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 »

By Whitney Dibo

If the breakup of American Theatre Company is akin to a messy divorce, consider artistic director PJ Paparelli in the post-heartbreak phase. While the memory of being jilted by twenty-three members of his twenty-seven-member ensemble back in the spring still smarts, the Alaska native isn’t crying into a carton of Haagen-Dazs. “None of this has been easy,” he now says of the split, “but I want us to be a company that roles up its sleeves and gets to work.” This year also marks ATC’s twenty-fifth anniversary and, while Paparelli is free to celebrate without the old ball and chain, he’s also embarking on the landmark season without the company’s founding members. “It’s certainly bittersweet,” he says. Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s the press release from About Face:

About Face Theatre announces success of “Face the Future Campaign”

Launches season with new artistic and administrative initiatives

CHICAGO- Artistic Director Bonnie Metzgar and the About Face Board of Directors announce the success of the “Face the Future Campaign,” which earned over $200,000 for the company, erased debt and raised funds for artistic programming and the foundation of a new cash reserve.  The success of the campaign has enabled the company to launch the upcoming season, including the all-newChicago XYZ Festival, a showcase for innovative artists presenting work at all stages of development, sponsored by the Boeing Corporation.  The season will also feature the long-awaited What Once We Felt by .  Sara Lee is the exclusive corporate sponsor of What Once We Felt.

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Here’s the press release announcing the Jeff noms for Equity:

Chicago Theatres Shine in Outstanding Jeff Nominated Productions of 2008-2009 Season

Goodman Theatre and Drury Lane Oakbrook
Top List of Award Nominees

50 Years of The Second City to be Spotlighted
at The Jeff Awards

Thursday, August 27, 2009 – Chicago, IL.   The Jeff Awards today announced 179 nominations in 35 categories for Chicago Equity theatrical productions which opened between August 1, 2008, and July 31, 2009. The Jeff Awards sent judges to the opening nights of 141 productions offered by 57 producing organizations. From these openings, 98 Equity productions were “Jeff Recommended,” which made them eligible for award nominations.

The 41st Annual Jeff Awards ceremony, honoring excellence in professional theatre produced within the immediate Chicago area, will be held on Monday, October 19, at the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts in Skokie, 9501 Skokie Boulevard. A pre-show Appetizer Buffet will run from 6:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., and the Awards Ceremony, directed by Michael Weber, will begin at 7:30 p.m. The Second City, celebrating 50 years as a producer, will play a featured role at the Jeff Awards ceremony. Advance purchase tickets, which include the ceremony and the pre-show buffet, are $75 ($55 for members of Actors’ Equity Association, United Scenic Artists, Stage Directors and Choreographers Society, and The Dramatists Guild of America). The evening is black tie optional and the public is cordially invited to attend. To purchase tickets, visit the Jeff Awards website at www.jeffawards.org. For more information, contact Equity Chair Diane Hires at equitywing@jeffawards.org. Read the rest of this entry »

Photo: Peter Wynn Thompson

By Whitney Dibo

In another life, Steve Scott might have directed high school musicals. The prolific Chicago director actually got his start in the classroom—teaching high school and then college in his home state of Kansas. “I originally taught at a small religious university,” he says with a laugh. “Let’s just say I didn’t fit in terribly well.”

That life is a far cry from Scott’s current career as a sought-after freelance director and associate producer of The Goodman Theatre (a job he’s held for twenty-two years). But it wasn’t the straight-and-narrow path that led Scott to his current post. “I never had a system,” he says, “I never had a plan for the next ten years.” In fact, the reputable Scott has no formal directing training—whatever that may say about the necessity of pricey MFA training programs. The origin of Scott’s career stems from directing one-acts in grad school (“They asked me to help because everyone else was busy,” he says) and later from running a summer-stock company in Kansas.

After skipping out of Kansas and heading for the big city, Scott landed a job as The Goodman Theatre’s Director of Education, due to his extensive teaching background. Around that same time, he started directing at small theaters around town. “I would do a production that was reasonably good, so another theater would call me up,” Scott says with a shrug. It was a slow burn, but the consistent high quality of Scott’s work eventually earned him the most valuable currency in the theater community: a good reputation. Seven years later, after a stint as a teacher at The Latin School of Chicago, newly crowned Goodman Artistic Director Robert Falls brought on Scott as his right-hand man. “Bob didn’t want to be burdened with administrative work,” the persistently jolly Scott says without a trace of resentment. “He is impatient with details.” Read the rest of this entry »

Steppenwolf announces that the Broadway engagement of Tracy Letts’ “Osage” follow-up, “Superior Donuts,” is opening at a TBD Shubert house on October 1, juiced by the producers behind “Osage,” Jeffrey Richards, Jean Doumanian, Chicago’s Steve Traxler and Jerry Frankel, and helmed by ensemble member Tina Landau, who did likewise for its world premiere at the Stepp home on Halsted last summer. Casting has not been announced, but Michael McKean, Lenny on the hit seventies sitcom “Laverne and Shirley,” turned in a noteworthy performance in the Chicago production and might have just enough celebrity appeal to reprise.

