George Hamilton and Christopher Sieber/Photo: Paul Kolnik

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Though the idea of mainstream audiences being even modestly scandalized by drag queens and the depiction of gay characters as loving, funny—well, as human beings is, like, so eighties, I am sad to report that “La Cage Aux Folles” is every bit as relevant today as it was when it debuted on Broadway in 1983. The challenges of achieving social acceptance of a loving long-term gay marriage? Right-wing politicians making hay out of homophobia? Plus ça change.

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Photo: Michael Brosilow

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Listen to the “Spring Awakening” lyrics and realize how little things have changed. In our climate of abstinence-only sexual education, this musical version of Frank Wedekind’s scandalous 1906 play chronicling the sexual awakening of repressed German teenagers still packs a bittersweet punch.

Wendla (Aja Wiltshire) flirts with S&M and starts a sexual relationship with Melchior (Josh Salt); Moritz (Matthew Fletcher), distracted by his yearnings, fails at his studies; Martha (Paige Collins) and Ilse (Lindsay Leopold) struggle with abuse at home. It’s a tragedy made achingly bearable by the haunting score. Read the rest of this entry »

Dana Omar, Robert McLean, Ryan Bourque, Lindsey Gavel and Shawn Pfautsch/Photo: Matthew Gregory Hollis

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The Hypocrites haven’t simply reimagined this Gilbert & Sullivan classic; they’ve wholeheartedly re-appropriated it, paring its grandiosity down to a much more streamlined, folksier scale. Light-opera purists might scoff at the idea of putting the Major General in Big Bird slippers or introducing the daughters by having them sing “Milkshake,” but those people would be forgetting that G&S had a sense of humor in their own time. Read the rest of this entry »

Cody Siragusa with Christina Hall/Photo: David Heimann

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Country living’s not my thing. I find that which is down-home and cornpone kind of cringe-worthy. But if you put enough catchy energy behind it, I’ll buy anything. That’s what kept me engrossed in Theo Ubique’s latest; it’s a hayseed hoedown with heart.

There’s not much to the” Pump Boys” book; it’s just a slice of life from the good ole boys down to the filling station on Highway 57 and the sassy sisters over to the Double Cupp Diner, where “everything’s good.” Read the rest of this entry »

The newly launched national touring production of “Memphis” that has landed in town for a short run features such dazzling choreography from Sergio Trujillo and such a hard-working and energetic cast that it almost makes you forget what a mediocre show it actually is. Almost. Basically a dishwater “Dreamgirls,” the premise is much the same: that during the days of segregation, white artists were derivative and took everything from more innovative black artists. (Odd though, to attempt to make that point by offering a sappy parody of Perry Como, of all people, a true original of his own.) Read the rest of this entry »

Kelvin Roston Jr

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The stakes are high for any theater on opening night, but they were doubly, or triply so for the Black Ensemble Theater this weekend. For not only were they reviving one of their most acclaimed shows, “The Jackie Wilson Story,” but they were sharing the realization of theater founder Jackie Taylor’s dream, the nineteen-million-dollar Black Ensemble Theater Cultural Center, which debuted to the public with this opening. Taylor is a marvel, and this new facility is nothing short of a jaw-dropping accomplishment for her, but the risk at hand was how the particularly singular “Black Ensemble experience” would make the transition from the scrappy basement confines of the Hull House Uptown Center to such relatively upscale surroundings. The answer, phew, is marvelously. Read the rest of this entry »

OK, I’ll admit it. In the eighties, I rocked the Acqua Net; I worked the spandex pants until the pants begged for mercy. But this musical ode to the era of excess is less than totally rad. Fer sher.

Sherrie (Shannon Mullen) heads to 1980s Los Angeles to “make it.” Drew (Dominique Scott) gets her a job at The Bourbon Room, a heavy metal haven threatened by developers. There are romantic hits and misses as Drew pursues his dreams and Sherrie gets involved with narcissistic rock god Stacee Jaxx (Matt Nolan). Read the rest of this entry »

Hannah Whitlock, Jennifer Blood, Ingrid Lowery, Ethan Lupp & Dana Paulo/Photo: Brett Beiner

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“The Sound of Music” is one of the most often performed, and often one of the most poorly performed, musical-theater properties out there. Most productions simply ride the coattails of the movie’s immense popularity and employ a spunky guitar-slinging Maria and a gang of saccharine-sweet children. It was enough to make one critic infamously dub the property as “The Sound of Mucus.”

Well, not this time. Drury Lane and director/choreographer Rachel Rockwell are giving us a complete rethinking of the work that is such a fresh take, our level of involvement becomes such that an all-too-familiar show really does become a new experience. Read the rest of this entry »

Brent Barrett, Jenny Guse, Christina Myers, Amanda Tanguay and Amanda Kroiss/ Photo: Liz Lauren

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Back in the 1990s when Gary Griffin was artistic director of Drury Lane Oakbrook where he had directed some of his first musicals, he programmed Stephen Sondheim’s “Follies.” Curiously, despite his longtime love for that show, he allowed his associate director to take it. Thus, despite Griffin’s later reputation for directing Sondheim as associate artistic director of Chicago Shakespeare Theater, this much-anticipated production opening CST’s twenty-fifth-anniversary season is actually the first time that Griffin himself has directed “Follies.”  Read the rest of this entry »

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Part P. L. Travers, part Disney, part Cameron Mackintosh, “Mary Poppins” is a surprisingly and refreshingly enchanting family show that, like the wondrous nanny herself, is practically perfect in every way.

Mackintosh, the same producer that brought us such mega-hits as “Cats,” “Les Miserables,” “Phantom of the Opera” and “Miss Saigon,” among others, had tried to bring “Mary Poppins” to the stage since well before his heyday, but like Walt Disney himself, Mackintosh ran into the stumbling block of having to convince Poppins creator and author Travers that he could do full justice to her character. It didn’t help that Travers reportedly ended up despising the Disney film adaptation while nonetheless having enormously profited from it by shrewdly having held out for a percentage of it.  Read the rest of this entry »