Here’s the press release from First Folio:

FIRST FOLIO ANNOUNCES
15th ANNIVERSARY SEASON

OAK BROOK – Tickets and subscriptions are now on sale for First Folio Theatre’s 2011-2012 season, celebrating their 15th Anniversary.  Opening this special season is the one-woman show based on the life of Katherine Hepburn, Tea at Five.  This will be followed by the Chicago premiere of Sean Grennan’s newest comedy Making God Laugh.  Continuing First Folio’s reputation for spine-tinglers with The Turn of the Screw will complete the indoor portion of the season.  The annual summer Shakespeare-under-the-stars will consist of The Merchant Project, a special two month long series of events centering around Shakespeare’s most controversial play, The Merchant of Venice.   Season subscriptions and individual tickets may be purchased by calling the box office at 630-986-8067 or online at www.firstfolio.org.  Ticket prices range from $22-37, and subscription packages begin as low as $52. 

Oak Brook-based First Folio Theatre begins its 15th Anniversary celebration with a chance to spend an evening with Katharine Hepburn, Hollywood’s most private celebrity, in Tea at Five.  This one-actress show, by Matthew Lombardo, takes place in the living room of Hepburn’s New England estate.  With act one set in 1938 and act two in 1983, the show gives audiences an intimate look at two major periods in the life of the feisty, aristocratic, and unrepentant star of such cinematic treasures as The Philadelphia Story, The African Queen, and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.  Melissa Carlson stars in this one-woman show that brings Hollywood’s greatest legend to life.  “A fascinating character study of an actress who was every bit as colorful as the characters she portrayed.” (Pioneer Press) 

The anniversary merriment continues with the laugh filled Making God Laugh, the latest comedy from First Folio’s own Sean Grennan, the playwright behind such comic masterpieces as Married Alive, A Dog’s Life, and Another Night Before Christmas.  Grennan has created that rare play which manages to be absolutely genuine, moving, and deeply funny all at once, providing a portrait of a family seen in four holidays over thirty years.  Featuring Kevin McKillip and David Rice, this comedy proves that you can go home again…but is it a good idea?  

The indoor portion of the subscription series finishes with Jeffrey Hatcher’s brilliant adaptation of Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw.  A young governess journeys to a lonely English manor house to care for two recently orphaned children. As the story unfolds, however, she begins to see the specters of the former governess and her lover haunting the children.  As the young governess strives to stop the fiends from taking the children away, one frightening question tortures the would-be heroine: Are the ghosts real, or merely a product of her own fevered imagination?  First Folio associates Nick Sandys and Melanie Keller play all of the characters in the show the Boston Globe calls “a portrait of psychological vampirism…”  and the NY Times says is, “A dazzling act of the imagination. Mr. Hatcher has pushed James’ clever turn to its furthest degree.” 

Closing the season with its annual Shakespeare-under-the-Stars, First Folio will present The Merchant of Venice.  Shakespeare’s most controversial play is a complex tale of hatred, love, revenge, and betrayal.    Set in 16th C. Venice, this production will be the central element of a two-month long series of events that examine the Bard’s dark tale and the effect it has had not only on future dramas, but on all of society. Working under the title of “The Merchant Project”, the core series of events include bringing in four other theater companies to present staged readings of alternate versions of Shylock’s tale.  

The companies and plays include:     
The Yiddish National Theater of New York (America’s sole surviving professional Yiddish theater company) presenting Shylock and His Daughter, by Maurice Schwartz.  This English translation of a Yiddish theater work tells the same tale as Shakespeare – but from Shylock’s perspective.·    
Teatro Vista (Chicago’s only fully professional Latino theater) presenting The Merchant of Santa Fe, by Ramon Flores and Lynn Butler.  Set in late 17th C. Santa Fe, then a frontier town in colonial New Spain, the story revolves around the money lender Don Saul, who claims to be a converso, (a Jew who has converted to Christianity), but who is really still practicing Judaism in secret.·      
Silk Road Theatre (which showcases playwrights of Asian, Middle Eastern, and Mediterranean backgrounds) presenting Merchant on Venice by Shishir Kurup.  Set among the South Asian community of Culver City, California, on Venice Blvd., in this version the Shylock character and is a Muslim who lends money to the predominantly Hindu residents of the area.·      
Signal Ensemble (one of Chicago’s hottest young theater companies) presenting Christopher Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta.  This dark tale, which experts cite as one of the inspirations for Shakespeare’s tale, is a satiric comedy in which Catholics and Turks come off as no less venal than the Jew, who at least is not a hypocrite.

