Photo: Anthony Aicardi

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Chicago’s performance scene in the late eighties and early nineties was an embarrassment of riches: notables like Ira Glass and David Sedaris took what they perfected here to national fame and fortune. But an equally successful, more diverse player in a sprawling, multi-disciplinary scene, painter, poet and actor Tony Fitzpatrick delivers the compelling stories and images that brought him to prominence.

Steppenwolf hosts this latest incarnation in its Garage, and I’m guessing Fitzpatrick wouldn’t have it any other way. His work is unabashedly populist, reminding us of the decency that went hand-in-hand with the violent struggles of yesteryear, a dignity forgotten in today’s savage, PC times.

The piece isn’t perfect; musical commentary by the plaintive Kat Eggleston and the reliable Buzz Kilman is underused. Fitzpatrick seemed to be searching at times, which kept him from connecting. But watching Tony Fitzpatrick search is still more interesting than watching what other performers find. (Lisa Buscani)

16th Street Theater at Steppenwolf Garage, 1624 North Halsted, (312)335-1650, through August 1.

Nora Fiffer and Nathaniel Swift/Photo: Scott Cooper

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Clocking in at an epic three hours and serving as an autobiographical allegory for Arthur Miller’s own personal life, including his failed marriage to Marilyn Monroe, “After the Fall” has never enjoyed the popularity of his other more celebrated plays. That is a shame, for as Eclipse Theatre’s current and rare production that serves as the centerpiece of its entire season of Arthur Miller plays demonstrates, this is a remarkable work full of insight and revelation that can be appreciated even if you know nothing of the real-life events that spawned it.

It would be difficult to imagine a romance and subsequent marriage less likely nor more publicly scrutinized than that of polar opposites Miller, America’s most lauded playwright, and Monroe, blonde bombshell and pop-culture icon. For the destructive effect of that relationship on both of them personally and professionally to become fodder for a Miller play two years after Monroe’s suicide was too much for critics and audiences to accept at the time. Despite Miller’s insistence that the work was no more or less autobiographical than any of his other plays, the similarities were too much to bear for a wound so recent and most viewed it as Miller’s exploitive attempt to assuage his own guilt for having left Monroe before her self-destruction. Read the rest of this entry »

Photo: Giau Truong

Dream Theatre Company closes the book on their ambitious Agon Trilogy with “Orestes,” which finds the Audience (both literal and literary) following Electra’s journey into hell to rescue her dead brother after the events of her own eponymous play. Once again departing radically from the story points of the original “Oresteia,” Jeremy Menekseoglu’s play unfolds as a sort of Greek Myth Greatest Hits Jukebox, as Electra encounters the likes of Pandora, Persephone, Medea’s children and Agamemnon himself along her way to find Orestes.

Dream Theatre’s sense of world creation is impeccable, with a forest-of-planks set, noirish lighting and edgy costumes. Design-wise, only the soundtrack, packed with big band jazz, British music hall and hard rock numbers, might be considered a misstep. Ultimately, the plot of “Orestes” meanders from set-piece to set-piece with too little urgency, caring more to comment somehow on mythology and storytelling (and why do the characters keep referring to us as the all-seeing “Audience?” What does that mean?) than getting to the nitty-gritty of Electra’s epic quest. DTC’s road to hell is indeed paved with good intentions, and little more. (Neal Ryan Shaw)

Dream Theatre Company, 556 West 18th Street, (773)552-8616. Through August 15.

Luke Renn, Laura McClain, Josh Hambrock and Kevin Anderson

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Having had several unsuccessful films in a row and being infamously included on a movie-theater owners’ list of late-1930s movie stars that were considered “box-office poison,” Katharine Hepburn turned to Broadway and her friend and playwright Philip Barry to come up with a stage vehicle to help rescue her sagging career. “The Philadelphia Story” was the end result and, with its lead character having been written expressly for Hepburn, fit her comedic and dramatic strengths like a glove.

The play was a huge success not only in New York, but across a national tour that Hepburn headlined, not only regaining her popularity virtually city by city, but far exceeding it. Hepburn shrewdly financed the play and retained a large percentage of the play rights for herself rather than take a large salary, and just to make sure that when a movie version would be made that she would be the one to star in it, had her boyfriend Howard Hughes buy the movie rights for her, which she sold to MGM, complete with director and co-star approval. Read the rest of this entry »

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Since 2001, artistic director Pete Guither has been projecting images onto naked performers as part of “The Living Canvas.” “Demons,” their seventh show in Chicago, delves into the mind of a troubled young woman as she transports her sister into the fantastical world she lives in: a world filled with faeries, phantasms and playful creatures. These creatures are boldly portrayed by eight other unclad actors of varying shapes and sizes who are constantly in motion: scrambling up the scaffolding of the set, executing elaborate movement routines, or creating a living wall of art. The psychedelic color displays projected onto the actors and the set coupled with Isaac Mandel’s invigorating sound design exquisitely highlight the simple beauty of the piece. For anyone feeling particularly affected by the summer heat, Guither has a solution for you: take those restrictive clothes off. Seriously. There is a full number designed for audience participation at the end of every show. From the packed house on the night I saw it, and the amount of willing audience participation, “The Living Canvas” is highly regarded not only as a visually striking performance, but as an exciting, interactive experience. (Zach Freeman)

The Living Canvas at National Pastime Theater, 4139 N. Broadway, (773)327-7077, through August 14. $20.

Sam Richardson/Photo: John McCloskey

The opening gag in Second City’s 98th mainstage revue dares audiences to break the fourth wall, and it involves not a single cast member in sight.

It is a radical moment (best experienced firsthand) for such a mainstream, name-brand comedy theater.  At Second City, audiences have been conditioned to assume nothing too uncomfortable will be asked of them, but suddenly that usual sit-back-and-relax ethos becomes sit-up-and-take-notice.

