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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Danielle Knox and William Bennett/Photo: Rich Foreman

RECOMMENDED

Light Opera Works actually giving us—well, light opera works—is always a special treat, given how much emphasis the company has come to place on musicals in recent years. And the only operetta offering of the season is tailor-made for the resources of the Evanston-based company: Sigmund Romberg’s delightful “The Student Prince,” which has not been done at LOW in a decade.

Part “Prisoner of Zenda,” part “Wuthering Heights” set to waltz music and frothy melodies, it is easy to forget that the work is a thoroughly twentieth-century confection that began life on the Broadway stage. It was, in fact, the longest-running show of the 1920s, with more performances during that decade than the far more forward-looking work now so indelibly associated with that time, “Show Boat.” Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s the press release from Light Opera Works:

LIGHT OPERA WORKS’ 2011 Season continues in October

Evanston, IL: Light Opera Works’ 2011 season continues in the fall with RODGERS & HART: A CELEBRATION (October 2-November 6) on the Second Stage, and Marsha Norman and Lucy Simon’s THE SECRET GARDEN (December 26-January 1) on the mainstage. To purchase tickets call (847) 869-6300 or order online at www.LightOperaWorks.com Read the rest of this entry »

By Dennis Polkow

Okay, so it’s Christmas week and Newcity isn’t publishing again until January 6, so no print review of this show is able to appear before it closes on January 2. Nonetheless, there are some troubling issues raised by Light Opera Works’ production of “Hello, Dolly.”

As the world knows by now, Lyric Opera announced earlier in the month that soprano superstar Renée Fleming is becoming the company’s first-ever “creative consultant” and wants Lyric to start doing annual musicals, which will commence with “Oklahoma!” Lyric also has now performed operettas two years in a row, once a great rarity at that company which had thought for decades that operetta—let alone musical theater—was beneath the operatic mission and identity of the company.

Less known is that the Evanston-based Light Opera Works was founded thirty years ago to perform the very genre that Lyric ignored—namely, operettas—as its mainstay repertoire and core identity as the company name might suggest, and used to do exactly that, only performing musical theater pieces as a rarity. That formula has reversed itself at LOW to where operetta is now the exception—generally one out of four works per season—and musical theater the rule. The company has justified this by claiming that this is the ratio that its audiences preferred and that LOW was still contributing much to the local arts scene by showcasing musical theater works with trained singers and as they were meant to be heard with original full orchestrations and choruses, something rarely heard even on Broadway these days. 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

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Catherine Lord and Larry Adams/Photo: Rich Foreman

Kudos to Light Opera Works for once again digging into the canon of classic neglected works of the American musical-theater tradition for this year’s “Second Stage” presentation rather than presenting another revue as became custom for a few seasons.

“I Do! I Do!” was the third follow-up to Harvey Schmidt and Tom Jones’ stellar success “The Fantasticks,” which opened in 1960 and would go on to break all records and play until 2002. Even in 1966 when “I Do! I Do!” opened, however, “The Fantasticks” had already been running for six years.

Written for Broadway veterans Mary Martin and Robert Preston, “I Do! I Do!” is a two-person show that traces the effect of marriage on a couple across a fifty-year period from the turn of the twentieth century. Since neither performer could sing at that point, the songs are largely recitative and require Broadway-style sprechstimme in the manner Lerner and Loewe had perfected for Rex Harrison in “My Fair Lady” and for Richard Burton in “Camelot.” Though Ed Ames did have a hit with “My Cup Runneth Over” at the time, none of the songs are particularly melodic, which makes it an odd choice to be staged by a company known for bringing high musical quality to its productions. Read the rest of this entry »

Natalie Ford and Cooper David Grodin/Photo: Rich Foreman

RECOMMENDED

“Carousel” was Richard Rodgers personal favorite of all the musicals he wrote, either with lyricist Lorenz Hart or with Oscar Hammerstein II. Together, Rodgers & Hammerstein created a new kind of musical drama with 1943’s “Oklahoma!” where every song advanced the story line and every dance was done in character. The line between music and drama was so magnificently blurred that you never knew when dialogue might turn into song, or when action would turn into dance. “Carousel” followed two years later, developing even deeper characters and containing more music than “Oklahoma!” The R & H “You’ll Never Walk Alone” ending was certainly more optimistic and uplifting than Ferenc Molnár’s “Liliom,” upon which the show is based (Molnár was said to not only have approved, but to have loved it), but much of the play’s bleakness remained intact. Certainly the central character of Billy Bigelow was as earthy and tough as ever, even if he did have his more gentle moments. Indeed, there has been a trend in recent revivals and productions of “Carousel” to have things be so bleak, so dark, and so non-musical in presentation that you often thought you were watching “Liliom” interrupted by background music. Thankfully, Light Opera Works is reminding us why “Carousel” was chosen by Time magazine as the best musical of the twentieth century: the music. Read the rest of this entry »

Top 5 Shows
“Desire Under the Elms,” Goodman
“Blackbird,” Victory Gardens
“South Pacific,” Lincoln Center Theater
“The Tempest,” Steppenwolf
“Spring Awakening,” Broadway In Chicago 
—Brian Hieggelke

Top 5 Shows
“The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity,” Victory Gardens/Teatro Vista
“An Apology For the Course and Outcome of Certain Events Delivered by Doctor John Faustus on This His Final Evening,” Theater Oobleck
“The Pillowman,” Redtwist
“Frat,” The New Colony
“Red Noses,” Strawdog
—Nina Metz Read the rest of this entry »

Peter DeFaria and Randy Steinmeyer in "A Steady Rain" at Chicago Dramatists

Annoyance Theatre
Coed Prison Sluts: $64,000, 5,380 people

The Artistic Home
Peer Gynt: $19,044 box office, 1,200 people

Chicago Dramatists
A Steady Rain: $21,000 box office,1,500 people at CD, 10,000 at Royal George Theatre
Cadillac: $23,000 box office,1,600 people at CD, 1,500 at Theatre on the Lake

Collaboraction
The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow, $150,000 box office, 6,500 people Read the rest of this entry »

The 2006/07 season brought the grand opening of the new Victory Gardens Biograph Theater, following more than $11 million in renovations

Annoyance Theatre (founded 1987)
“We don’t really have a regular operating budget—just plan as we go along.”
—Jennifer Estlin, President, Annoyance Theatre

The Artistic Home (founded 1998)
End of nineties: $62,000
End of zeroes: $164,500

Bailiwick Chicago (founded 2009)
End of nineties: N/A (Bailiwick Repertory is now defunct)
End of zeroes: $120,000 projected 2010

Chicago Dramatists (founded 1979)
End of nineties: $171,000
End of zeroes: $550,000

Collaboraction (founded 1996)
End of nineties: $50,000
End of zeroes: $500,000

Court Theatre (founded 1955)
End of nineties: $2.6 million
End of zeroes: $3.2 million Read the rest of this entry »