Philip Adrian Elson/Photo: Ryan Bourque

Here’s the concept: a panel of dance experts from Chicago, New York, LA, San Francisco, Seattle and Philadelphia convene in Chicago to collectively select twelve choreographers from each aforementioned city to participate in a competitive performance series judged by audience vote. Both experts and audience judge the artists on four criteria: Potential, Originality, Execution and Merit (it spells POEM by design). The winner takes home $10,000. Take a TV game show, reduce a season of elimination to two rounds, replace the amateur competitors with serious dance artists, toss in the opportunity for actual dialoguing with the audience beyond woots and text messages and you get The A.W.A.R.D. Show!, or Artists With Audiences Responding to Dance—the acronym-mad performance series that, despite a title that’s trying a bit too hard to garner excitement either sincerely or ironically (I’m not sure which, though the exclamation point certainly suggests the latter), does a number of exciting things for the dance community on local and national levels. One is that choreographers are given the chance to receive substantial feedback from the audience both verbally and in writing, and the audience is in turn able to share their thoughts, substantial or otherwise. Another is that the participants are chosen by dance experts who have never seen or heard of them before. This means lots of brilliant, innovative, independent artists and smaller companies were seriously mulled over by heavy hitters from the Joyce in New York, On the Boards in Seattle, Dance Affiliates in Philly and the Dance Center of Columbia College, among others. The result is an eclectic mix of artists you probably wouldn’t see on the same program at the Dance Center had the panel been entirely Chicago-based judges. Read the rest of this entry »

RECOMMENDED

Traditional Eastern dance meets contemporary Western dance this weekend at the Department of Cultural Affairs’ Storefront Theater. Shirley Mordine’s celebrated, long-running modern company collaborated with Hema Rajagopalan’s company dedicated to the practice and preservation of Bharata Natyam (a classical Indian dance form) to create three new works on the themes of family, gender, philosophy and gesture. It will be interesting to see what the exchange yields, especially in terms of the latter; Bharata Natyam is characterized by high-speed, rhythmic footwork and distinctive hand gesture, contemporary movement often by weighted, sweeping lines. The languages that emerge when these tongues are tied should be unfamiliar, fresh to the eyes and mind. (Sharon Hoyer)

At the DCA’s Storefront Theater, 78 East Washington, (312)742-8497. July 29-August 1, Friday and Saturday at 7:30pm, Sunday at 3pm. $18 in advance, $20 at the door.

RECOMMENDED

There have been at least two musical adaptations of Tod Browning’s 1932 “Freaks,” a film about circus sideshow performers. Even so, “Shrek the Musical” comes the closest to musicalizing the dark spirit of the unsettling climax of that film when the “freaks” accept an outsider as one of their own with unison cries of “We accept her! One of us! We accept her! One of us! Gooble gobble, gooble gobble! We accept her! We accept her!”

Likewise, the evicted fairy-tale characters of “Shrek” decide to unite and “out” Lord Farquaad, a closeted fairy-tale dwarf who does his best to hide his shortcomings throughout the musical (David F. M. Vaughn portrays him on his knees with a false set of short legs dangling in front of his camouflaged thighs). It is a daring moment of social action made all the more powerful occurring when it does in the show and having the fairy-tale characters carrying protest signs and singing like an angry mob (“Freak Flag.”) That is a scene you will not see in the original animated “Shrek,” and is one of many charms unique to “Shrek the Musical.” Read the rest of this entry »

