Larry Adams as Harold Hill and Alicia Berneche as Marian Paroo

RECOMMENDED
A onetime flute player for John Philip Sousa and Arturo Toscanini who went on to write operas, symphonies, band music, standards and score radio programs, Meredith Wilson is best remembered these days for his 1957 show “The Music Man.” Inspired by his small-town boyhood in early twentieth-century rural Iowa, Wilson worked on “The Music Man” for eight years and wrote over forty songs for it, less than half of which made it into the show itself. One of these, “Till There Was You,” was the only cover song from a musical ever recorded by the Beatles and became a huge hit for the Fab Four in 1964, having been the second song that the group performed on its initial Ed Sullivan appearance that launched the British Invasion.

Ever since its inception, the role of conman and would-be boys’ band director “Professor” Harold Hill has been the domain of actors rather than singers, with the main musical qualification being the ability to crisply articulate or “speak” most of the sung sections with precise and punchy rhythmic syncopation. That Light Opera Works chose a singer, Larry Adams, to play the role suggested the intriguing possibility that the usually spoken sections of the songs might actually be sung, but Adams flabbily speaks his way through most of the songs yet does not have the acting chops to credibly seduce even the town librarian, let alone the entire town. Marian the librarian has the best singing moments, and Alicia Berneche tosses these off with such flair and style that in this production, it is she, not Hill, who comes off as the charismatic and colorful one of the pair and he, the dullard in need of a makeover.

Thankfully, there is enough else right in this production and full-blown, uncut revivals of the show are rare enough to make seeing this elaborate staging well worthwhile. The townspeople character parts are a hoot, particularly Jo Ann Minds as the eccentric mayor’s wife and Barbara Clear as Marian’s mother, who nearly stole the show at the opening. And with a full orchestra and Kevin Bellie’s imaginative and energetic choreography—some of the best seen at Light Opera Works—along with wonderful performances of Wilson’s score and remarkable counterpoint that, for instance, musically layers cackling gossips with smooth as silk barbershop quartet music, the experience is a welcome and timely look back while we pause to look ahead. (Dennis Polkow)

“The Music Man” plays through January 4, 2009 (including New Year’s Eve) at Northwestern University’s Cahn Auditorium, 600 Emerson, Evanston, (847)869-6300. $29-$87.

RECOMMENDED

Workshopped at Northwestern in 1993, premiered at Bailiwick in 1995 and performed as an annual holiday tradition there until 2006, “The Christmas Schooner” has had more than a hundred productions across the country and abroad. Bailiwick had announced 2006 as the work’s final voyage for the company but is presenting the piece as a bittersweet swansong to its Belmont Avenue home with all of the trimmings, including a five-piece orchestra and new direction by Mary Beidler Gearen.

I had never seen a single production of this work at Bailiwick nor anywhere else, nor did the idea of a musical about transporting Christmas trees particularly entice me. “What is at stake?” as a colleague of mine always likes to ask in discussing shows. Well, quite a bit, as it turns out—the traditions and values that make us who we are. The songs do a wonderful job of conveying the emotions that the story needs to communicate and of giving us a sense of what a Chicago Christmas was like more than a century ago.

It’s so ironic that in a year where we are still debating having a smaller tabletop tree vs. the full boat experience, if you’ll forgive the pun, the presence of a nineteenth-century-style tree on stage with fruit and nuts as decorations along with the descriptions of the “magic” of a traditional Christmas tree becomes quite enticing. Long before electric lights, plastic Santas, balloon globes and the myriads of Christmas kitsch that make up the retail-centered holiday season as it exists today that climaxes well before Christmas itself, European immigrants of a century ago had only the Christmas tree as the focal point of their celebrations, mesmerizing all who experienced it. Advent was dark and dreary, but when Christmas Eve arrived and though Epiphany, January 6, or the Twelfth Day of Christmas, the Christmas tree warmed hearts at the darkest and coldest point of the year. Up north, as in Michigan, that is not a problem, but when a Chicago cousin writes to her Michigan relatives who are sailors by trade that “there are so many people, so few evergreens” in the city after sharing her searing memories of childhood Christmas trees back home in Germany, the family decides to make one last late November journey of the season. Three generations of the Stossel family all end up deeply impacted by these annual journeys to Clark Street harbor, where not only Germans but immigrants of varied backgrounds end up lining up to get the best pick of the trees.

