Here’s the press release from Writers’ Theatre:
Writers’ Theatre announces 2011/12 20th Anniversary Season
20th Anniversary Season to feature work by Tom Stoppard, Harold Pinter, Randall Colburn, Stephen Sondheim and Robert Hewett
Michael Halberstam, Ron OJ Parson, Stuart Carden and William Brown slated to direct Read the rest of this entry »
Here’s the press release from Lifeline Theatre:
LIFELINE THEATRE ANNOUNCES 2011-2012, 29th ANNIVERSARY SEASON OF BIG STORIES, UP CLOSE; SUBSCRIPTIONS AVAILABLE APRIL 1
CHICAGO – Lifeline Theatre Artistic Director Dorothy Milne and the artistic ensemble announce their 2011-2012, 29th anniversary season of Big Stories, Up Close. In its award-winning and audience-acclaimed style, Lifeline’s 2011-2012 season will feature five unforgettable books brought to life, plus one original play, all productions written by Lifeline Theatre ensemble members. The season will feature sprawling, classic stories as well as stirring contemporary titles, as Lifeline retains its reputation for fresh, imaginative interpretations of beloved favorites and embraces the challenges of new, thought-provoking works. And starting in 2011, Lifeline Theatre, located at 6912 N. Glenwood Ave., will produce the popular annual solo storytelling celebration, the Fillet of Solo Festival. Season subscriptions and single tickets for the 2011-2012 MainStage and KidSeries seasons go on sale April 1. To purchase season subscriptions, single tickets or for more information call the Lifeline Theatre Box Office at 773-761-4477, or visit www.lifelinetheatre.com. For specific details on ticket prices click here. To see the descriptions of the 2011 – 2012 season click here or read below. Read the rest of this entry »
RECOMMENDED
In addition to its musical theater productions, Theo Ubique has presented a number of revue shows over the years that have showcased the likes of Jacques Brel, Kurt Weill, Harold Arlen and Stephen Sondheim. The group has never performed a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical before, however, and has decided that its first foray into the crème de la crème of musical theater canons would be a revue of Rodgers and Hammerstein numbers.
Ordinarily, you might expect Theo Ubique to cobble together its own revue of R&H songs as it has with other composers, complete with anecdotes going into the context of a song within a specific show or details about how a particular song was composed. In this case, however, there was already a 1983 revue available and approved by the R&H estate that had been conceived by Jeffrey B. Moss, “Some Enchanted Evening: The Songs of Rodgers & Hammerstein.”
That revue—first done for a New York City hotel—featured two pianos and five performers and was actually somewhat of a “show-within-a-show” concept that had the performers prepare to go on as part of the show before singing solos, duets, trios and ensemble numbers with a decidedly New York cabaret-style feel that even included bits of jazz harmony and touches of swing and swagger, all done to syncopated two-piano accompaniment. Read the rest of this entry »
Keith Kupferer, David Pasquesi, Beth Lacke and Mary Beth Fisher/Photo: Eric Y. Exit
RECOMMENDED
There isn’t much to say about Goodman’s production of Yasmina Reza’s Tony Award-winning new play, “God of Carnage,” other than it’s perfect. The play itself, from the creator of one of the most financially and critically successful shows of our time, “Art,” confirms that the French writer is a master of the contemporary upper-middle-class comedy of manners. Two couples meet to civilly discuss their children, one of whom smacked the other’s son in the mouth, knocking out teeth. A briskly hilarious seventy minutes later, everything’s unwound, alliances have been broken and reassembled several times over and playground violence is the least of anyone’s problems. “Carnage” manages to carefully place layers of critique beneath the surface of crackling wit and raucous physical comedy, especially in sending up the four characters and the “types” they represent—an obnoxious corporate lawyer Alan (played as a lovable weasel by David Pasquesi), his Barbie of a wife Annette (Beth Lacke, a porcelain doll ready to crack and expel its innards), the self-made man of the world Michael (played with a masterful blend of sensitivity and gruffness by David Kupferer) who hides an ugly inner life for the sake of harmony in his marriage to the protagonist of the piece, Veronica the writer (played with just the right manic earnestness by Mary Beth Fisher), who may just be the most unhinged of all. Read the rest of this entry »
In 1994, after drowning her two young sons by pushing her car into a lake, Susan Smith reported that she had been carjacked by a black man who then drove off with her children, launching a nationwide manhunt and a public outpouring of sympathy for Smith. In “Brutal Imagination,” a play by Cornelius Eady based on a collection of his poetry with the same title, the event also triggers the birth of Mr. Zero—a black man created to “get things done.” Mixing facts, speculation and poetic extrapolation, Eady’s script finds Susan (Samantha Gleisten) and Mr. Zero (D’wayne Taylor) entwined in a dreamlike world, recounting together the events leading up to and following the murder of her children and the racial stereotypes that played into her claim and their acceptance. The otherworldliness of the presentation and the brevity of the show (under an hour) keep it from feeling emotionally manipulative, but those same two qualities leave it feeling a bit incomplete. (Zach Freeman)
Caffeine Theatre at Stage 773, 1225 West Belmont, (773)327-5252. Through April 17.