Photo: Zane Davis

At one point in “Talk Radio,” an old woman calls into Barry Champlain’s radio show complaining about the lack of new “I Love Lucy” shows. Nonplussed, Champlain yells at her, “Do you know what year this is?!” and says Lucille Ball must be really old by now. Written in 1987, this line made sense two years before Ball’s death. Yet with a state-of-the-art social-media concept and not one but two sparkling Mac computers on the set, we might do well to ask the same question of the State Theatre. Concerning an adventurous Cleveland talk-radio host on his last show before it goes national, the production suffers from a basic lack of good old-fashioned script analysis. The social-media concept, which includes a live Twitter feed (the audience is encouraged to tweet and take pics) and Skyping callers, is ambitious but has no place next to references about hippies and the Vietnam War. If anything saves the show it’s the versatile cast portraying the variety of strongly written characters for which playwright Eric Bogosian is known. Now with one full season under their belt, the State has shown a penchant for ideas so crazy they just might work. We’ll see what next year brings. (Neal Ryan Shaw)

The State Theatre of Chicago at the Boho Theatre, 7016 North Glenwood. Through August 15.

Photo: Jorge Rosemberg

Tap dance, like jazz music, is an intrinsically American art form: improvisatory, rhythmically dynamic and playfully competitive, sprung from Harlem clubs in the early twentieth century where soloists would take turns besting one another in virtuosity and wit. Unlike jazz, tap remains for the most part outside the greater American dance institution, performed for ticket-paying audiences at revered venues as infrequently as it is offered in the curriculum of degree-seeking university dance programs (i.e. about once per annum), relegated instead to student clubs, studio recitals and—less frequently since the passing of Hollywood’s golden age—Broadway shows.

“There isn’t any infrastructure for American tap in the establishment now,” says Lane Alexander, founder of the Chicago Human Rhythm Project, and arguably creator of the infrastructure for American tap in the Midwest. “There aren’t any dedicated spaces for tap. It’s a big deal for the tap community to be presented at the Museum of Contemporary Art. Peter Taub [the MCA’s performance programming director] led us in the door and we felt his embrace of the community needed to be recognized.” Read the rest of this entry »

Bubba Weiler and Kevin Anderson

RECOMMENDED

Joel Drake Johnson’s latest at Victory Gardens explores redemption and the long, strange trip guilt takes us on. Thankfully, the destination is as satisfying as the journey.

Ex-con Doug (Kevin Anderson) has no place to go. His sister (Meg Thalken) is absent, so he’s forced to endure his uber-anal-retentive brother-in-law Phillip (Francis Guinan). The two manage to integrate each other into their respective mental prisons.

The piece’s mood shifts can be tough to keep a handle on; both Doug and Phillip act out without pattern. But Guinan and Anderson make up for it with killer rapport and razor-sharp timing; a simple bed-making scene is heartbreakingly hilarious. Bubba Weiler holds his own as the “lying, manic-depressive” son trapped in his own cruel adolescent reality; Sandy Shinner’s direction keeps the pacing and the physicality in check as the characters seek relief from their burdens and the seemingly unobtainable vision of their futures. (Lisa Buscani)

Victory Gardens Theater, 2433 North Lincoln, (773)871-3000. Through August 15.

Photo: Michael Litchfield

RECOMMENDED

Sometimes all you need is a simple premise and a flexible, talented cast. Writer and producer Laura Jacqmin’s “Dental Society Midwinter Meeting” is a deceptively light-on-its-feet satire that succeeds in finding humanity in small episodes between characters you may only meet once or twice.

Scandal has rocked the North Shore Regional Dental Society: President Morris J. Morris, Jr., has been found to have been sleeping with his hygienist and letting her, unlicensed, perform advanced dental procedures. The members of the society have convened for the midyear meeting with the single goal of rectifying this mess.

The exceedingly clever script by Jacqmin pokes loving fun at its dentist characters without condescending to them. Words can’t express briefly the merits of the six-member ensemble cast, who are largely responsible for the aforementioned humanity. Late in the play there’s a scene in a karaoke bar, and it’s the saddest, funniest, most heartbreaking scene about dentists you’ve ever seen. (Neal Ryan Shaw)

At Play Productions at Chicago Dramatists, 1105 West Chicago, (773)828-4331.  Through August 7.