Ultimately, this becomes a family love story crisscrossing generations as well as a tale of duty and honor and maintaining sea traditions as well as Christmas traditions, passing on what we have been given and as “Opa” (Jim Sherman) observes, that “If we accept our blessings, we accept our pain as well.” Tying up such a message in a Christmas package filled with music makes it all the more palatable, but no less important. (Dennis Polkow)

“The Christmas Schooner” plays through January 4 at Bailiwick Repertory Theatre, 1229 W. Belmont, (773)883-1090. $20-$35.

RECOMMENDED

Those who associate “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” with the Marilyn Monroe movie that director Howard Hawks made in 1953 and Monroe’s iconic rendering of “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” that Madonna has been ripping off for decades now are in for a surprise. As wonderful and influential as that film is in and of itself, it takes its laughs and drama more seriously and sets aside most of the full-on comedy, dance and music of the 1949 musical comedy that made Carol Channing a star. Hawks cut most of the Jule Styne score (including the title track!) and ended up with such a truncated musical that additional Hoagy Carmichael songs were written for it. The 1949 play, the last and most popular in a long line of stage adaptations of the popular Anita Loos 1925 novel, is a different animal altogether. The opportunity to experience it on its own terms in this ultra-rare production by Circle Theatre would be reason enough not to miss it, but happily, there is much else to recommend this production.

The show’s biggest asset is Rachel Quinn as a stunning Lorelei Lee, the blonde flapper who has a penchant for rich men and expensive jewelry and never overplays the part of the “dumb blonde,” who despite thinking that Mr. Gideon wrote the books left in hotel rooms and, like a certain recent vice presidential candidate, has trouble distinguishing continents and countries. Quinn sings and dances superbly and while there are other cast members who can do one or the other with varying competence, most of the songs that need a strong voice have one, and most of the dance sequences that require dance chops have them.

Director and choreographer Kevin Bellie sometimes overplays movement on the cramped stage but manages to meet this material head on, recognizing it for what it is: a post-war 1940s attempt to recall the 1920s in a nostalgic way with the huge advantage that the 1920s were a far more fascinating time than say, the 1980s that fuels much current nostalgia. The “roaring twenties” and “jazz age” often make the 1960s look tame by comparison, well reflected in this show. Here, folks are pleased to be sailing to Europe “where the liquor is the Real McCoy” and to be constantly partying. Stocks are soaring, prosperity is rampart, and everyone is “keeping cool with Coolidge.” It’s a fun trip back and a sobering reminder that, as we know the bubble is about to burst and the Great Depression is just around the corner, the more things change, the more they stay the same. (Dennis Polkow)

“Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” plays through February 1 at Circle Theatre, 7300 W. Madison, Forest Park, (708)771-0700, $20-$26.

RECOMMENDED

The first thing I’d like to say about the musical “Grey Gardens” (apart from the fact that it’s very, very good) is that its success doesn’t depend upon an audience’s familiarity with the 1975 documentary of the same name and on which it is partially based. In fact, it doesn’t even demand that you know anything about “Grey Garden’s” non-fictional main characters, Edith Bouvier Beale and her daughter, “Little Edie,” other than they were relatives of late former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and her sister Lee Radziwill.

