Here’s the press release from Porchlight:

Porchlight Music Theatre
Announces its 2010–2011 Season Featuring
Sunday in the Park with George, Meet John Doe, The King and I
and Miracle on 34th Street Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s the press release from Bailiwick:

Bailiwick Chicago Announces Details of 2010 Spring / Summer Season

Chicago, Illinois – March 10, 2010 – Bailiwick Chicago’s Executive Director Kevin Mayes announced the final details for the theater company’s 2010 Spring / Summer Season., which includes a concert reading of a new musical entitled BLOOM to be performed at the Chicago Center for the Performing Arts on April 16th and 17th; FUCKING MEN*, the Chicago premiere of a new play written by Joe DiPietro which will begin previews on June 18th at Theatre Building Chicago; and Elton John and Tim Rice’s AIDA, which will begin previews on July 1st at American Theatre Company. Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s the press release from Steppenwolf:

Steppenwolf Theatre Company Announces
2010-2011 Subscription Season

CHICAGO (March 10, 2010) – Steppenwolf Theatre Company is pleased to announce its 2010-2011 Subscription Season, exploring the theme of public/private self.  Season subscriptions go on-sale to the public on Wednesday, March 10 at 11 a.m.

Detroit
a new play by Lisa D’Amour
featuring ensemble members Kate Arrington and Robert Breuler

Edward Albee’s
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
directed by Pam MacKinnon
featuring ensemble members Tracy Letts and Amy Morton

Sex with Strangers
by Laura Eason, directed by associate artist Jessica Thebus
featuring ensemble member Sally Murphy with Stephen Louis Grush

The Hot L Baltimore
by Lanford Wilson, directed by ensemble member Tina Landau
featuring ensemble members Alana Arenas, K. Todd Freeman and Yasen Peyankov

Middletown
a new play by Will Eno, directed by Les Waters
featuring ensemble member Alana Arenas Read the rest of this entry »

Photo: Jane Nicholl Sahlins

By Dennis Polkow

“If Aristophanes were alive today,” says an elderly but still twinkling Bernard Sahlins, “he would be on cable television.”  It may a seem a long way from the satirical ancient Greek playwright to the Second City some two-and-a-half millennia later, but Sahlins, a founder of Chicago’s legendary comedy troupe who is directing a production of “Lysistrata” this weekend, puts the timeframe in perspective: “Long before Second City, when I was directing ‘straight’ plays, including the Greek tragedies, Claudia Cassidy [then Chicago Tribune critic] wrote that I had directed the worst production in 2,000 years.”  Well, she ought to know.

Sahlins says that he has always been interested in Greek drama, a love that was in part fostered by his time studying the classics at the University of Chicago, where he graduated in 1943.  “A University of Chicago education was once described as ‘Casting imaginary pearls before real swine.’ But don’t use that.

“You know, the high point of Greek drama only lasted for about eighty-six years. The period of Sophocles, Euripides, Aeschylus and Aristophanes passed quickly and then there was nothing except street theater until the Middle Ages and the development of church plays. The era of the playwright, the individual dramatist, did not emerge again until the Renaissance and the phenomenon of the playwright as we think of it is a fairly modern phenomenon that really fully came about in the nineteenth century.” Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s the press release from the Goodman:

MARY ZIMMERMAN REIMAGINES BERNSTEIN’S CANDIDE IN A MAJOR FALL MUSICAL EVENT;
ROBERT FALLS RE-EXAMINES CHEKHOV’S THE SEAGULL; PLUS NEW WORKS BY SARAH RUHL,
REGINA TAYLOR AND THOMAS BRADSHAW HEADLINE GOODMAN THEATRE’S 2010/2011 SEASON

***THE GOODMAN CELEBRATES A DECADE OF ACHIEVEMENTS AS ANCHOR OF THE NORTH LOOP

THEATRE DISTRICT, STARTING WITH A SEPT. 27 EVENT AT THE ART INSTITUTE’S MODERN WING*** Read the rest of this entry »

