Here’s the press release from Stage Left Theatre:

Stage Left Theatre announces 30th Season: How Far Will You Go?

Chicago, June 1, 2011 – Stage Left Theatre (SLT) is pleased to announce the programming for its 30th season. The approach of a milestone birthday inspires a lot of reminiscing, but the company is committed to making sure that its programming remains highly relevant to the current state of the country. Artistic Director Vance Smith says, “We are excited to offer these two very different perspectives on the wrought tensions and high stakes of our corporate and political climate from two of the most exciting young playwrights working today.” Read the rest of this entry »

Daniel McEvilly/Photo: John W. Sisson, Jr.

RECOMMENDED

This new adaptation of Jeanette Winterson’s novel is chock full of metaphors. With personal and place names like Silver, Pinch, Babel Dark and Cape Wrath (a real place, admittedly), you could almost make a drinking game of the play, taking a swig each time a metaphor is given expression. It’s to the credit of adapter Georgette Kelly and director Jessica Hutchinson that the ambitious show never feels overstuffed or overblown.

Silver narrates her story as a Scottish orphan girl apprenticed to a blind lighthousekeeper and as an adult constantly in search of the light that defines her life. The play traffics in stories, a series of “endless beginnings,” and it’s easy to get lost in the complex narrative that numbers Charles Darwin and Robert Louis Stevenson among its cast of characters. But Hutchinson’s staging is elegant, evenhanded and clear, and Tien Doman as the adult Silver is a sympathetic narrator. The show is a beautiful call for unabashed, wide-eyed optimism in the face of darkness. (Neal Ryan Shaw)

New Leaf Theatre at DCA Storefront Theater, 66 East Randolph, (312)742-8497. Through July 17.

Here’s the press release from The Hypocrites:

THE HYPOCRITES’ 15TH SEASON FACT SHEET:
A SEASON OF WORLD PREMIERE ADAPTATIONS

Sophocles: Seven Sicknesses
Based on Sophocles’ seven surviving texts: Ajax, Antigone, Trachinian Women, Oedipus the King, Electra, Philoctetes & Oedipus at Colonus)
Adapted & Directed by Sean Graney
WHEN: September 6-October 16, 2011
A FIVE HOUR EVENT!

Pirates of Penzance (Remount)
Music by Arthur Sullivan, Libretto by W.S. Gilbert
New Arrangement by Kevin O’Donnell
Directed by Sean Graney
WHEN: November 24, 2011-January 22, 2012

Six Characters in Search of an Author
By Luigi Pirandello
Adapted by Steve Moulds
Directed by Halena Kays
Winter 2012 TBD

Romeo and Juliet
Based on the libretto for the Bellini opera I Capuleti e i Montecchi by Felice Romani
Adapted & Directed by Sean Graney
Spring 2012 TBD  Read the rest of this entry »

Paul Barrosse always intended to return to Chicago, the place where he made a name for himself in the 1980s creating improv comedy revues while helping found the Practical Theatre Co. When the group—which for a time in the early part of the decade rivaled Second City as members like Brad Hall, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Barrosse himself all landed gigs on “Saturday Night Live”—closed its last show in 1989, its members were scattering across the country with other career obligations. Still, Barrosse knew it was just a matter of time before he found himself back on Chicago stage.

Turns out, it would be twenty-two years.

“It’s like anything, we always intended to do it, there just comes a time where you turn around and go, ‘Oh my God, it’s been twenty years,’” he says.

Barrosse, along with his wife and fellow Practical Theatre alum Victoria Zielinski, is returning to Chicago for the first time since leaving for Los Angeles in 1990 with “The Vic and Paul Show.” It’s essentially a return to their Practical Theatre manic oddball roots, but is now mixed with the experience and worldview of adulthood. Read the rest of this entry »

RECOMMENDED

Seeing this production of “Chicago” reminded me what a great musical this is, from the Bob Fosse/Ann Reinking choreography to the Kander-Ebb score and songs (“All That Jazz”) to the sexy urban costumes and funny, sardonic book that turns Chicago’s twenties jazz age into a carnival of decadence. When a national tour rolls through town long after the Broadway heyday (there have been at least ten North American tours since the 1996 revival), you always worry that you’ll see a show that cuts corners in talent and in other ways and ends up being a shadow of itself. Happily, this is far from the case. John O’Hurley is famous for playing the quirky J. Peterman on “Seinfeld,” but his vocal mannerisms are absolutely perfect for unremittant cynicism of champion barrister Billy Flynn, and his singing ain’t bad either. Terra C. MacLeod and Tracy Shayne as rival murderesses-cum-celebrities-cum-vaudevillians Velma Kelly and Roxie Hart, respectively, are seasoned Broadway musical vets, and they bring the perfect mix of sex appeal and cynicism to their roles. With the orchestra stationed front and center on stage in a vertical black box—the conductor is a frequent part of little stage bits with the cast—the usable stage area is a tightly constrained area front and center. Fortunately Fosse’s signature moves—the crowded dancers, etc.—tend to require little space to work their magic. (Brian Hieggelke)

At the Oriental Theatre, 24 West Randolph,  (800)775-2000. Through June 12. $30-$95.