What’s also striking about “Grey Gardens” is its sense of humor. And would you expect anything less from a musical about two famous socialites turned infamous bag ladies holed up in a flea-infested estate with fifty-one cats? In less adroit hands this humor could have turned mean, and the story of a co-dependent mother-daughter duo fodder for freak-show camp theatrics. Luckily, the book writer responsible for celebrating and making us laugh with—yet not at—these defiant female eccentrics who lived their lives on their own terms is Doug Wright. Wright, of course, is a gay American playwright who grew up in the Bible Belt and won every major theatrical award, including the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, for “I Am My Own Wife”, his fascinating true story account of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, the East German transvestite who survived Hitler and the German Stasi to become an international icon of the gay community until his/her death. In other words, personally and professionally Wright knows a little something about outsiders, oppression and beating the odds. He’s a writer who prefers to probe in lieu of providing answers, which is why I’m not surprised that, as with “I Am My Own Wife,” “Grey Gardens” left me with more questions than answers. In the case of “Gardens,”  when does it all stop mattering—washing your clothes, picking up after your fifty-one cats, basically giving a shit about your hygienic housekeeping? And at what point do we become prisoners and victims of the parental love that nurtures us?

Yet despite such “big” questions, “Grey Gardens” is a musical, and at times an old-fashioned musical comedy at that—ultimately entertaining, occasionally tuneful, sometimes openly sentimental, and funny. The first half, depicting Edith and Edie in their socially healthy younger years, is chock full of composer Scott Frankel’s charming, Tin Pan Alley-inspired musical numbers boasting Michael Korie’s Sondheim-like clever lyricism. Act two, set three decades later at which time mother and daughter are reclusively living out their sad and lonely existence, emphasizes thoughtfulness over wittiness in its character-driven meditation on thwarted and unrequited love, reprises musical leitmotivs to haunting effect (“The Girl Who Has Everything”), and gives us a tender ballad in “Jerry Loves My Corn,” musically reminiscent of “Into the Woods’” “No More” but with the maverick lyrical sensibility of David Yazbek’s “You Rule My World” from “The Full Monty.” Although it’s not a score whose original cast recording I’m running off to buy anytime soon—I could have used a few more memorable tunes—in the theater it does its job by holding your attention and by contributing to the work’s overall beautifully strange oeuvre.

This Northlight staging stars Hollis Resnik in the role of Edith during the first half and the adult Little Edie for the second, and her ability to convey both of her characters’ psychological eccentricities during song, without going into crude caricature and while sustaining her melody lines, proves that she remains Chicago’s first lady of the musical theater. BJ Jones directs and Marla Lampert is responsible for the amusing musical staging. (Fabrizio O. Almeida)

At North Shore Center for the Performing Arts, 9501 Skokie Blvd, Skokie, (847)673-6300. Tue 7:30pm/Wed 1pm & 7:30pm/Thu 7:30pm/Fri 8pm/Sat 2:30pm & 8pm/Sun 2:30pm & 7pm. $25-$59. Through December 28.

RECOMMENDED

Look closely at any religion and it’ll seem ridiculous. The Bible is chockablock with the bizarre and unlikely. Most people are fine with it, I would argue, because these stories have become normalized. Get enough folks believing in something and suddenly it doesn’t seem insane.

Personally, I think it’s all hooey. Give me rational individualism any day. But I get why people gravitate to religion, and why others clutch at it with white knuckles and unwavering conviction. Life is tough and fucked up; religion offers structure and solace and a code of conduct spelled out in no uncertain terms. Religion is the answer to all the questions nagging at the corners of your mind. It defines and shapes your outlook on life, and I’d put my own agnostic atheism in that boat, as well. It’s all a type of religion, no matter what you call it.

Which brings me to “A Very Merry Unauthorized Children’s Scientology Pageant,” a weirdly entrancing musical from 2003 currently in a totally modest, totally stupendous production at A Red Orchid Theatre. The cast is comprised entirely of preteens and, geez, these kids are hilariously cute. Najwa Brown plays the spunky narrator: “Today we relate the life of L. Ron Hubbard,” she solemnly intones.

The show is a half-snicker away from full snark, but directors Lance Baker and Steve Wilson have done something very cagey here. (The show is created by New Yorkers Kyle Jarrow and Alex Timbers.) Their child actors play it straight—with those super-duper smiles and an amateurish kiddie-pageant performance style—but there is something much deeper and more affecting going on here.