I don’t want to oversell what is really just a brief moment in the show, but it does upend the Second City formula just enough to suggest that “Spoiler Alert: Everybody Dies” might be headed in some intriguing and unpredictable directions. That the show is in fact as traditional as any of its predecessors probably isn’t that surprising.

I find it’s best to assess Second City on its own terms—the comedy is of a certain type and style—and director Matt Hovde and his cast have brought strong concepts to the stage. The execution is another matter. Read the rest of this entry »

Danielle Scanlon/Photo: Cheryl Mann

The early twenty-first-century U.S. is a rough place to be an emerging artist. Or an established one for that matter, as the recession delivers blow after blow to already-overstretched arts funders (see the much-beleaguered Illinois Arts Council, supporter of organizations as large as the Art Institute and small as Strawdog Theatre Company, which lost over 60 percent of its budget in the last three years) and artists are forced to scramble and/or go unpaid to bring their work to the public. Melissa Thodos, founder of Thodos Dance Chicago (one of the lucky IAC grantees to receive their money on time this year), makes fostering new choreographic talent part of her company’s mission, on equal footing with performance and education. This weekend, Thodos Dance’s tenth annual “New Dances” program will premiere works by ten company members—four of whom are making their choreographic debut—along with a stunning new piece by guest choreographers Francisco Avina and Stephanie Martinez Bennitt. Read the rest of this entry »

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Pearl Primus had originally planned on a career in biology but, as an African-American woman in the first half of the twentieth century, she ran into a lot of closed doors. Luckily for the artistic world, Primus went on to become a pioneer of traditional African and African-American concert dance, bringing academic rigor to her research and passion to the floor. Primus was among the first to present African dance to mainstream American audiences, performing original works informed by the black diaspora to academics, civil-rights fighters and Broadway theater-goers alike. In other words, Primus not only paved the way, but also graded the ground and invented the asphalt for companies like Muntu. This Saturday, Muntu will be the first African-American dance company to present Primus’ work, including “A Negro Speaks of Rivers,” her signature piece based on a Langston Hughes poem. The program includes a tribute to Michael Jackson and celebratory dances of the Yankadi, Kassa and Macru people; expect a high-energy, mixed program that will pull you right out of your seat. (Sharon Hoyer)

At the Harris Theater for Music and Dance, 205 E. Randolph, (312)334-7777. Saturday, July 17, 7pm. $25-50.

Thea Lux, Tara Sissom, Brandon Ruiter, Chris Gingrich, Henry Riggs/Photo: Anne Peterson

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Could The New Colony’s “That Sordid Little Story” be one of the best original musicals that Chicago has produced in years? I certainly think so. Because while not everyone may be a fan of bluegrass, the storytelling could use a tad more attention and the set design is a bit of an interesting mess, there is no denying that “That Sordid Little Story” is dramatically gripping, musically soaring and oftentimes emotionally devastating.

If you haven’t heard of The New Colony, they are a barely three-year-old Chicago collective of artists who create their work in the ensemble tradition, nurturing their pieces—or so I’m told—through long periods of creative gestation which has their roots in improvisation, workshop and experimentation.

For their latest, Artistic Director Andrew Hobgood had a story in mind about a young man circa the early 1960s who finds personal resonance in the music and lyrics of a band named That Sordid Little Story. He embarks on an arduous trek across the Deep South in search of the band’s next obscure gig—today he’d simply hook up with them via the band’s Facebook or MySpace pages—and along the way meets an eclectic cast of characters who for better or worse shape his journey and impart something on his quest for meaning. This is the simple, heart-on-its-sleeve story, for which Hobgood recruited two musicians, Chris Gingrich and Henry Riggs, to begin composing songs whose lyrics and musical flavor would fit the ideas and moments that were being fleshed out on paper and in rehearsal. Two dozen songs, three credited writers, nine actors playing twice as many characters and a “live” five-piece band later, and you have “That Sordid Little Story.” Read the rest of this entry »

Brandon Chandler, Rashada Dawan/Photo: Foster Garvin, Jr.

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There is a line in “The Drowsy Chaperone” that asks, “Please, Elton John, must we continue this charade?” referencing the British rocker’s ongoing attempts to write Broadway musicals.

Curiously, that trajectory began indirectly when John was asked to write five songs with lyricist and former Andrew Lloyd Webber partner Tim Rice for Disney’s 1994 animated film “The Lion King.” Those hugely popular songs—John’s best “stage” songs to date even if they had nothing whatsoever to do with the plot of “The Lion King,” such as it was—became part of Julie Taymor’s stunning 1997 Broadway production, due back here next September.

The duo was re-engaged by Disney to score two additional animated films, “The Road to El Dorado,” released in 2000, and “Aida,” which was never made. Based on the Verdi opera as it was adapted for a children’s book by soprano Leontyne Price, the definitive “Aida” of her generation, an “Aida” concept album was recorded in 1998, much as Rice had done with Lloyd Webber for properties such as “Jesus Christ Superstar” and “Evita” before they became stage works.

When the animated version fell through, Disney Theatricals put together a mammoth stage adaptation with Goodman Theatre’s Robert Falls as director and one of three credited co-writers, always the signal of a troubled past. It was that version that previewed in Chicago with Heather Headley (Nala in the Broadway “Lion King”) and Adam Pascal (the original Roger in “Rent”) in late 1999 before hitting Broadway in March of 2000, though not before the elephantine scenery that had so many problems—even infamously injuring Headley and Pascal here in Chicago—was simplified before opening on the Great White Way. That version won four Tony Awards, ran for four years and spawned a national tour that ran for another three years but ironically, never came back to Chicago (Joliet was the closest it came). Read the rest of this entry »