Tucked away in a fall season announcement for American Theater Company, the mid-size company decimated by the departure of virtually its entire ensemble in March, is this bit of news: ATC’s “Hedwig and the Angry Inch,” a co-production with About Face, is the company’s highest grosser this season, and is on track to be ATC’s biggest hit ever. You can almost hear the “touché” out of the camp of artistic director PJ Paparelli. Of course, the whole season has that feel, from the “get” of the Chicago premiere of “Urinetown” creators Mark Hollmann and Greg Kotis’ “Yeast Nation (the triumph of life)”—already bumped from this season—to the very fact that the season is taking place at all.

Nick Garrison/Photo: Michael Brosilow

RECOMMENDED

The term “rock musical” is an oxymoron, like “Justice Scalia.” But Northwestern Alum John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask’s “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” works harder than James Brown to breathe life into the formula.

East German Hansel endures a botched gender reassignment surgery in order to follow his American GI lover Stateside, leaving him with the titular “angry inch.” Divorced, “Hedwig” embarks on musical collaboration with a lover who takes their (uncredited) work to the top of the charts.

Nick Garrison hits all the right comedic and musical notes; he handled the inevitable opening-night glitches with aplomb. His “rock energy” is muted, but ATC’s claustrophobic space doesn’t give him much room to groove; thankfully, his back-up band doesn’t overwhelm the Keith Pitts’ shabby chic set. While some of director PJ Paparelli’s blocking seems clumsy, he drives the pacing. Thanks to Malcolm Ruhl’s musical direction, Hedwig rocks. (Lisa Buscani)

American Theater Company with About Face Theatre, at The American Theater Company, 1909 W. Byron, (773)929-1031. Through May 31.

As first reported by Chris Jones at the Trib, About Face is Chicago’s first theater company to go public with a full-blown recession-fed survival crisis, which includes postponing their spring show. The full press release follows.

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RECOMMENDED

I must admit, I went into About Face’s production of  “Stupid Kids” with very high expectations and knowing it would be hard to meet my standards.  I read John C. Russell’s play in high school and it stuck to me.  As a young gay kid from Alabama coming to terms with my sexuality, the show’s stylized pining and frenzy of bad poetry was the answer to my classmates’ “90210” and “Dawson’s Creek.” What co-directors Bonnie Metzgar and Megan Carney gave me was a multimedia, teen angsty, dancing ball of kinetic energy that churns up those gloriously provocative and vomit-inducing memories of high school.  I loved it. The story is of a gay kid that goes by the name Neechee, played balls to the wall by Patrick Andrews.  Neechee has a hard on for Jim (Tony Clarno), the new guy in town with a major attitude and a motorcycle.  Neechee’s best friend is Erin Neal’s Kim, a Patti Smith-obsessed revolutionary with a crush on Judy (Whitney White), an A-lister with a totally rad wardrobe.  Jim and Judy are going out and Neechee and Kim are determined to break them up through a 1980s rollercoaster of self-discovery, first kisses and killer bongs.  It’s way complicated, way hilarious and way too close to home.  And taking a big risk, Metzgar and Carney have added a contemporary cast of high schoolers using text messages and video diaries to offer a counterpoint to the insane proceedings.  Though it took me a bit to buy into this shadow cast, I came out feeling like its use made the show relevant to an entirely new generation.  For that I’m grateful. I hope this show hangs around. (William Scott)

At the Hoover-Leppen Theatre at Center on Halsted,  3656 N Halsted ,773.784.8565, through March 8. aboutfacetheatre.com

What makes Chicago’s theater world special? We picked up the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly for clues. In the cover story, “CSI” star William Petersen explains his decision to leave his role as one of the top paid actors in television, earning a rumored $600,000 an episode, to move back to Chicago and Chicago theater: “It was too safe for me at this point. So I needed to try and break that, and the way to do that, for me, is the theater.” EW went on to credit Petersen for much of the show’s success, notably bringing a theatrical ensemble philosophy to play in its production. Or consider the runaway success of Steppenwolf’s “August: Osage County,” which transferred to Broadway,  receiving critical acclaim and multiple Tony Awards, not by shaking it up with Broadway “names” but instead by virtually transferring the Steppenwolf production intact, with the addition of lead producer and fellow Chicagoan Steve Traxler. What makes Chicago theater—or for that matter, Chicago dance or any other form of performance practiced on our stages—special? We’d contend it’s the power of the ensemble, the spirit of collaboration that champions artistic risk-taking and subordinates the commercial. And so, in that spirit, the critical ensemble responsible for Newcity’s ongoing stage coverage presents our take on the most influential people on and offstage in Chicago. Read the rest of this entry »