“I love animals. There’s no doubt I would have a zoo,” Lisa Bridges said. “After my last dog, I waited 10 years for another one. Murphy didn’t like little yippy dogs, but I wanted a small dog – not too little and not too big. Every once in a while I’d ask [Murphy], but the answer was always ‘no.

I have a daily ritual. If possible, at 5:30 p.m. every day, I sit down with a rum and coke with a little cherry juice added in to watch the national news followed by the local news. After that hour is over, I am either depressed, angry or befuddled. Sometimes all three.

Probably wanting to sit down, watch some television. But there they are, on stage, volunteering their time and preparing their bodies and voices for another night of rehearsing “Chicago,” which for the cast is the performance of a lifetime..