"Ohio & The Lake: Navy Pier," by Robert Koon: Baize Buzan and Tim Curtis/Photo: Amanda Clifford

An earnest young clerk in 1901 is hubristically determined to convince the chaotic city to adopt his grid system,  while his pregnant wife contemplates abandoning the urban life altogether; a father meets his daughter at Navy Pier on the eve of her college decampment to say farewell and more—the tourist trap holds both tender memories of visits to the Chicago Children’s Museum as well as lessons more historical and metaphorical; a couple of buskers scuffle for territory at the Logan Square Farmer’s Market.

It’s a compelling premise—enlist twelve playwrights and directors to craft twelve short plays set in different Chicago zip codes, and it more often than not lives up to its promise in execution. Those that work best, the aforementioned three by Marisa Wegrzyn, Robert Koon and Laura Jacqmin, along wth Brian Golden’s post-coital coffeehouse encounter and Brooke Berman’s spot-on riff on vintage shop attitude, generally use their settings organically, without making them the center of the story. The least successful suffer from trying too hard with their settings or, in a couple of cases, fail to bring any real coherence at all to their stories. Unfortunately, when that happens, it’s most often in Program B—you can see both together or either program separately and I’d recommend Program A—bringing an often-engaging evening to a close on a flat note. Taken altogether, though, the work crafts an engaging and diverse narrative about our city, and “co-coordinators” Brian Golden and Cassy Sanders do a nice job of creating little bits of “business” between each story to stitch everything together. (Brian Hieggelke)

At the Greenhouse Theater Center, 2257 North Lincoln, (773)404-7336. Through July 10. $15-$30.

Here’s the press release from Sideshow Theatre:

Sideshow Theatre Announces 2011-2012 Season

CHICAGO, IL – Sideshow Theatre Company is proud to announce its 2011-2012 season, featuring three productions that examine the role of personal identity in society.  “For our fifth season,” says Artistic Director Jonathan L. Green, “we’ve chosen to showcase stories of how people, individually and as a group, reform their public face to serve the public eye.” Read the rest of this entry »

RECOMMENDED

Charles Mee’s—without exaggeration—genius adaptation of Aeschylus’ “The Suppliants,” a play about fifty sisters who flee Greece to avoid being married against their will to their cousins, modernizes one of the world’s oldest plays and teases out provocative truths about justice, love, power and romance, embodied in archetypal figures, while somehow avoiding anything close to cliché. Chicago Fusion Theatre’s production, directed by Nilsa Reyna, matches the strength of the play with an exuberant, witty, often hilariously campy and utterly romantic stylized production. The cast is energetic and utterly compelling, with David Mitchell standing out as an over-the-top queen in the making, but comedy is consistently counterpointed by remarkable poignancy, in particular a stinging monologue by John Taflan about the fictions of masculine violence. (Monica Westin)

At the Royal George Theatre, 1641 North Halsted. Through June 25.

It’s been thirty years since AIDS was first mentioned in the media. And while the AIDS-related bigotry detailed in Terrence McNally‘s 1991 script seems almost quaint today, the rest of the piece’s themes continue to stand the test of time: adultery, mortality and the biggie—the waxing, waning nature of love.

Sally (Jill Connolly) and Sam (Christopher Marcum) spend Fourth of July weekend with his sister Chloe (Jeanne T. Arrigo) and husband John (John Arthur Lewis) at the Fire Island house inherited from Sally’s brother, a recent AIDS casualty. All four are uncomfortable in the pervasively gay environment, trapped between dueling opera and Judy broadcasts.

Seth Remington’s deck set and Rachel Sypniewski’s costume design capture the summer season. Unfortunately, Remington’s direction doesn’t master the script’s tonal changes and transitions. Equally, the ensemble doesn’t get a good grasp on the emotions in play here: the neediness, anger and the omnipresent fear. (Lisa Buscani)

Remarcable Productions at the Viaduct Theater, 3111 North Western, (773)296-6024. Through July 2.

Nancy Stark Smith: "Exactness of Weights of Feeling Kuva"/Photo Raisa Kyllikki Karjalainen

RECOMMENDED

A new week-long festival celebrating the creation of art in the moment firmly establishes Chicago as a thriving center of vital, groundbreaking dance. Presented jointly by the Dance Center of Columbia College and Links Hall, the fest pulls national and local artists together to teach, perform, lecture and discuss in venues across the city. Highlights include contact improvisation workshops with veteran Nancy Stark Smith, a performance and a workshop by Bebe Miller, an artist talk and performance inspired by the sculptural installations in Mies van der Rohe’s Crown Hall at IIT, and a free improv jam in Grant Park, timed to get the city amped for SummerDance. The fest also quite rightly takes ongoing musicians-meet-dancers improv series “Collision Theory” under the umbrella. Individual tickets to events are available; fest passes get you in to three, four or five performances and discounts on workshops. (Sharon Hoyer)

June 12-June 19. For information, call (773)281-0824 or visit linkshall.org/DanceImprovFest.shtml. To register for workshops or purchase tickets, call (312)369-8330.