If there is one advantage to a show with such advance high expectations as Mel Brooks’ musicalization of his 1974 film “Young Frankenstein” bombing in New York as badly it did, it is that Chicago gets it sooner than the shows that succeed on the Great White Way so that we have a chance to decide for ourselves. In this case, it becomes an endless and fascinating game of “What went wrong?” as you experience an excessive and heartless show that is to the Broadway musical what George Lucas’ “Howard the Duck” is to the movies. Read the rest of this entry »

RECOMMENDED

It’s impossible to have too much Fosse. The legendary choreographer is responsible for aesthetically defining generations of movement on stage and film. Thodos Dance Chicago agrees, and with the company’s Fall Concert they give us a trilogy of Fosse’s work staged by one of the dancemaker’s greatest talents, Anne Reinking. “Cool Hand Luke,” “Mexican Breakfast” and “Tijuana Shuffle” form the bones of the trio with Reinking contributing world-premiere transitional choreography. Awesome. And if there is any doubt that Fosse is still relevant, see the video mash-up of “Mexican Breakfast” and rapper Unk’s “Walk It Out” on YouTube that inspired Beyonce’s “Single Ladies” video. Also on stage will be the Chicago premiere of Artistic Director Melissa Thodos’ “Driven” and three company premieres by  Wade Schaaf, Jessica Miller Tomlinson, and the team of Mollie Mock and Jeremy Blair, all from the company’s New Dances 2009 choreography performance series. Plus two other Thodos audience favorites. Sounds like a program well worth the money, and you can catch it at the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts in Skokie or later in the month downtown at the Harris Theater. (William Scott)

November 13, 8pm at the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts, 9501 North Skokie Boulevard, Skokie, (847) 673-6300, $38. November 28, 8 pm at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance, 205 East Randolph Drive, Chicago, (312)334-7777, $25-$60.

RECOMMENDED

New York-based Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet is next on the docket of Auditorium Theatre’s International Dance Series and this is the one you have been waiting for. The relatively new company (founded in 2003)  comes to us under the artistic direction of former Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater member Benoit-Swan Pouffer and with a mission of acquiring and commissioning new works by the world’s most sought-after emerging creators of dance. Mission accomplished. Their repertoire reads like a starting lineup of the world’s best contemporary choreographers. Cedar Lake dancers are athletic and dexterous and specialize in integrating ballet into contemporary dance and a host of popular forms.  In Chicago, the program will include Crystal Pite’s “Ten Duets on a Theme of Rescue,” Didy Veldman’s “frame of view” and Jo Strømgren’s “Sunday, Again.”  You may have caught Pite’s “The Second Person” performed this summer by Nederlands Dans Theater. If you were lucky enough to see that transformational piece you know why dance fans are waiting for Cedar Lake with bated breath. (William Scott)

Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet performs November 14-15 at Auditorium Theatre, 50 East Congress, (800)982-ARTS (2787). $30-$65.

Photo: Vanessa Churchill

One of those productions that you wish had just gone all the way and presented itself as a parody. As is, “Home Front” gives a hackneyed story of the costs of war, centering on an utterly unlikable young soldier with PTSD struggling to live in his parents’ suburban home after returning from Vietnam in 1973. Rather than discovering the complexities of his trouble adjusting, we only see young Jeremy giving his family the silent treatment snarling at them for their vapidity, throwing temper tantrums, and eventually (and painfully predictably) having a psychotic breakdown that lasts far too long and involves a child’s bedtime prayer and lots of gun waving. When Jeremy lectures his caricature family members (anxious martyr housewife mother, gruff domineering father, and bratty but empathetic psychology-major sister) about the travesty of Vietnam, the cliches, cheap pathos and dated message of his rants are what finally push the show to the level of farce. Hysterics bury the occasionally fresh lines (“War does not make you rude to your parents”), but the central conflict and the stories about killing during war are too stereotypical to feel at all substantial. Actors do their best—Joan Merlo has a particularly valiant effort at making the mother sympathetic—but it’s a thankless battle. (Monica Westin)

At EP Theater, 1820 S. Halsted, (312)850-4299. Through November 15.

Here’s a surprising fact: we’re coming up on the nine-year anniversary of Aqua Teen Hunger Force’s first episode (which, appropriately, was shown unannounced at 5am). That’s nine years of a series comprised of three talking fast-food items, their hairy, masturbation-loving neighbor, a bizarre cast of supervillians and a lot of nonsensical yelling. I’m not sure how any sober person can watch more than one fifteen-minute episode at a time of ATHF’s unrestricted insanity and often plotless shenanigans, but I’ll admit that the show (and this goes for anything on Adult Swim) can be pretty damn hilarious when in you’re in certain moods, especially any kind of stupor. The live show, featuring show co-creators Dave Willis and Dana Snyder, promises to include unseen clips from the show, script readings, and live music (?), so hardcore fans of the show and anyone who can handle at least an hour of unmitigated absurdity should feel right at home. (Andy Seifert)

November 13 and 14 at Lakeshore Theater, 3175 N. Broadway, (773)472-3492. $15.