Look, far as I’m concerned, the Church of Scientology is ludicrous. But no more so than any other religion. You think aliens are a stretch? Then why is a “sky god” so easy to swallow, as Bill Maher might say? Religion is an elaborate con job. That doesn’t mean it’s bad.

We all have an emptiness that needs to be filled with something, and L. Ron—which sounds like “Elron” from the mouths of these kids—wasn’t exactly off the mark when he pointed to emotional baggage as one of the roadblocks to a happy life. His methods are nuts, granted, and it’s hard to see his church as anything more than a money-and-power-making venture. But the religion resonates with someone. A lot of someones, actually. It seems hypocritical to treat it as any more of a joke than other religions.

And that’s what makes the show work. Directors Baker and Wilson openly acknowledge the wackness that is Scientology, but they don’t treat it as a punchline. They do, however, have an awful lot of fun with it. The kids explain the bizarro auditing process with a perky puppet show. They dance the robot. They sing their little hearts out and clap to the music and I defy anyone to resist their enthusiasm. Aria Szalai-Raymond (in a brief turn as Mother Hubbard, plus a harried New Yorker) has a very mature energy that stands out—she is poised but funny. And Chaz Allen, as L. Ron himself, is strangely, perfectly in command. I can’t remember the last time I saw young actors this good.

But the show is so much more than a stupid comedy about Scientology. Jackson Callinor plays an old army buddy-turned-IRS agent looking to bring L. Ron down, and there are wells of emotion just beneath the surface of his face. This kid is a real actor and he brings a palpable soulfulness to the role. L. Ron works his magic, but the end result leaves Callinor’s character just as bereft as ever. Which path to take? And then, blackout. Wow. (Nina Metz)

At A Red Orchid Theatre, 1531 N. Wells, (312)943-8722 or www.aredorchidtheatre.org. Fri 8p, Sat 7p & 9p, Sun 3p. $20-$25. Through January 4.

By Fabrizio O. Almeida

It was one of the most-anticipated pre-Broadway openings in recent memory, and I had informed friends and colleagues all week long leading to the premiere of “Dirty Dancing—The Classic Story on Stage” that I was genuinely bubbly for what would hopefully amount to—at the very least—a feel-good toe-tapping dance show. But this show didn’t make me tap my toes. And it certainly didn’t make me feel good.

This stage version, at Chicago’s Cadillac Palace before traveling to Boston, Los Angeles and finally to the Great White Way, is of course based on the 1987 sleeper-hit film of the same name. It chronicles the coming-of-age story of Frances “Baby” Houseman, an idealistic teenage girl hungry to change the world, but for the moment enjoying the last wisps of innocence with her family at a holiday resort in the summer of 1963. An unlikely romance blooms with the camp’s sexy dance instructor, Johnny, and dance lessons lead to Baby’s mental and physical transition into womanhood. The film was blessed with the great chemistry between stars Jennifer Grey and Patrick Swayze, a strong supporting cast who delivered writer Eleanor Bergstein’s wooden dialogue with charming aplomb, and two killer soundtrack albums’ worth of music that went multi-platinum on their own. The stage show is not as lucky. There is no chemistry between stage leads Josef Brown (Johnny) and Amanda Leigh Cobb (Baby), the supporting players are unmemorable, the musical numbers are cruise-ship quality at best, and the entire experience is dramatically inert.

