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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Anthony Flemming III/Photo: Sean Williams

RECOMMENDED

Playing out in real time, this ninety-minute show captures an imagined closed-door meeting called by Branch Rickey, the Dodger’s General Manager (played with cigar-chomping gusto by Larry Neumann, Jr.), on the eve of the historic signing of Jackie Robinson (Javon Johnson) to the Dodgers in 1947. Read the rest of this entry »

Photo: Sean Williams

With a cast of seven handling a vast array of characters (with refreshingly little regard for gender/age/ethnicity) this remounting of John Musial’s “The Great Fire” (directed by Musial) features plenty of comedic asides, a helping of emotional depth, memorably striking choreography, a few clever musical interludes and even a hilarious miniature puppet show. Ultimately, though, these diverse bits don’t always connect properly, leaving this ninety-minute Chicago “creation myth” feeling disjointed and less impactful than it could have been. Read the rest of this entry »

Chance Bone, Nora Fiffer/Photo: Sean Williams

RECOMMENDED

Time and adversity can easily destroy culture; witness the pillaging of Iraqi museums at the beginning of the current war. Lookingglass’ latest is a tender look at one woman’s struggle with her past and her efforts to honor her heritage.

Lilith (Marilyn Dodds Frank) is an octogenarian living in clutter with her new caregiver (Usman Ally). Haunted by the specter of an old love, street performer Ben Ari (Chance Bone), Lilith drifts between present day and visions of her life as a young girl in wartime Poland.

David Kersnar’s staging guides the piece seamlessly between realities. Jacqueline and Richard Penrod’s set and Tracy Otwell’s design ingeniously illustrate the toy theater aesthetic popular in the 1930s. Bone is an appealing, versatile storyteller and the relationship with sheltered Lilka (Nora Fiffer) is charming yet vulnerable. Frank and Ally’s clever, sarcastic banter belies a grudging respect. It’s a story about stories that’s enchanting. (Lisa Buscani)

“The Last Act of Lilka Kadison,” Lookingglass Theatre, 821 North Michigan, (312)337-0665. Through July 24.

Here’s the press release from Lookingglass Theatre Company:

Lookingglass Theatre Company announces 2011-2012 season featuring three productions about history-making moments in America, including work by Lookingglass Ensemble Members John Musial, J. Nicole Brooks and Andy White

Chicago, IL—Lookingglass Theatre Company proudly announces its 2011-2012 season, featuring three productions about three moments in American history—The Great Fire that razed Chicago, Jackie Robinson’s game-changing signing with the Brooklyn Dodgers, and the 1915 Chicago tragedy of the sinking of The Eastland.   This upcoming season, Lookingglass will tell the stories of those who, whether famous or forgotten, were caught in the crucible of the moment.   Read the rest of this entry »

Photo: Dave Rentauskas

By Benjamin Rossi

The premiere of The New Colony’s “So Many Days,” the young theater company’s first short film, feels unmistakably like a gathering of friends. A live band made up of company members croons bluegrass tunes about Oriental lovers and drinking till you die; everyone seems to know the words. Someone in the company had sent out an email encouraging people to wear flannel shirts in homage to the short’s early sixties Deep South setting, but it’s difficult to distinguish those who complied from the rest of the hipster crowd.

A makeshift bar set off in a corner of host Collaboraction’s small space serves whiskey and PBR in Solo cups as company members greet people in the Flat Iron Arts Building’s third floor landing, asking, “So who’s your friend in the company?”

With “So Many Days,” the barely three-year-old New Colony is taking a novel, if not entirely unprecedented, step towards filmmaking. It’s just one more in a series of remarkable moves for the theater group. And while it is a modest beginning, New Colony members say its latest effort is a harbinger for things to come. But as its projects become more ambitious, the company may come up against obstacles that bedeviled other attempts by Chicago theaters to jump from stage to screen. Read the rest of this entry »

Photo: Sean Williams

RECOMMENDED

In Laura Eason’s adaptation of the Edith Wharton novel, things may be austere, but nothing is simple, as stoic Ethan Frome (Philip R. Smith) pines for the buoyant Mattie Silver (Louise Lamson), caregiver to his malingering wife Zeena (Lisa Tejero). The minimal set design, a Lookingglass standard, is especially apt here, capturing the bleakness of the town of Starkfield (what a name), the Frome homestead, and the lives of the characters. Even the dialogue is sparse, though there’s a catch to that: the constantly lurking narrator (Andrew White) frequently steps in to further explain actions, events and motives. If there’s one way to make it clear that a play has been adapted from a novel, this is it. It’s a distracting choice and effectively sets the entire story up as a play within a play. Still, the tragedy of lives unfulfilled is delicately rendered and haunting, even after the lights come up. (Zach Freeman)

The Lookingglass Theatre Company, 821 North Michigan, (312)337-0665. Through April 17.

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 »

RECOMMENDED

“After such a fall as this I shall think nothing of falling down stairs.” So says the precocious Alice (a captivating Lauren Hirte) after an acrobatic representation of falling down the rabbit hole. And after such an Alice as “Lookingglass Alice” I have a feeling I shall think nothing of other Lewis Carroll adaptations.

The deceptively simple opening few minutes quickly explodes into a meta-production that encompasses much of Carroll’s “Through the Looking Glass”—with young Alice encountering a sort of adapted chess game in which she slowly advances towards her goal of becoming a queen. Along the way she meets a familiar cast of characters, remarkably played by only four other actors. The performers are given ample opportunity to display their well-developed acting (and movement) skills. Samuel Taylor’s manic White Knight, Molly Brennan’s psychotic Red Queen, Anthony Fleming III’s wild-eyed March Hare and Doug Hara’s contemplative Humpty Dumpty make the most lasting impression. Read the rest of this entry »

RECOMMENDED

The story of Hephaestus’ rejection from Mount Olympus and subsequent drama with the gods is underdeveloped at best in this production,  and sometimes incoherent—there’s often little connection between the narrated story (so simplistic it mostly feels like children’s theater) and often bizarre physical theater that less illustrates the story than interrupts it with some spectacle. However (and it’s a big however), this is easily some of the best physical theater and circus performance you’ll see in an intimate stage in Chicago. Lookingglass has enlisted a ridiculously impressive lineup who give virtuoso, seemingly impossible performances—culminating in a seven-person pyramid on the high wire that’s both terrifying and dazzling. (Monica Westin)

At The Goodman, 170 North Dearborn, (312)337-0665. Through June 20.