Cristian Gorostieta/Photo: Aurelia Fisher

RECOMMENDED

As a living, breathing, historical record of where queer youth culture was in the early part of the twenty-first century, About Face Theatre’s “Queertopia” is an important show. Subtitled “The Anti-Violence Project,” this eighty-minute, collage-structured, professionally produced and youth-performed oral history project boasts opening moments of real theatrical magic, courtesy of director Sara Kerastas, choreographers Patrick Andrews and Donnell Williams, and costume designer Jillian Gryzlak. Grant Sabin’s minimalist set design—silver metal structures of stairways, platforms and scaffolding, as if the audience were about to take in a futuristic sci-fi “West Side Story”—is also something to behold.

A black drag queen, outfitted in high heels and a navy and white polka dot-fitted dress—Christian Dior would have loved it—breaks the fourth wall and becomes our hostess to Queertopia. She bookends the play and doles out enough camp and ‘tude to make RuPaul want to hang it up. A pile of intertwined bodies, what looks like the aftermath of a strenuous game of ultimate Twister, is actually the eleven young cast members who will go on to play all of the kinky denizens of Queertopia. They start twitching and the clump of bodies begins to convulse spastically as they unglue and separate. When they finally come to individual life, representing a cross-section of queer youth in every color, shape and gender identification in the rainbow, the audience is treated to a dynamic large group dance number with a spirit that recalls the terpsichorean joys of a 1980s episode of “Fame.” (It must also be said that Gryzlak’s costumes—leg-warmers, satin jackets, bold primary color clashes—could have come straight out of one of those episodes, too.) Finally, an actor begins flipping cue cards in a visual homage to Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues” film clip, or since we’re talking 1980s, like they do in that “Need You Tonight” INXS music video. The cards feature the names of gay and gay-friendly artists and activists—many of them dead before any of these performers were even born—whose lives and work made it possible for LGBTQ folks to be where they are today. Read the rest of this entry »

Do you love theater? Do you love comic books? Do you love them both at the same time? The Factory Theater, with their new show “The League of Awesome,” certainly does. But given the on-again, off-again status of the beleaguered Spider-Man musical, it’s difficult to be optimistic about the theater’s capacity for earnest superhero plays. The Factory, therefore, takes the easy route and goes straight for the parody. In a fictional comic-book city, the members of The League of Awesome have imprisoned the last of their fair city’s super-criminals (who is also the ex-boyfriend of one of them)—until, one year later, he escapes with plans to take over the world. The play for a while is relentlessly funny, with Japanese koken stagehands cleverly supplying the superheroic magic. Cowriters Corri Feuerstein and Sara Sevigny, along with director Matt Engle, certainly know their comic-book archetypes, but all is lost when it comes to sympathetic characters. The jokes grow tiresome and by the end you realize there’s little substance behind the heroes’ gaudy masks. (Neal Ryan Shaw)

The Factory Theater at Prop Thtr, 3504 North Elston, (866)811-4111. Through August 21.

Don’t confuse this show with the one currently running at Chicago Shakespeare! Based on the Hans Christian Andersen tale of the same name, “The Emperor’s New Clothes” repositions the well-known fable as a political PR team attempting to distract a disgruntled public from a political scandal of epic proportions with a fashionable, expensive parade. As Mayor of Los Angeles, and head perpetrator of the scandal, Don Claudin is the perfect pompous politico, providing the majority of the show’s laughs (of which there are few). It’s a thought-provoking idea, but unfortunately lacking in execution. Sound cues occasionally overpower the dialogue and director Carolyne Anderson needs to give her actors more inspired blocking for those sections of Keely Haddad-Null’s script that get especially talky. There’s a good piece of work in here somewhere but it needs further refinement to truly shine. On the plus side, mixing full-on nudity with overtones of political corruption is sure to thrill tea-baggers of all stripes. (Zach Freeman)

National Pastime Theater, 4139 North Broadway, (773)327-7077, through August 1. $20.