I don’t know director James Powell’s body of work but my hunch is that he’s never been at the helm of a major musical before. His work here is as clumsy and awkward as Baby’s initial dance steps. He shows little understanding for the synergy between music and drama, and cannot transition nor focus a scene to save his life. Worse, he’s been given every theatrical tinker toy with which to create—turntables, panels, levitating platforms, concert lights, a half-oval-shaped IMAX-type screen on which to project dazzling video—and yet is simply content to show them off rather then use them to effectively tell a story. Scenes fizzle out instead of melding into one another. A clump of dancers oftentimes fade into a visual monotony. And like a loud radio that someone’s forgotten to turn off, there is a continuous stream of music (dozens of songs, period instrumentals and full-blown numbers make up the evening) that ultimately blends into a two-hour bombastic wall of sound. Powell is incapable of manipulating a successful applause button for some numbers (which must be maddening to his hard-working ensemble) and for a show with “dancing” in its title, there’s far too little dance to enjoy, let alone to assess—co-choreographers Kate Champion and Craig Wilson’s work here limited to some sensual but rarely sizzling Latin ballroom routines, the showcasing of their female dancers’ amazing 180-degree leg extensions and battements, and some high-energy hoofing. As for Bergstein’s book, it is needlessly over-bloated with scenes that could have been cut or re-imagined for the stage. Instead, this show painstakingly goes through the burden of re-creating each and every moment from the movie, down to the last persnickety detail. If the creators wanted the movie on stage, they accomplished this. But since the lackluster performances and dancing never erase the memory of the film, it becomes boring to sit through. When the author does attempt to inject social consciousness into this piece of fluff—perfunctory references to Vietnam; “We Shall Overcome” sung by busboys turned Civil Rights activists—the results are tacky at best, transparently tasteless at worst. If you really care about supporting theater that has something to say about America on the eve of social change you have one final week to catch Court Theatre and director Charles Newell’s exceptional production of Tony Kushner and Jeanine Tesori’s “Caroline, or Change,” a musical also incidentally also set in 1963.

At the end of the day there is simply no point for this stage show to exist other than to milk the “Dirty Dancing” franchise dry, exploit the eighties nostalgia craze and get those people who saw the movie in the theaters twenty years ago—now grown up with jobs—to pay ten times as much to see it in a theater “enacted by meat puppets”, as Financial Times drama critic Ian Shuttleworth so memorably phrased in his review of the original London show. Look, I have nothing against creating a show around a group’s song canon or, as in this case, two best-selling soundtrack albums and a movie. I thought the creativity displayed in “Mamma Mia!” made it one of the best musicals of this decade, and I thoroughly enjoyed the stage version of “Saturday Night Fever” on Broadway. But the creators entrusted with those musical properties at least tried to do something theatrical with the wealth of musical material they had inherited, be it the creation of a wonderfully self-ironic book with which to link ABBA songs (as in the case of the former), or (as in the latter) the transformation of Bee Gees songs from disco kitsch into genuine show tunes belted out by real characters on stage. And although the majority of songs in “Dirty Dancing” are indeed never performed by any important characters in the play, and simply exist as background music playing on a radio, you can still have had drama through dance. Anyone remember Susan Stroman and John Wiedman’s 2000 Tony Award-winning best musical “Contact,” that used pre-recorded music and no singing to tell three dance plays? If not, Google “Contact musical Broadway” and check out how a recording of Robert Palmer’s “Simply Irresistible” is used, along with some inventive swing choreography, to convey a poignant story about the liberating, sensual and redemptive powers of dance, without one single word of dialogue uttered. Drama doesn’t come automatically just because you perform something in a theater, and it’s disconcerting to think that Eleanor Bergstein, James Powell et al believe they have made “theater” with “Dirty Dancing,” or anything approximating something like the aforementioned shows in terms of artistry, emotion or theatricality.

“Dirty Dancing—The Classic Story on Stage” is quite simply one of the laziest pieces of theater-making that I have ever witnessed, seemingly devoid of any imagination or ambition other than to quite literally throw the movie on stage, which it does with all the thoughtfulness and clumsiness of a toddler flinging his food-filled plate against a wall. Indeed, a more appropriate tag line for this show would have been “The Classic Story Shoved on Stage.” This may be acceptable for some—the largest advance sale in London West End theater history; record-breaking productions around the globe suggests as much—but in light of the economy and with the show’s tickets ranging in price from $35 to a staggering $155 for “premium” seats, audiences need to demand more than an overpriced ultimate DVD-extra served up as ersatz drama.