In conjunction with the management of Mayslake Hall, the Merchant Project will also feature a series of lectures, concerts, and art exhibits revolving around The Merchant of Venice.   A full calendar of events will be released after the first of the year. 

All performances take place on the grounds of the Mayslake Peabody Estate, which is owned and operated by the Forest Preserve District of DuPage County.   Indoor shows are presented in Mayslake Hall, a 30-room Tudor Revival style mansion originally built by coal baron Francis S. Peabody.  Completed in 1922, the mansion is on the National Registry of Historic Places.  Located at 31st St. and Rt. 83 in Oak Brook, First Folio is easy to get to from either the East-West Tollway (I-88) or the Stevenson Expressway (I-55).  Free parking is available on the grounds. 

First Folio Theatre is supported in part by grants from the Illinois Arts Council, a State Agency, the Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation, and the DuPage Community Foundation. Performance schedules and ticket prices are attached. 

2011-2012 SEASON SCHEDULE 

Tea at Five by Matthew Lombardo,           
Previews:             Sept. 14, 15, 16 @ 8:00           
Opening Night:             Sept. 17 @ 8:00           
Runs:              September 14 ~ October 16           
Performance Times:             Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays @ 8:00; Sunday matinees @ 3:00            

Making God Laugh by Sean Grennan           
Previews:             Feb. 1, 2, 3 @ 8:00           
Opening Night:             Feb. 4 @ 8:00           
Runs:              February 1 ~ March 4           
Performance Times:             Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays @ 8:00; Sunday matinees @ 3:00 

The Turn of the Screw by Jeffrey Hatcher, from the story by Henry James           
Previews:             March 28, 29, 30 @ 8:00           
Opening Night:             March 31  @ 8:00           
Runs:              March 28 ~ April 29           
Performance Times:             Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays @ 8:00; Sunday matinees @ 3:00           

The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare           
Previews:             July 11, 12, 13 @ 8:15           
Opening Night:             July 14 @ 8:15           
Runs:              July 11 ~ August 19           
Performance Times:             Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays, & Sundays @ 8:15           

Tickets:            $20-37 adults, $26-30 Students/Seniors  (Previews $22)Subscriptions: $51-99

Season subscriptions and individual tickets may be purchased by calling the box office at 630-986-8067 or online at www.firstfolio.org.

Here’s the press release from A Red Orchid:

Please join us for our 2011-2012 Season!

Recently touted as Chicago’s best theatre by Chicago Magazine, A Red Orchid invites you to Join us for our 19th fearless season. Featuring existential terror, skewed family values, a mysterious co-worker, bad manners, tangled love, creative angst, a world in revolt, and a butcher with a secret…you are sure to laugh uproariously even as you gasp in astonishment.  With three pitch-black comedies, a World Premiere and a Chicago Premiere, you won’t want to miss a single show!   Read the rest of this entry »

By Dennis Polkow

Although his diverse career spans more than thirty years and has encompassed television, movies, performance art, opera and musicals, 53-year old playwright and Los Angeles native David Henry Hwang is best known for his 1988 Tony Award-winning Broadway play “M. Butterfly” and as the preeminent voice of the Asian-American experience. His words both on and off the page tend to attract controversy, including his role in the protest of the casting of Jonathan Pryce as a Eurasian in “Miss Saigon.” That incident sparked his 1993 play “Face Value” which closed on Broadway before it was out of previews, but was somewhat reincarnated as the successful 2007 “Yellow Face,” a play which is receiving its Chicago premiere by the Silk Road Theatre Project this summer—where Hwang has collaborated previously—along with two other Hwang works: the world premiere of “Chinglish” at Goodman Theatre, and the first revival in two decades of an early work from 1981, “Family Devotions” at Halcyon Theatre. On a lunch break from “Chinglish” rehearsals at Goodman Theatre, which has reunited Hwang with his collaborator on the book for Elton John and Tim Rice’s “Aida,” Robert Falls, we walked around the downtown theater district discussing these works and what inspired them before landing at a sandwich shop. We would likely still be there if an SOS hadn’t been sent out that he was needed back for a run-through.