Northwestern University’s Theatre and Interpretation Center is currently presenting three productions of its brand new “Masters-in-the-Making” series, which features the work of three third-year MFA student directors. The works include David Greig’s “The American Pilot,” “The Who’s Tommy” and “The Handmaid’s Tale,” adapted from Margaret Atwood’s novel. “The idea is to celebrate the kind of capstone experience of these three young directors,” Artistic Director Henry Godinez says. “We’re putting them together in the same quarter, almost as sort of a festival.” Godinez says the idea of putting the productions together—instead of scattered around the year, as they were in the past—helps them earn attention. “My feeling was that [the productions] would get lost in the midst of the rest of the season,” Godinez says. “I felt like this would be exciting and it would be advantageous to make an event out of it. Of the productions, Godinez says, “All three [directors] have chosen projects that are personal to them. They have a comment to make about the way they view the world in which they live.” The “Masters-in-the-Making” series runs through March 14. (Tom Lynch)

Here’s the press release from the Lyric:

Lyric Opera of Chicago’s 56th season
begins Friday, October 1, 2010, at 7:00 p.m.
Giuseppe Verdi’s MACBETH in a new production
by renowned Shakespearean Barbara Gaines
starring Thomas Hampson and Nadja Michael

Also next season: Carmen, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, A Masked Ball,
The Mikado, The Girl of the Golden West, Lohengrin, & Hercules Read the rest of this entry »

Tara DeFrancisco, No. 36

In this town of performers—theater makers, dancers, comedy creators—you’d think it’d be pretty easy to assemble a list of artistic influencers and innovators. And it is. The challenge is paring that list down to a mere fifty. It’s a testament to the wonders of the performing-arts culture in Chicago that we easily came up with about 200 names when we set out to create this year’s version of The Players. Unfortunately, we’re only listing a fraction of those worthy of your attention, but that’s the problem with an abundance of riches. Hopefully you’ll see a handful of recognizable names and a whole lot more you’ll start noticing from this point on. We’ve retooled the criteria for this year, focusing on onstage artistic achievement, rather than the backstage influence of artistic directors, executive directors and the like—who will get their day again next year. Let the arguments begin. Read the rest of this entry »

Top 5 Shows
“Desire Under the Elms,” Goodman
“Blackbird,” Victory Gardens
“South Pacific,” Lincoln Center Theater
“The Tempest,” Steppenwolf
“Spring Awakening,” Broadway In Chicago 
—Brian Hieggelke

Top 5 Shows
“The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity,” Victory Gardens/Teatro Vista
“An Apology For the Course and Outcome of Certain Events Delivered by Doctor John Faustus on This His Final Evening,” Theater Oobleck
“The Pillowman,” Redtwist
“Frat,” The New Colony
“Red Noses,” Strawdog
—Nina Metz Read the rest of this entry »

The Addams Family at The Oriental/Photo: Samuel Adams

By Brian Hieggelke

As the wind blows the snow sideways this December evening, the weatherman is telling Chicagoans to stay bunkered; the deserted downtown streets reflect their obedience. All save the sidewalk near the intersection of State and Randolph, as TV crews jockey for faces on the red carpet in front of the Ford Center for the Performing Arts Oriental Theatre, where more than 2,000 patrons, including a who’s who of backstage Broadway, are gathering for the world premiere of a new musical featuring a AAA list of talent, onstage and off. “The Addams Family,” with multiple Tony winners Nathan Lane and Bebe Neuwirth in its leads, a book from the librettists of “Jersey Boys” and so on, is certainly Broadway bound, but tonight—tonight—Chicago is the center of theater in the world.

That’s the story of Chicago theater in the zeroes: the decade in which it grew up and got big. Whether it’s the launch and monumental success of Broadway In Chicago, the maturation and astonishing quality of a remarkable number of small and mid-sized companies or the increasing demand for Chicago product and Chicago talent on Broadway, Chicago theater has fully come into its own. Read the rest of this entry »