Correction appended

Ahh, the good old days -- when you could murder your lover and get off scot-free.

The Eishenhower Auditorium paid tribute to some of those days when it showed a performance of the musical Chicago, the first live theater offering from the Center for the Performing Arts.

The protagonist of Chicago is Roxie Hart, a mechanic's wife turned acquitted murderer turned vaudeville star. After murdering her lover Fred Casely when he tries to leave her, Roxie convinces her husband Amos to lie for her and corroborate her alibi. When Amos sees the dead man is Casely, he turns Roxie in, who heads to Cook County jail.

In jail, Roxie meets "Mama" Morton, the hook-up to all sorts of outside help (like a good lawyer) and another murder/entertainer, Velma Kelly, who's in jail for killing her sister and husband, who were sleeping together. "Mama" sets Roxie up with all-star criminal lawyer Billy Flynn. Flynn's legal strategy relies less on a solid knowledge of the law and more on sensationalism designed to sway the jury to a "not guilty" verdict, and Roxie acts her part perfectly, playing to the jury when she's on the stand and fabricating her pregnancy when the spotlight shifts away from her (though it doesn't seem too hard to see that she's probably not pregnant, with all those vigorous dance moves.)

Billy wins the case, but Roxie's elation and media popularity is short-lived when another crime preempts hers. Left grasping for her dreams, she takes the place of Velma's sister in her vaudeville act.

The audience, especially in the orchestra and lower balcony, looked to be mostly adults and families, which is interesting, considering one of the show's themes: nostalgia for the free and easy living of its historical setting.

The story takes place in 1926, the "college-age years" of the United States of America. After "finding itself" (the Civil War) and before paying off all those student loans (the Great Depression), America partied it up in college.

The show was about living during that party. With a live band playing show-timey jazz numbers and acting as the stage's backdrop for the entire musical, the set was evocative of the idea of a 1920s speakeasy, if everyone wore tight-fitting black outfits and had Broadway-caliber singing and dancing abilities.

It was a fun show, with high-energy songs, soulful numbers that changed the pace, jokes and plenty of lithe, athletic, lingerie-clad dancers.

Of course, it had to end -- the show and the era.

"Things ain't what they used to be," "Mama" tells Velma toward the end of the show.

"They sure ain't Mama," Velma commiserates. "It's all gone."

"Whatever happened to class," the two cry as they sing about how everything is changing. "Nobody's got no class!"

To take a cue from one of the university's anti-drinking posters, that's not true for Penn State students.

We have class tomorrow, and the day after that, and next week and next week.

But -- like the 1920s, like Roxie and Velma's lament in the penultimate number -- it's gonna change. We'll have to get into that tail-diving economy in an entry-level job.

In the meantime, we still have parties and football games and -- as Chicago showed -- student discounts on good shows.

A cutline accompanying the photo with this story incorrectly reported which award the musical Chicago won. Chicago is the Tony award-winning musical.