page: 1 2 3 4   January 29, 1966 Palace Theatre Bob Fosse Bob Fosse Cy Coleman (music) and Dorothy Fields (lyrics) "Sweet Charity," based on Federico Fellini's movie THE NIGHTS OF CABIRIA, marked the long-awaited return of dancer Gwen Verdon to the stage and the beginning of Fosse's most creative period. While the source material was about a prostitute, Fosse, who had learned his lesson on "New Girl in Town," toned it down and made Verdon's eponymous main character a taxi dancer. The tragicomic musical begins as Charity Hope Valentine is thrown into a public fountain by her married lover. Later, when she thinks she's found a boyfriend who will forgive her past, the man throws her into a lake. McMartin and Verdon.