Given that the jury is still out on the Broadway-bound stage version of “9 to 5,” that “Cry-Baby” has flopped and closed in New York and that Broadway insiders have been buzzing about the well-known director/choreographer flown out to Seattle to doctor the ailing “Shrek” musical, maybe they finally are.

“Dirty Dancing—The Classic Story on Stage” plays the Cadillac Palace Theatre through January 17, 2009. Performance dates and times vary. (312)977-1710 for tickets.

RECOMMENDED

It sounds like foolproof musical theater: recreate a too-good-to-be-true-but-it-is real-life event, the day in December 1956 that Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis found themselves in a spontaneous jam session at tiny Sun Studios in Memphis, a session that a reporter dubbed the “Million Dollar Quartet.” But while the source material is cultural gold, the challenge is in the casting, and here the producers have done an outstanding job. Not only do Eddie Clendening, Levi Kreis, Lance Guest and Robert Lyons sound like, respectively, Elvis, Jerry Lee, Johnny and Carl, but the physical impersonations in both appearance and mannerisms are quite strong. Kreis’ Lewis is especially crowd-pleasing in his insane antics behind, and all over, the keys. While the show functions largely as a concert that audiences never saw (though heard, when the recording Sam Phillips made of the session was finally released decades later), the book by Colin Escott and Floyd Mutrux adds context and drama quite nicely as they compress a couple of years of Sun history into one day. You can’t help but get caught up in the relative innocence combined with euphoric optimism that these artists were creating something new, here at the birth of rock ‘n’ roll. Don’t expect a greatest-hits parade, though. Although some familiar songs were covered that day, much of the pleasure they (and by extension, we) shared was in exploring the gospel, blues and R&B tunes they shaped their new sound around. My only quibble was a few crackles in the microphones, just like in the fifties. (Brian Hieggelke)

“Million Dollar Quartet” plays at the Goodman Theatre, 170 North Dearborn, (312) 443-3800, through October 26 and then moves to the Apollo Theatre, 2540 North Lincoln, (773) 935-6100, on October 31 through January 4.

RECOMMENDED

Back in town at the Royal George Theatre, “Forbidden Broadway Dances With the Stars” feels just like old times with this musical sketch comedy show that lampoons all things on the Great White Way. The show’s impressively current, even featuring a “Shrek the Musical” joke.  And while you may not get everything if you aren’t a tried and true aficionado of contemporary and historical Broadway, the show feels at home in the city that defines sketch comedy.  Some of the routines could use a little more edge though; there are only so many gags about loud divas and movies-turned-musicals I can stand.  That said, all four cast members have been with the show for some time and they feel at home with the material.  Of particular note, get a load of  Val Fagan.  She should be starring on Broadway, not just making fun of it. (William Scott)

At The Royal George Theater, 1641 North Halsted, (312)988-9000, through November 30.

RECOMMENDED

“Your stock broker wants to say ‘hello’ before he jumps out the window,” relates Ito the housekeeper (Ghuon “Max” Chung) in “Mame.” The time is 1929 but this 1966 Broadway gem is being served up in an elaborate and colorful production at Drury Lane Oakbrook that hardly reflects the fact that lean times are making a comeback. But if times are tough, Auntie Mame and her colorful cohorts are the perfect antidote: “Life is a banquet, but most poor sons of bitches are starving to death.”

A wealthy and eccentric woman who loses everything in the crash, Mame (Barbara Robertson, although Kat Taylor takes over the role after November 16) teaches us that with enough imagination, improvisation, curiosity and optimism that there is so much more to living life than mere money. Any day is a holiday to Mame (“It’s Today”), and even Christmas can be created from scratch on demand (“We Need a Little Christmas”). It’s a lesson that she attempts to teach her nephew Patrick (Liam Byrnes and later in life, Ryan Reilly), who comes to her a well-off but sheltered and attention-starved orphan who ends up engaged to a society girl whose family worries about “the right kind of people” moving in to their restricted Connecticut community. Mame gives them all a much-needed trip to the woodshed without becoming confrontational or preachy, another valuable lesson for our era of ultra-polarized politics.