Why did you want to have the world premiere of “Chinglish” in Chicago?
I always wanted to have more of a presence here. It’s arguably the most vital theater town in the country in terms of energy and people doing things for good and the right reasons. I got to know the community and the community got to know me through my working with Silk Road [Theatre Project] on a couple of projects. When I wrote “Chinglish” and finished it off, I thought, “Where do I want to start this show? And I thought, “This is a play that could really work in Chicago.” So I sent it to Bob [Falls] and he was immediately responsive. He read it really quickly and committed to doing it. I finished the first draft in January of 2010, and I sent it to him in February, so it all happened pretty quick. Malik [Gillani] and Jamil [Khoury] were already planning to do “Yellow Face” at Silk Road this season anyway, and I think the decision was made to have them happen at roughly the same time. And then Halcyon came in and decided to do “Family Devotions” this summer too, so that’s kind of how it all came together. Read the rest of this entry »

Photo: Anna Marie Panlilio

By Sharon Hoyer

With his history as a drummer and English major, his equal love of Gershwin and James Brown, and his penchant for using—seriously using—shared- and counter-weight (that is, swing/Latin/Lindy/folkdance) partnering in his choreography, it’s no exaggeration to say I find Billy Siegenfeld a kindred spirit. Of course, his warm, energetic demeanor helps too. The founder and artistic director of the Jump Rhythm Jazz Project is lively and verbose and carries himself with the openness and invitation that his trademarked technique promotes… but more on that in a moment.

Last week, I visited a JRJP rehearsal in a small studio in Rogers Park. They were rehearsing a new number, a reworking of an antiwar piece created around George W. Bush’s reelection, originally called “The News From Poems” (title taken from a William Carlos Williams poem), now entitled “There Never Was a War That Was Not Inward” (courtesy Marianne Moore). After rehearsal, Siegenfeld told me why he chose to dramatically rework the number. “Time goes on and we’re still at war and now we’re at war in a second country and a third country and a fourth. I was feeling riled up and maybe even a little resigned and decided to make it about what makes people crazy,” he said. “This state of being prepared for war is a numbed state. I started reading a lot about PTSD. I’m so distraught over war, but more distraught over the state of mind that people get in that allows them not to question it.” Read the rest of this entry »

The education-focused Dance Foundation returns from a tour of Italy to perform “New Beginnings”—a new piece by founder/artistic director Robin Fisher, set and recently staged in Rome. TDF pro company filmed their Rome engagement and the footage will provide a backdrop to the one-night-only show at the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts. Now almost twenty years old, the heart and soul of The Dance Foundation is its education component, providing scholarships to Chicago-area kids and allowing them to take up to seven hours of class per week at the Fisher Dance Center gratis: a pricey education for young aspiring dancers. Some members of the company are former scholarship recipients; others come from the greater dance community. This program is a tale of inspiration and affirmation, in concert with the mission of the organization. (Sharon Hoyer)

At the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts in Skokie, 9501 Skokie Boulevard, (847)920-9121. Friday, June 17.

Manny Buckley, JoAnn Montemurro, Ron Quade, Frederick Harris/Photo: Dean LaPrairie

Chekov’s final play, “The Cherry Orchard” examines the end of oblivious gentility and the rise of an ambitious, vulgar middle class. It’s hallmarked with Chekov’s standard longing and regret, but Raven’s interpretation misses the piece’s classic Russian soul.

Ranevskaya (JoAnn Montemurro) returns to her heavily indebted Russian estate, too enraptured by her lovely cherry orchard to acknowledge her financial overdraft. She continues to rebuff the moneyraising suggestions of Lopakhin (Frederick Harris), living in the past until time runs out.  Daughters Varya (Helen Young) and Anya (Sophia Menendian) have their eyes on various suitors, only to be disappointed. It’s a world of inertia.

