should still include this white dress because she loved it so much. So it was decided to use it when my character comes out to take cast bows.”
Tickets for “The Great Gatsby” are $49.00 to $140.00 and available by calling 312-977-1700, or going to www.broadwayinchicago.com or www.broadwaygatsby.com.
In the 2002 made-for-TV movie “Last Call” starring Jeremy Irons as F. Scott Fitzgerald in his final years, the screenplay was based upon the 1985 memoir “Against the Current: As I Remember F. Scott Fitzgerald,” written by his last secretary, Frances Kroll Ring. She was a new college graduate (about the same age as his own daughter) who worked from his in-home office at his Los Angeles home in 1939.
She describes his struggles trying not to drink while in writing mode and his relationship and time balance between courting syndicated columnist Sheilah Graham and spending time with his daughter, who was away enrolled in school. Most of all, she devotes great length to his eccentric diet cravings for black coffee, Hershey chocolate bars, bottles of cold Coca-Cola and pans of homemade fudge.
As much as I tried with research and archives, I found no recipes to share for Fitzgerald’s favorite pans of fudge. (In the 2002 movie, Neve Campbell, who plays his secretary, is depicted as purchasing store-bought box kits for making fudge.) What I did find was Fitzgerald’s recipe for his favorite version of a “bloody Mary” cocktail, the same concoction also sipped and served to his pal Hemingway.
The recipe comes from “The Great American Writers’ Cookbook,” published in 1981 and compiled by Dean Faulkner Wells. The recipe was provided by Scottie Fitzgerald and is called the “Bloody Bull,” clearly a name dedicated to Hemingway, who wrote about the annual “running of the bulls” in Spain.
Scottie explains her father’s recipe as follows in the book: “My father and Hemingway were alleged to have invented the Bloody Bull while arguing about a Faulkner novel in the Ritz Bar after Hemingway’s return from Pamplona. My father thought that Mr. Faulkner was one of the greatest writers who ever lived, and it would have been quite characteristic of him to have defended this position while horizontal, if necessary.”
The Bloody Bull Cocktail
Serves 8 (or one afternoon of drinks for F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway)
Ingredients
1 large can (32 ounces) V8 juice
2 cans (10.5 ounces each) beef bouillon
Juice of 4 lemons
Dash of lemon pepper
Splash of Worcestershire sauce
Dash of Tabasco
Sprinkle of celery salt
A large stalk of celery to use to stir pitcher contents
Vodka, added to taste and liking
Directions
Mix all these ingredients in a large chilled pitcher, stir vigorously, add vodka, and pour over cracked ice.
The celery stalk is not necessary, but adds a touch of elegance.
Columnist Philip Potempa has published four cookbooks and is a weekly radio host at WJOB 1230 AM. He can be reached at philpotempa@gmail.com or mail your questions: From the Farm, PO Box 68, San Pierre, Ind. 46374.
