Bebe Neuwirth said she knew she was going to be a dancer even before she could dance.

“I was 5 years old when I knew, and I never considered doing anything less with my life other than dancing,” she said in a phone interview from New York. “I’ve been on stage since I was 7, dancing, because that’s where dancers belong.”

She began with ballet in her hometown of Princeton, N.J., but at age 15, she saw the original version of “Chicago” on Broadway and was taken with Bob Fosse’s choreography.

That changed her focus.

“I decided then that I wanted to dance on Broadway and to do Bob Fosse shows,” she said. “I recognized the choreography as something that lived inside me.”

Not only has she lived out her dream, but she’s done it twice over, having performed both lead female roles in “Chicago,” a Tony-winning turn as Velma Kelly in the 1996 revival using the original Fosse choreography and later as the hapless gold-digger Roxie Hart for the 10th anniversary of the revival.

“It was a very exciting, very interesting experience,” she said, but not as unusual an undertaking as it seems on the surface. “Understudies do it all the time.”

Her film credits include “Liberty Heights,” “Summer of Sam,” “Celebrity,” “Jumanji,” “Green Card,” “The Paint Job,” “Bugsy” and “Tadpole.t for the 10th anniversary of the revival.

She also received a Tony Award for her role as Nickie in “Sweet Charity,” and has performed on Broadway in “Fosse,” “Damn Yankees,” “Dancin’,” “Little Me” and “A Chorus Line.”

On television she is well known for her role as Lilith Sternin on “Cheers,” for which she won two Emmy Awards. ”

She’ll revive some of the songs from “Chicago” this weekend as Neuwirth performs with Erich Kunzel and the Cincinnati Pops,, where a fair dose of John Kander and Fred Ebb — composers of “Cabaret,” which she’s never performed in (yet) as well as “Chicago” — along with a slection of songs by Kurt Weill and Kander.

“It’s all music that I love,” she said. “They are all great songs for different reasons and they hang together very well.”

She said that outside of the context of the show the song has been written for, each song has a story of its own.

“In addition to the narrative thread, there’s an emotional thread that can link the songs, not necessarily literally, but in some kind of emotional way.

“So I’m not telling the story of ‘Chicago’ (in concert), but exploring how the songs speak to each other,” she said. “It’s interesting, for instance, to sing ‘Razzle Dazzle’ and then ‘Class’ right after it.

“The show is exquisite and the songs are so brilliant they can live even outside the show.”

 
how to go
WHAT: Bebe Neuwirth with the Cincinnati Pops.
WHERE: Music Hall, 1241 Elm St., Cincinnati.
WHEN: 8 p.m. tonight and Saturday; 2 p.m. Sunday.
COST: $24-$66.
MORE INFO: (513) 381-3300; CincinnatiPops.org