RECOMMENDED

What what! Don Pedro, Benedick, Claudio and Don John are in the hizouse! Leonato’s house that is. Having just wrapped up a successful nationwide tour slaying whack MCs left and right, these hip-hop soldiers are laying up in their old friend Leo’s crib for some R&R when Claudio falls for Leo’s fine but ditzy daughter Hero. A dope wedding is planned until that ol’ dirty bastard Don John decides to funk it up. Meanwhile Benedick and Hero’s sassy cousin Beatrice drop pun-filled disses on each other in a rap battle of the sexes. Co-creators and directors The Q Brothers call it a “hip-hoptation”—“mixing Big Pun with Shakespeare.” And though their lyrical rhythms are more reminiscent of the Beastie Boys or Too Short, they know their way around the Bard’s tale and this cast knows how to keep it funky (and fresh) with a frenetic, infectious energy backed up by the wicked beats of DJ Adrienne Sanchez. Word. (Zach Freeman)

At Chicago Shakespeare Theater, 800 East Grand (Navy Pier), (312)595-5600, chicagoshakes.com, through February 13.

As the economy slowly lifts us back to our feet and we look around, we see a remarkable sight: a performance industry in Chicago that survived the worst recession since the Great Depression wholly intact. Sure, we had a few brushes with death, and no doubt a few very small, very new theater companies threw in the towel, as they do even in good years, but unlike many other cities across the country, we’re in pretty good shape. How good? The League of Chicago Theatres issued a press release last week proclaiming our town as America’s theater leader, with more than 250 professional theaters, including four Regional Tony Award winners, and a combined annual budget of $250 million serving five million audience members. Add in our thriving dance community, a comedy scene that’s the envy of the nation and two world-class opera companies and you’d have to say we’re doing pretty damn good. But neither the economy nor any cultural organization is fully out of the water yet, and the dramatic uncertainty injected into the political sea by Mayor Daley’s decision to call it a day means Chicago’s performance community will need some steady hands at the wheel these next few years. Accordingly, for this edition of The Players, we’ve broadened our horizon and taken a closer-than-ever look at the individuals in charge of the financial fitness of our local institutions. Read the rest of this entry »

Chaon Cross as Celia, Kate Fry as Rosalin, and Matt Schwader as Orlando/Photo: Peter Bosy

By Dennis Polkow

When Gary Griffin was hired as associate artistic director at Chicago Shakespeare Theater a decade ago, it was principally to expand the company’s programming beyond the classics. Griffin has done exactly that by directing widely acclaimed productions of Stephen Sondheim, Noel Coward and Peter Shaffer at CST, among others.

And though Griffin has done a number of “Shakespeare Shorts,” as the company calls its one-hour adaptations, it was only a matter of time before the veteran director who is primarily associated with directing musicals—including “The Music Man” at Marriott Theatre through January 9, and more recently, operettas at Lyric Opera, including “The Mikado” which is running through January 21—would at some point tackle a full-boat Bard.

“One of the reasons that I wanted to work here is because it was an opportunity to explore an area of theater that I hadn’t worked in,” admits Griffin, during a break at a New Year’s weekend tech rehearsal at Chicago Shakespeare Theater. “I had never done Shakespeare and as you get older, the classics become more and more appealing. It was unknown territory, and that was exciting. That was a big appeal.”

Griffin admits that being part of the CST has meant that his forays into Shakespeare “both by experience and by osmosis get inside of you. It certainly has been a great experience to spend this much time and watch a lot of people tackle [Shakespeare in] a lot of different ways. Then you discover what your version is, or what at least, at this point, you hope it will be.” Read the rest of this entry »

Krapp's Last Tape/Photo: Liz Lauren

Top 5 Shows
“The Brother/Sister Plays,” Steppenwolf
“August: Osage County,” Broadway In Chicago
“Hughie”/”Krapp’s Last Tape,” Goodman
“1001,” Collaboraction
“Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” Steppenwolf
—Brian Hieggelke

Top 5 Play Revivals
“A Streetcar Named Desire,” Writers’ Theatre
“Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” Steppenwolf
“To Kill a Mockingbird,” Steppenwolf Young Adult
“Private Lives,” Chicago Shakespeare Theater
“After the Fall,” Eclipse Theatre
—Dennis Polkow

Top 5 Performances
Brian Dennehy, “Hughie”/”Krapp’s Last Tape,” Goodman
Karen Janes Woditsch, “To Master the Art,” TimeLine
Tracy Letts, “American Buffalo,” Steppenwolf
Amy Morton, “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” Steppenwolf
Mary Beth Fisher, “Seagull,” Goodman
—Brian Hieggelke

Read the rest of this entry »

Nadja Michael/Photo: Robert Kusel

By Dennis Polkow

When outgoing Lyric Opera general director Bill Mason first announced that Chicago Shakespeare founder Barbara Gaines would be making her operatic directorial debut with Verdi’s “Macbeth,” I was skeptical. Not that there wasn’t much to admire in Gaines’ imaginative stagings of more than thirty classics by the Bard at CST; it was the fact that she admitted that her previous opera exposure had been being “dragged” to the old Met as a young girl by her grandmother, that she didn’t know Italian, couldn’t read a score and would be learning the work off of CDs, and had not even known that Verdi had written an operatic adaptation of “Macbeth” before being asked to direct it. As artistic director of CST, would Gaines be willing to hire a director who barely knew the Bard and was illiterate and couldn’t read Shakespeare, I wondered?