Andrei Onegin’s lovely vine-covered set suggests a life overgrown by a callous world but the ensemble fails to capture the bittersweet nostalgia and frustrating lack of action the characters are mired in. While Michael Menendian’s direction insists on livable pacing, it doesn’t seem to scratch the piece’s emotional surface. (Lisa Buscani)

“The Cherry Orchard,” Raven Theatre, 6157 North Clark, (773)338-2177. Through July 23.

Here’s the press release from Strawdog Theatre Company:

Strawdog Theatre Company
is excited to announce our 24th Anniversary Season

Old Times
by Harold Pinter
October 6 – November 12
Kimberly Senior, director

Petrified Forest
by Robert E. Sherwood
February 23, 2012 – March 31, 2012
Shade Murray, director

Duchess of Malfi
by John Webster
April 19, 2012 – May 26, 2012
Brandon Bruce, director  Read the rest of this entry »

Aemilia Scott and Ed Flynn

There are many moments in Gaetano Marangelli’s new play in which characters recite to each other entries from an English dictionary. You would think that such scenes would spell instant death, but there’s something about their exhaustiveness that ultimately compels. Hearing the etymology of a word like “venereal,” for instance, is like an elixir for lovers of  language. Would that the rest of the play were as dramatic as those readings, where in fact it is too verbose for its own good. Sofonisba, a failed, emotionally unstable Italian actress, hides away in her Brooklyn apartment still obsessed with her separated husband, a renowned poet and scholar. Their son tells her that his father has died, but she doesn’t believe him. The play is written with a rapacious wit, which the actors, especially Aemilia Scott as Sofonisba, are all too happy to indulge. Scott’s exuberant, buoyant Sofonisba is indeed the play’s only other saving grace, hemmed in as she is by Brendon DeMay’s flat performance as her son George and Ed Flynn’s decidedly uncharismatic Stephen, the mythical husband. I never looked forward to dictionary recitations so much. (Neal Ryan Shaw)

The Brigata at A Red Orchid Theatre, 1531 North Wells, (866)811-4111. Through July 3.

Andrew Jessop, Jacqueline Grandt/Photo: Jan Ellen Graves

RECOMMENDED

This is black box theater at its best: gripping, claustrophobic and all too real. Tracy Letts’ play famously debuted at A Red Orchid with Michael Shannon ten years before being adapted into a film, but Redtwist completely owns this production. When a hard-living, lonely waitress (Jacqueline Grandt in yet another extraordinary performance) living in a seedy hotel finds something like love in an itinerant who claims to have been a victim of military testing, what begins as atmospheric naturalism quickly becomes a descent into suffocating paranoia and Grand Guignol horror. But what makes Letts’ play so remarkable is that all the moments of skin-crawling creepiness are second only to the real terror of how desperate people can be for intimacy. Directors Kimberly Senior and Jack Magaw expertly balance psychological realism with madness and drug-addled self-destruction. The technical theater deserves a special mention, with Redtwist’s tiny black box transformed into the suffocating space of the hotel room, and an elaborate soundscape that never once lets up its immersive grip. (Monica Westin)

Redtwist Theatre, 1044 West Bryn Mawr, (773)728-7529. Through July 31.

RECOMMENDED

Six hundred friends and I had to shut it down; Facebook took over my life. It was a good instinct; I avoided the Ruckus’ projected future: when social networking grows unchecked and communication technology inhibits communication.

In a dystopian society where direct contact is taboo, five people enroll in a tech baron’s plan: to host Fox News-esque host Sebastian (Timo Aker),  gadfly Juniper (Karie Miller), exhibitionist Ivy (Elise Mayfield), wanna-be Rayne (Stevie Chaddock Lambert), lower-class pariah Simon (Joshua Davis) and a mysterious worker (Alyse Kittner), and force them to interact.

Allison Shoemaker’s creative staging emphasizes the ensemble’s isolation. Mitch Vermeersch and Aaron Dean’s script confidently plays with the genre, although the narrative muddies key plot points. The real fun’s in watching the ensemble negotiate their surroundings. Mayfield is zaftig sex on a stick; Davis’ longing is painful. Aker and Lambert’s intimacy attempts fail epically; but there’s comfort in the effort. (Lisa Buscani)

The Ruckus Theater at The Side Project, 1439 West Jarvis, (773)769-7257. Through June 26.