Laura Halm in Sharon Eyal’s "Too Beaucoup"/Photo: Rose Eichenbaum
RECOMMENDED
A company tour in the Middle East inspired Glenn Edgerton, Hubbard Street’s artistic director, to put together a program of all-Israeli choreographers this spring. While performing in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa, the Hubbard Street dancers stopped to train with Ohad Naharin, head of the celebrated Batsheva Dance Company, on his Gaga method—a movement technique that allowed him to continue working while suffering from a back injury. Hubbard Street has performed a good deal of Naharin’s work over the last decade, including their catchy signature piece, “Minus 16,” and this program will feature a medley of his greatest hits. Sharon Eyal, Batsheva’s associate artistic director and house choreographer, brings a world premiere of “Too Beaucoup,” featuring a robotic movement vocabulary and truly chilling costumes. It’s the first time Eyal’s work will be performed in the U.S. (Sharon Hoyer)
At the Harris Theater for Music and Dance, 205 East Randolph, (312)850-9744. March 17-20, $25-$94.
Nadia Krasteva/Photo: Dan Rest
RECOMMENDED
For those Lyric Opera subscribers who missed the October performances of “Carmen” and instead have tickets to the March performances, there is good news: this recast incarnation is a far stronger production.
The fall production had been planned around the Lyric debut of mezzo-soprano Kate Aldrich in the title role a mere five years after the company had last presented the popular warhorse, only to have Aldrich cancel due to complications from a pregnancy. Lyric’s solution was to cast the Carmen it had originally scheduled for a single matinee that Aldrich could not make—Iowa mezzo-soprano Katharine Goeldner—in all of the Carmens that Aldrich was originally scheduled to sing.
The result was a Carmen with a pleasing voice and stage presence, but a seductress in search of seductiveness, a low-energy temptless temptress. It is fascinating that Bulgarian mezzo-soprano Nadia Krasteva is neither more attractive—nor does she have a better voice—than Goeldner, but my, oh my, what a difference dramatically, which in this iconic role, counts for so much. This is a Carmen with swagger and attitude, a creature of wild and reckless freedom, which is not only what attracts Don José to her, but remains her lasting appeal to audiences. Read the rest of this entry »
Photo: Joan Marcus
When I was in grade school, my parents saw “Hair” in Los Angeles. Their program book became my version of National Geographic, where I’d sneak occasional peeks at the “tribe” in their native state—that is, in the legendary nude scene that ends Act I. The cast album played so much in our home that it was a soundtrack of my second grade. So I was quite excited to finally see the show last week, since it’d made such a lasting impression.
A revolutionary production when it became the first rock musical on Broadway in 1968, it’s not hard to imagine the resonance “Hair” had in the same year as the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy, as well as the infamous Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Not only was it upending the status quo of musical theater, but it held up a mirror to a generation waging an uprising, and was as much a communal happening as a traditional show presented by a cast to an audience.
This revival arrives with stellar credentials: like the original, it’s a production of The Public Theater, now with American Repertory Theater’s Diane Paulus at the helm and contemporary dance’s Karole Armitage handling the choreography. It won the 2009 Tony Award for Best Musical Revival. And it functions reasonably well as a period piece: you can see why it shocked the establishment in its time with overt pansexuality, celebration of drug use, anti-imperialist themes and freewheeling miscegenation. Read the rest of this entry »
Here’s the press release from Theo Ubique:
THEO UBIQUE ANNOUNCES FOUR PRODUCTIONS IN 2011/12 SEASON
Chicago, March 14, 2010 – Theo Ubique Cabaret Theatre announces the four productions comprising its 2011/12 season, which is the seventh season performing at the No Exit Café. The line-up is a mix of revues and musicals known for the award-winning and critically acclaimed theatre company. Read the rest of this entry »
RECOMMENDED
Ten young choreographers convene in a loft space in Wicker Park to put on a showcase of new work to a standing-room crowd. With virtually no funding and borrowed room, The Open Space Project puts on—for the third time—the kind of intimate, raw performance event increasingly rare in this era of artistic reliance on the corporate dollar. A pre-show exhibition of dance-related video and photography makes the bohemian scene complete. The descriptions of a few pieces on the program read like graduate paper proposals—heady and conceptually ambitious—others seek simply to explore process or the vitality of the form in the moment of performance. A laid back post-show reception encourages the audience to stick around and mingle with the artists. (Sharon Hoyer)
At the Den, 1333 North Milwaukee, second floor, March 18 and 19 at 7:30pm. $12. For advance tickets visit brownpapertickets.com/event/159382.