Robertson makes a splendid Mame, bringing the needed comedy and pathos to the role, and singing those wonderful Jerry Herman songs supported by a rousing mini-Big Band. And though you could quibble that veteran Chicago character actress Arlene Robertson (no relation) doesn’t exactly fit the mold of “the first lady of the American theater” Vera Charles, her wry delivery, singing ability and comic timing rescue the performance. Director William Osetek has restored some cutting-edge lines from the non-musical version of the play and brings home the message of tolerance while raising suburban eyebrows by having Mame and Vera hysterically plant a huge kiss on one another when they meet Patrick’s bigoted in-laws. Both Patricks are impressive, but Byrnes’ performance as young Patrick is a standout with his superb singing and the acting trajectory he has to make with the character.

Drury Lane Oakbrook has settled in as the best regional theater in the area consistently doing musicals and some of the gems that begin there are starting to make their way to Drury Lane Water Tower Place and are as good as—and in some cases better—than far more expensive musicals currently playing downtown. (Dennis Polkow)

At Drury Lane Oakbrook, 100 Drury Lane, Oakbrook Terrace, (630)530-0111. $28-$32.Through December 21,

RECOMMENDED

Let’s face it: as long as there is a popular musical song catalog to be exploited for the stage, and someone to churn out a serviceable storyline on which to hang them, the “greatest hits of insert-artist-name-here” musical will exist. What distinguishes Marriott Theatre’s “All Shook Up,” easily one of the best jukebox/compilation musicals since “Mamma Mia!” is the work of book writer Joe DiPietro. Just as playwright Catherine Johnson did with the hits of ABBA, DiPietro has taken twenty-four lyrically unrelated songs (in this case those recorded and made popular by Elvis Presley) and effortlessly glided them into an entertaining storyline that not only squeezes from the Presley numbers a satisfying dose of feel-good nostalgia, but also (and perhaps more impressively given the typical low dramaturgical standards expected of the jukebox musical) achieves narrative continuity and character development through the music and lyrics.

As the playwright showed with “I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change”—his silly little musical revue from the 1990s that managed to tap into the “Seinfeld” pop-cultural zeitgeist and run Off-Broadway for years—DiPietro possesses a clever and corny sensibility when it comes to adult relationships, albeit heterosexual ones, and these qualities serve him well in crafting the story of a “Roustabout” rock ‘n’ roll drifter who arrives to shake things up in a “small you-never-heard-of-it Midwest town” in 1955. But “All Shook Up’s” script is also loosely based on Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night,” and this requires a delicious irony in its handling of the Bard’s tolerant and at times transgressive take on sexual ambivalence, same-sex permutations and rigid-class structures. DiPietro has it, and his use of “Can’t Help Falling in Love” as the musical’s 11 o’clock number is a beautifully contrived burst of humorous and lyrical musical expression.

Of course, these observations into the heart and soul of the piece would have been impossible without a production that was equally on par, and I don’t have enough room to praise everyone that deserves it. Nonetheless, highlights include director/choreographer Marc Robin’s exuberant and bouncy choreography—I loved the nod to Bob Fosse’s famous popcorn jump—which captures a sense of youthful spontaneity I last saw in Wayne Cilento’s work in “The Who’s Tommy.”

Jessie Mueller, last seen as Carrie Pipperidge in Court’s “Carousel,” brings her proven tomboyish charm and a warm voice to the female lead role, and Tyler Hanes’s graceful athleticism shines through Robin’s moves. Add an ensemble of Marriott vets including Ross Lehman, Paula Scrofano and Matt Raftery and what is left to say except well, Mamma Mia!, how could I resist you? (Fabrizio O. Almeida)

At Marriott Theatre, 10 Marriot Drive, Lincolnshire, (847)634-0200. Wed 1pm & 8pm/Thu & Fri 8pm/Sat 2:30pm & 8pm/Sun 1pm & 5pm. $40-$45. Through December 7.