Oct 12
By Sharon Hoyer
The young king of England takes his troops into France and, against great odds, is victorious. Esteemed choreographer, director and writer David Gordon, founder of New York-based Pick Up Performance Co(s), compressed the Bard’s five-act history play into an hour-long show using original choreography and his own meta-chorus character, who provides commentary on Shakespeare and our own time. Gordon also mined the recent history of “Henry V” to retell the tale of prince Hal; “Dancing Henry Five” uses iconic recordings of Shakespeare’s text as performed by Laurence Olivier and Christopher Plummer, along with William Walton’s soundtrack from the 1944 film.
Why did you revive “Dancing Henry Five” now? Read the rest of this entry »
Oct 12
Victoria Jaiani and Miguel Angel Blanco/Photo: Sandro
RECOMMENDED
Yuri Possokhov, former principal dancer in the Bolshoi Ballet, borrows heavily from the famous choreography by Marius Petipa in his own rendering of the ingenious gentleman’s tale, but makes the title character the focal point and point of view, relegating the romance between Kitri and Basilio to the sidelines.
Puppetry and projection aid in representing the world through the mad knight’s eyes: Wendall Harrington, whose work created the illusion of sixteenth century Venetian architecture in last year’s “Othello,” projects Don Quixote’s illusory world on transparent scrims, cloaking the tangible with the dazzling light of the imaginary. Read the rest of this entry »
Oct 12
Ana Lopez in "Arcangelo"/Photo: Todd Rosenberg
RECOMMENDED
With a world premiere by Twyla Tharp and the cover of the current issue of Dance Magazine, all eyes are on Hubbard Street. And well they should be. The company and its leadership have, season after season, demonstrated an unparalleled balance of versatility, virtuosity and imagination, all presented in an appealing package of audience-friendliness.
This imaginative thinking was at play when artistic director Glenn Edgerton invited Tharp to step away from musical theater and revisit her roots in contemporary choreography—a harkening back to the nineties when some of her most inventive work was first placed on Hubbard Street dancers. The resultant piece, set to keyboard sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti, will have the attendant flash of not only the Tharp name, but of brightly patterned costumes from designer Norma Kamali’s fall 2011 collection as well. Read the rest of this entry »
Oct 11
Fox Valley Rep’s Second Season at Pheasant Run Mainstage announced for 2012;
Offering a 5-show subscription of Fox Valley area premieres with Chicago’s top directors; Summer Theater Festival with Playwrights from around the country; totaling over 200 performances in 2012
October 10, 2011, St. Charles, IL – Fox Valley Rep, in residence at Pheasant Run Resort, announces an exciting line-up for their calendar-year 2012 season, many new to the Fox Valley community, including the comedy behind “Gone with the Wind” during golden age of Hollywood, Moonlight and Magnolias, the romantic musical featuring Neil Sedaka’s hits of the 1960′s, Breaking Up Is Hard To Do, Theo Ubique’s critic-acclaimed Chicago revue of Rodgers and Hammerstein, Some Enchanted Evening, Deborah Zoe Laufer’s modern empty-nesters comedy, Sirens, and the holiday musical, The Winter Wonderettes. Read the rest of this entry »
Oct 11
Tympanic Theatre Company proudly announces its Fifth Season!
Join us this Fall for…
ORANGE ORBS
by Daniel Caffrey*
directed by Aaron Henrickson Read the rest of this entry »
Oct 11
Susanna Phillips/Photo: Dan Rest
It is telling that in a series of promotional videos that Lyric Opera music director Sir Andrew Davis and creative consultant Renée Fleming made to promote the new season, Davis admits that he is not partial to the bel canto repertoire before he nonetheless waxes on about the melodic appeal of Donizetti’s “Lucia di Lammermoor.”
The strategy for the company’s new production of “Lucia” is to depend on the vision of a former Lucia, Catherine Malfitano, to direct, apparently with the hope that the drama she once brought to the role—the actual singing of it was never her strength—would somehow translate to another portrayal and to an entire production. Would that it were so.
Instead, the end result comes off as a bewildering affair, marked by portrayals that seem detached as to what their specific character—to say nothing of anyone else’s—is doing in this opera. Read the rest of this entry »
Oct 10
John Henry Roberts, Michaela Petro and Abigail Boucher
RECOMMENDED
A wonderful thing that can occur in a production in an intimate space like Strawdog’s is that moment when characters, and maybe even the audience, feel an overwhelming urge to escape, and yet there seems to be nowhere to go. Despite the two doors and window on Michael Mroch’s symmetrical set, there are definitely moments like that in this Pinter revival. It’s those moments when Kate (Abigail Boucher) looks like she’s been caught in a lie. She has invited her old friend Anna (Michaela Petro) to come visit her and her husband Deeley (John Henry Roberts) at their seaside home after some twenty years. Yet if they were such good friends, Deeley points out, he should have heard of her before now. Read the rest of this entry »
Oct 10
Photo: Cylla von Tiedemann
RECOMMENDED
Every once in a while, I ponder the life of a one-hit wonder. What’s it like to have a big but brief shining moment in your youth and then never again do anything with an impact that comes even close? It sounds like a depressing life and, yet, few of us will ever have one such moment.
In her comedic monologue “Wishful Drinking,” Carrie Fisher answers my question when she declares that “George Lucas ruined my life” when he cast her as Princess Leia in “Star Wars” at the age of nineteen. Not that she was ever a stranger to the glare of publicity, having been born with a silver microphone in her hand as the daughter of Hollywood darlings Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher, who ran away with Elizabeth Taylor, creating heartbreak for Debbie and material for Carrie. Read the rest of this entry »
Oct 07
PAVEMENT GROUP ANNOUNCES 2012 SEASON OF WORLD PREMIERE PLAYS
2011 Year Will Close With 2nd Annual Amuse Bouche This December
CHICAGO – Pavement Group is thrilled to announce their 2012 season of two World Premiere productions, “Girl You Know It’s True” By Bixby Elliott, which will play the Chopin Theatre April 12 – May 13, 2012 and “Breaks and Bikes” By Mallery Avidon, which will be produced in fall 2012. A Chicago-based collaborative of theatre artists, Pavement Group searches nationally for emerging voices to provide a platform for fresh, new works. Read the rest of this entry »
Oct 05
Playwright Gregory S. Moss caught Chicago’s attention when “punkplay,” produced by Pavement Group, was the sleeper hit of Steppenwolf’s Garage Rep last spring. Moss returns to Chicago theater with the Midwest premiere of “The Argument,” a play loosely based on Katrina’s aftermath. We spoke with Moss on the oddly appropriate day of September 11 about survivor guilt, outrage and the politics of minimalism.
“Punkplay” was in part so powerful because it toed the line between overt politics and politics as a metaphor, such as when the lead character takes off his ideological rollerskates. Is “The Argument” more literal? Read the rest of this entry »