RECOMMENDED

It’s mostly inaccurate to label Bill Cosby as a “stand-up comedian” anymore. First off, no way in hell is he going to be standing—the 72-year old understandably plops himself into a chair for his shows. Second, Cosby doesn’t fit the traditional mold of stand-up’s set-up/punchline structure—he’s more of a storyteller with humorous tangents and an overtly slurred delivery. (Here’s part of a joke, transcribed verbatim, he told on the “Late Show”: “I remember, 47, uh, two years ago, I swear, they came, they came. We we we we we—our children—we we we want, we want a dogggg.”) That said, even as a temperamental, grumpy old geezer who keeps making controversial comments about socioeconomic issues, Cosby’s still kind of a goofball, certainly capable of inducing fits of laughter, even if it is after dredging up clips of his New Coke ads. (Andy Seifert)

November 14 at Genesee Theatre, 203 N. Genesee, Waukegan, (847)782-2366. $39-$75.

This is your last chance to weigh in on this and may other questions. The polls close at midnight on Wednesday so sharpen your mental pencil and get over to http://newcity.bestofchicago.sgizmo.com to get started!

Salvatore Licitra, Sondra Radvanovsky/Photo: Valerie Bromann

RECOMMENDED

Giuseppe Verdi’s “Ernani,” an early work that is rarely performed, is being heard for only the second time in Lyric Opera’s fifty-five year history, the last time having been some twenty-five years ago. Based on the Victor Hugo play “Hernani” that is set during the Spanish Renaissance, the play caused a sensation in its day but is ironically now as much remembered for having inspired Verdi to write an opera around it. Hugo’s original and convoluted plot was so reduced and reworked to its bare bones in Verdi’s opera that Hugo was understandably furious. Indeed, its tedious plot and the fact that Verdi’s music often has little to do with what is being dramatically conveyed make it an occasional undertaking for only the most Italianate-obsessed of opera companies. Why then recommend it?  Because unlike the most popular works of Verdi that so often sell themselves at Lyric that the company can often get away with assembling second-rate casts, “Ernani” is such a tough sell that you need a sterling cast to make it succeed. (The 1984 production did not succeed on any level.) Read the rest of this entry »

Melanie Manale-Hortin and Michael Gross/Photo: Marc Hauser

“We’re all emotional beings,” Frank Chaves, artistic director and primary choreographer for River North Chicago Dance says over the phone, “but dancers…when you go to work, you’re dealing with your body and your emotions.” The emotions Chaves has been grappling with over the past four years emerged in the aftermath of a surgery to remove a cyst on his spine, a procedure that altered his physical capabilities. “I was great at recuperating from the surgery itself; I’m very determined with things like that,” Chaves says, his words rapid and upbeat, fresh from the inspiration of the classroom. “ But once I was back from that and discovered what I was left with and how my life was going to change, that’s when I started dragging my feet. We all have a great ideal about the direction our life is going to take,” he continues. “All of a sudden you come to a stumbling block and you can hang on to fighting for what you thought your path was going to be, or you can change direction.” Read the rest of this entry »

Trinity Murdock with the alleluia angels/Photo: Daniel Nicholas

RECOMMENDED

I don’t think I’ve experienced such audience adulation for a jukebox musical since the opening night of “Mamma Mia!” on Broadway eight years ago. That show, which premiered only weeks after 9/11, caressed the badly bruised souls of New Yorkers everywhere, and owes part of its initial Broadway success to having been the ultimate theatrical comfort food. Spiritual healing, however, with an added shot of R&B flavored “sensual” healing, seems to be the driving force behind Jackie Taylor’s newest production at her Black Ensemble Theater, “The Message is in the Music (God is a Black Man Named Ricky).” It’s formulaic, for sure. And it’s got the problems that beset even the best of the jukebox genre musicals (and that could keep an unemployed dramaturg working): a skimpy plot; shallow characterizations; not always dramatically motivated vocal histrionics; contrived means by which random songs are inserted here and there. But who cares about “dramaturgy” when a show undeniably raises the roof as this one does, connects to its audience on an emotional and spiritual level and features some of the finest singing and dancing to be seen on a Chicago musical stage right now. What we have with this “Message” is a musical and theatrical “Chicken Soup for the Soul”—no more, no less and with no further aspirations than to find the message, not to mention the movement, in the music. On those terms, it unquestionably delivers. Read the rest of this entry »