Darren Criss (#4) with Team StarKid

With our criteria shifted back to artistic accomplishment in theater, dance, comedy and opera this year, our task got infinitely tougher. Because while the number of performing venues grows at a steady rate, the increase in the number of noteworthy artists seems to grow exponentially. For everyone we name on the list below, we had to leave off five, an embarrassment of riches for Chicago. We made a conscious effort to introduce a meaningful number of new faces to the list this year; the necessary absences should not be construed as a loss of worthiness as a consequence. We often find trends when we do the research these lists require; this year we’re starting to see a more meaningful effort to redefine performance itself in the internet age, from the runaway success of StarKids, to the more calculated endeavors of Silk Road. So what defines a “player”? Consider it some complex stew of career achievement, recent “heat” and, in some cases, rising stardom.

Written by Zach Freeman, Brian Hieggelke, Sharon Hoyer and Dennis Polkow

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RECOMMENDED

If you go to this “new musical” by legendary choreographer Twyla Tharp expecting anything resembling the musical theater you’re used to, you’re in for a surprise. “Come Fly Away” is a dance performance, not far removed from the kind of thing you’d see at the Harris Theater. (It brought to mind River North Dance’s “Valentine’s Weekend Engagement” from last winter for me.) Sure, there’s a somewhat more elaborate set than the dance crowd is used to, and a boisterous live band onstage accompanies the vocals of Frank Sinatra (given co-principal billing posthumously) by reprising and improvising many of his legendary arrangements, from the likes of Nelson Riddle, Billy May, Quincy Jones and others to a powerful effect. Read the rest of this entry »

George Hamilton and Christopher Sieber/Photo: Paul Kolnik

RECOMMENDED

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: Ave Bonar

RECOMMENDED

Ann Richards is an unlikely subject for a one-woman show. Texas’ second woman governor (as the show explains), Richards stepped into the national spotlight in 1988 with a rousing keynote speech at the Democratic Convention, where she emerged as a take-no-prisoners leader with an eloquent down-home charisma. But after winning the governorship in 1991, she lost her bid for reelection and fell out of the spotlight, dying of cancer in 2006. Unless you’re from Texas, she’s a diminishing historical footnote.

Nevertheless, the television and film actress Holland Tyler made Richards a personal project, researching the subject for three years before penning and starring in “Ann.” 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 »

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 »

By Dennis Polkow

For a guy who has been working as a high-profile Broadway composer and lyricist for “over forty years now—oh my God, can you believe it?” Stephen Schwartz is remarkably youthful both in appearance and attitude.

Sitting in the basement of Northlight Theatre in Skokie on an early Saturday morning clutching green tea prior to the final day of rehearsals before the first preview of his new work “Snapshots,” Schwartz exudes an enthusiasm and energy that is refreshing and contagious.

“It’s a new work, certainly, in that we keep tinkering and changing things,” he says, “but this isn’t the first version of the show that has been presented. We haven’t had an official ‘world premiere’ yet because I always feel that is the finished work at that point. ‘World premiere’ is a concept that is more important to theaters and venues than to writers.”  Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s the press release from Broadway in Chicago:

BROADWAY IN CHICAGO IS PROUD TO ANNOUNCE THE 2012 BROADWAY IN CHICAGO SPRING SEASON SERIES:
THE BOOK OF MORMON, AMERICAN IDIOT, Rodgers & Hammerstein’s SOUTH PACIFIC, BRING IT ON: THE MUSICAL, FELA! and JERSEY BOYS
Off-season specials include: IN THE HEIGHTS, MAMMA MIA!, RIVERDANCE and CATS

CHICAGO (Sep. 8, 2011) – Broadway In Chicago is thrilled to announce the complete 2012 Spring Season Series. The upcoming spring season will include THE BOOK OF MORMON, AMERICAN IDIOT, SOUTH PACIFIC, BRING IT ON: THE MUSICAL, FELA! and JERSEY BOYS. Off-season specials include IN THE HEIGHTS, MAMMA MIA, RIVERDANCE and CATS. Read the rest of this entry »

Photo: Carol Rosegg

RECOMMENDED

Colin Quinn (best known for “SNL” and “Tough Crowd With Colin Quinn”) has a knack for making cynicism sound almost playful. His latest one-man show finds him systematically traversing the globe in (mostly) chronological order examining the successes and ultimate failures of various cultures and societies, constantly reminding us that despite what we think of the global situation today, things have always been screwed up and will always be screwed up simply because we humans are screwed up. Quinn’s thesis is that even the best societies are undone by continuously “doing the same thing that works, even after it stops working” and like a lawyer employing anecdotal evidence he systematically builds his case, giving humankind a gentle ribbing in the process. Read the rest of this entry »

RECOMMENDED

In the most daring piece of music ever composed for a Broadway musical, Leonard Bernstein’s climactic “Quintet (Tonight)” near the end of Act I in “West Side Story” uses the template of a grand operatic ensemble combined with a Bach-like sense of counterpoint with spicy Latin rhythms and contemporary jazz harmonies. Acting as a beacon of clarity within that complex structure are Stephen Sondheim’s masterful lyrics, the best he ever wrote for any show, including his own.

It speaks to the best and to the worst aspects of the current touring production of the 2009 Broadway revival of the show that most musical theater cognoscente would consider the greatest musical ever written that this “Quintet” is delivered with remarkable transparency musically and yet, its meaning muddled by the bizarre inclusion of Spanish—actually Spanglish, in this case—into the mix. Read the rest of this entry »