Photo: Eleanor Berman

By Fabrizio O. Almeida

“Angels in America, Part I”: An angel appears accompanied by a flash of light so bright you have to block your eyes. An aural cluster of classical compositions (Stravinsky, Verdi) blasts while the incessant sound of fluttering wings catches up to your heartbeat, an experience akin to the THX Dolby Digital surround sound in a movie theater that vibrates from up and under your chair and into your body.

“Adding Machine”: A visual journey into an expressionistic world of chiaroscuro lighting effects and dark sensibilities.

“Picnic”: You enter the theater and are enveloped in a world of live tree branches and gorgeous green grass.

“Our Town”: A fugue of smells—the aroma of coffee percolating and bacon sizzling—from a kitchen so real you could move in yesterday.

These are David Cromer moments. Read the rest of this entry »

Penny Slusher and John Mahoney

RECOMMENDED

Sure, it’s no surprise to encounter yet another Irish writer with a statistically unlikely mastery of this language. And it’s certainly no surprise to find John Mahoney playing an Irishman nearing life’s end with an unnaturally natural composure. Nor, for that matter, is it any kind of a revelation to tell you that director BJ Jones is consistent in his ability to assemble top-flight ensembles that he molds into a collective of outstanding quality. Unsurprising all, yes, but not to be taken for granted, especially after far too many nights at the theater that point out how exceptional this all is.

“A Life,” Irish playwright Hugh Leonard’s sequel to his Tony Award-winning play, “Da,” unfolds in a single day in the small town of Dalkey, Ireland, when Desmond Drumm (Mahoney) re-engages with important lifelong friends after a disconcerting visit to the doctor. As this happens, a parallel series of flashbacks feature the same characters nearer life’s beginning, laying the foundation for the interlocking relationships. This is no gothic tragedy; revelations are meaningful and heartbreaking, but for the reasons most of us suffer remorse. Not over great betrayals or horrifying transgressions, but rather over smaller but persistent manifestations of obstinancy of character, of insensitivity to the world right around us. Read the rest of this entry »

Mike Nussbaum, Keith Gallagher/Photo: Timmy Samuel

RECOMMENDED

It’s fashionable to treat the works of playwright Clifford Odets as out of fashion. Accordingly, productions are relatively rare for a writer who gave the social unrest coming out of the Great Depression its voice, the writer most associated with the legendary Group Theatre, one of the most influential theatrical ensembles in American history.

But times have changed of late, and the out-of-favor socialist notions espoused in Odets’ work suddenly have renewed relevance. After all, the day that Northlight’s well-crafted revival of his masterpiece, “Awake and Sing!” was to open, I turned on NPR to hear Mad Moneyman Jim Cramer telling the host that our recent economic meltdown proved Karl Marx right. Marx! Hell, Cramer even trotted out Trotsky for praise.

Today’s economic misfortunes are recurring echoes of the economic backdrop of this 1935 play, with one major exception: there was a progressive utopian ideal at work then, the idea that from the carnage a better world, a better economic system would emerge, as expressed to and through the character of Ralphie Berger (played with suitable earnestness by Keith Gallagher). These days, the doctrine of capitalism seems at little risk from either side of the politcal divide, and the great hope is not a better tomorrow but simply a return to a better-working yesterday. Read the rest of this entry »

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 »

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 »

As part of our decade retrospective, we surveyed more than forty theater companies for their observations to a couple of questions. What follows are their formatted but unedited responses.

Deb Clapp
Executive Director, League of Chicago Theatres (founded 1979)

Any observations or thoughts about Chicago theater in the last decade?
Over the last decade, Chicago has seen the downtown theater district grow and thrive, Goodman moved downtown and several theaters were re-furbished. Lookingglass moved into their new digs on Michigan Avenue and theater has flourished. Several exciting new companies have been established including The House Theatre of Chicago, Silk Road Theatre Project, New Leaf Theatre and Rasaka, among many others.

Is there a “Chicago style” anymore (if there ever was) and has it changed? What, today, distinguishes Chicago theater from anywhere else?
A number of unique characteristics distinguish Chicago theater. We have a unique ecology encompassing a wide range of theater artistry, from spectacle to culturally specific, horror to improv, houses with thousands of seats to houses with 18 seats. Our community is very collegial and collaborative, sharing ideas and resources. When one theater has a hit show, its not just a hit for that show, it’s a hit for Chicago. Our directors, authors, actors, stagehands, producers, all are Chicagoans and all create for a Chicago audience.

Outside of your own company, who or what excites you most about local theater right now?
Chicago is the best place to see and to make theater in the world. A lot of attention from other parts of the country and the world is being paid to Chicago theater right now and while that is wonderful and will inevitably lead us to greater things, what continues to happen every night in Chicago theater brings me joy. Telling our stories and the stories of others, bringing the world on stage every night, that’s what excites me most. Read the rest of this entry »

Most Jukebox musicals come in one of two formats. Some take a compilation of well-known songs and use them to tell the life story of the songwriter or the performer who made them famous. And some create a fictional storyline within which they shoehorn a bunch of unrelated songs via a contrived plot.  “The Marvelous Wonderettes,” the jukebox musical at Northlight Theatre featuring those gloriously groovy tunes of the fifties and sixties, may be the first to do both.

The first act, set in a fictional high-school auditorium (period-evoking set and details by Michael Carnahan), sees Cindy Lou, Missy, Betty Jean and Suzy (aka “The Marvelous Wonderettes”) providing their 1958 senior prom’s entertainment by belting out recognizable hits such as “Lollipop,” “Mr. Sandman” and “(Love is like a) Heatwave” in a concert format.  There is a small attempt to develop individual character and explore the quartet’s interpersonal dynamics throughout, but most of this act, crafted with the kind of wholesome 1950s pre-psychedelic American sweetness liable to send a modern-day cynic into a sugar coma, is little more than an excuse to stage a K-Tel Golden Oldies musical medley.   Read the rest of this entry »

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 »