Yet as Gaines’ new production of Verdi’s “Macbeth” that premiered at last weekend’s black-tie Lyric Opera Opening Night Gala overwhelmingly demonstrated, it doesn’t matter how you get there—Gaines even admitted having read “Opera for Dummies”—what matters is the end result. And in this case, the end result is something quite extraordinary. Read the rest of this entry »

Jeff Lillico and Joy Farmer-Clary/Photo: Liz Lauren

RECOMMENDED

With artistic director Barbara Gaines busy directing “Macbeth” over at Lyric Opera, Chicago Shakespeare Theater brought in renowned Shakespearean director Gale Edwards from Australia (veteran of several Royal Shakespeare Company gigs) to helm its season premiere of “Romeo and Juliet.” She, in turn, imported many of her leads from out of town, but no matter: this is an exceptional production regardless of its principals’ pedigrees. Most striking, perhaps, is the design of the show, and for that we have Chicagoans to thank: Brian Sidney Bembridge’s set is astonishing, the back stage opened up to create a long, deep hangar-like space, which functions as Verona streetscape, interior of the Capulet mansion and all other locations in the play. It is neither modern nor classical as befitting the production’s overall design, including Ana Kuzmanic’s wardrobe, which seems to master that balancing act of being of no time and all time at once. Like the story itself. Read the rest of this entry »

"Candide" production photo by Liz Lauren

By Dennis Polkow

When Tony Award-winning director Mary Zimmerman is due in early at Goodman Theatre to discuss taking on her first musical, Leonard Bernstein’s “Candide,” it is obvious that she is tired, having stayed up most of the night revising script pages after a day and night of rehearsals. Today will also be a full day of rehearsals, but tonight will be the first preview of the work. As she is making her way to the table and chairs that her press folks have set up in a quiet area of the building, a beautiful large dog briskly enters, checking out both the area and the reporter. The dog has a Goodman Theatre security tag attached to his collar with his picture that identifies him as “Beary.”

“When I first got him, he was a wreck. He was a pound dog, so he is quite devoted. He is a mix—at the pound they said shepherd-husky, but a lot of people see beagle in him as well. Beagles have that black saddle but huskies often have a very thick double coat and little star as he does. I’m sure he is more than two breeds, by the way. But he’s a good old fellow. I’ve had him since “Pericles” in D.C. This is probably his fifteenth show, maybe? He was full grown when I got him and I’ve had him eight years, so he’s at least ten. I hope he’s only ten. I don’t know how old he is, I have no idea. He’s holding up, and he’s a sweet boy. Tonight he will be exiled from the theater for the first time and will be in the dressing room. He’s just sort of curled up by me in rehearsals most of the time.” Read the rest of this entry »

RECOMMENDED

There are so many one-person shows out there that many of us have become numb to the template of one person sharing anecdotes for an hour or two, or even acting his or her heart out in an intense manner for a compact period of time. What distinguishes “Itsoseng” from the usual formulaic solo fare is that it is a sweeping dramatic epic that just happens to be told by a single person. That said, the single person in this case actually takes on the personas of the various characters in the play, sometimes right within the same scene (yes, we’ve seen that before, too) that just happens to be set within the immensely compelling backdrop of South Africa’s post-apartheid era. We have seen that before, too, right here in our country: simply because civil rights legislation is passed or a black man becomes president in America does not mean that racial prejudice goes out the window, and in fact, for some, such events become rallying cries for agendas of white privilege to simply take on new forms. Read the rest of this entry »

Ian Bedford and Bianca Amarto/Photo: Liz Lauren

Imagine Shakespeare’s infamous battle of the sexes, minus the sexes, cross-fertilized with Cole Porter’s “Kiss Me, Kate,” minus the music. That is essentially what we get with director Josie Rourke’s re-imagining of “The Taming of the Shrew.”

Rourke clearly takes the one-dimensional view that the Bard’s purpose is merely to remind us that a good wife is a submissive wife, end of story. Doing the play means being a Shakespearian enabler in getting across his male-chauvinist message. As such, the decision is made to replace the often omitted play-within-a-play device of the original and transplant it with a modern-day framing scenario—complete with snappy dialogue supplied by playwright Neil LaBute—of a cast and crew putting on the play, at Chicago Shakespeare Theater, no less, and of objecting to the sexist message that they are asked to get across via the play. Read the rest of this entry »

Photo: Viktor Vassiliev

RECOMMENDED

It’s easy for Chicagoans to take great ensemble acting for granted. After all, we get it in abundance thanks to the Steppenwolf Theatre Company. But in reality, you could count on one hand the number of great theatrical acting ensembles in the world, and among them surely is the Maly Drama Theatre of St. Petersburg. On par with seeing Moliére done by the Comédie-Française in Paris, or Strindberg performed by the Dramaten (Stockholm’s Royal Dramatic Theatre), the prospect of experiencing an authentic Russian-language production of Chekhov’s “Uncle Vanya” by the Maly ensemble is one of those rare theatergoing opportunities that doesn’t come around too often. Read the rest of this entry »