Results tagged “goodmantheatre”

• With property tax bills set to arrive in mailboxes over the next several days, it looks like they're going up by double-digits, even higher than previously expected.
• John Ambrose, a deputy U.S. Marshal accused of leaking information to mob members involved in the Family Secrets investigation, has been sentenced to four years in prison. When he was convicted in April, it was reportedly the first breach of the Witness Protection program.
• Former Chicago Bear Tank Johnson testified today in the murder trial of Michael Selvie, charged with shooting and killing Johnson's boyhood friend Willie Posey at the Ice Bar in December 2006.

Molly Brennan wants everyone to stop being mad. She's playing Harpo Marx/The Professer in the Goodman Theatre's much-anticipated production of the Marx Brothers musical Animal Crackers, and despite what you may have heard, she has no gender-bending agenda. However, even Brennan was a bit skeptical at first. "The Goodman? A girl playing Harpo?" she says, remembering her initial reaction to the theater's proposition. "It never occured to me that they would think of that." And when she was actually cast, even after missing the first audition, she still couldn't believe it. "Really? Really? You want me?...It felt very much like a gift."

National Endowment for the Arts Chairman Rocco Landesman still prefers the Steppenwolf, even after his HUGE slip-up when he basically said the Steppenwolf and Goodman are better than whatever theater there is in Peoria, IL. (Well, he said he didn't know of a theater in Peoria and he wanted to fund the kind of art at the Steppenwolf and Goodman. Close enough.)

Theatre Communications Group, the national organization for non-profit theater, named Steppenwolf Artistic Director Martha Lavey its new board president. TCG is also the U.S. center of the International Theatre Institute. Goodman Executive director Roche Schulfer joins the board for the first time, and Rachel Kraft, Lookingglass executive director, returns to the board. It’s great to see such strong Chicago representation in the national organization!

A few days a go, new chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts Rocco Landesman couldn’t tell you whether there was theater in Peoria, Illinois and now, he’s probably going to have to visit to remove the taste of shoe from his mouth. In his first interview since his confirmation as chairman last Friday, Landesman told The New York Times, “I don’t know if there’s a theater in Peoria, but I would bet that it’s not as good as Steppenwolf or the Goodman.”

Given the arduous task of humanizing a killer, Villa is hindered by the script's quick leap between his teenage self, a protective brother who loves acting, to a sociopath. We found ourselves pitying the murdered racist gas station attendants instead of the misguided anti-hero. Papo is most sympathetic when talking to Lulu, but unfortunately his best moments are delivered from behind prison bars. Regina Garcia's set, although supported by beautiful lighting from Jeremy Getz, is a physical barrier that kept him far away enough that we couldn't help but sit behind an emotional one. As Lulu, Delgado shoulders the bulk of the play with grace, sincerity and a charming quirkiness. However, some of that sincerity is lost in her interactions with boyfriend Ed (Josh Odor). We intellectually understood their struggles as a couple, but a lack of chemistry prevented us from feeling them. Their scenes are also written in somewhat of an incongruous style - a choice that might not have bothered us if there was more of a delineation from the "poetic memoryscape."

If you didn’t get tickets for the midnight showing of Harry Potter, there’s other ways to tickle your film fancy than seeing Daniel Radcliffe fight Voldemort for the sixth time. The Chicago Outdoor Film Festival opens tonight, and each following Tuesday, Grant Park will become Chicago’s very own drive-in, minus the cars and backseat make-out sessions.

Marital disputes make great theater, and Rebecca Gilman’s latest play, The Crowd You’re In With, is no exception. However, while the play, making its Chicago premiere at the Goodman, opens with talk of periods and baby showers, it evolves into a complex look at how our friends, and others around us, can dictate the course of our lives.

It’s no secret that theaters are trying to find a way to engage audiences in the recession, i.e. get people to come to their shows so that they then make money. (It’s not rocket science.) Theaters like the Goodman are probably struggling less than the low-budget storefronts since they have access to more marketing dollars to attract audiences, but we imagine they’re in a similar predicament. The Goodman just launched a new website, which while attempting to be innovative is really nothing more than a large marketing ploy.

Academics and dramaturgs are trained to worship Stoppard. The mere allure of complex ideas that can be BS’d in every which way is what keeps them employed. However, when the average theatergoer gets a taste of Stoppard’s genius served up on a beautiful silver platter in Rock ‘n’ Roll at the Goodman, he tends to get confused.

The Pulitzers love us, but the Tonys apparently hate us. The Goodman rushed its recent revival of Eugene O’Neil’s Desire Under the Elms to Broadway, with days to spare for Tony consideration, only to receive NO Tony nominations. What is this madness, American Theatre Wing? Did you not see the house land on the stage? Did you not weep at Carla Gugino’s mesmerizing performance? Did you not witness Robert Falls breathtaking direction? Why no love?

We know Chicago is famous for the intimate storefront scene and the omnipresent itinerant theaters, but the powerhouses also have some good stuff to offer. And no, you’re not selling your theatrical soul if you actually enjoy Broadway In Chicago. We do, but sometimes it’s cost, not quality, that prevents us from attending, as we’re sure you understand. So here’s a handful of ways to get cheap cheaper tickets to some of Chicago’s iconic thespian hangouts.

Chicago theater has done it again. After the international success of Tracy Lett’s Pulitzer Prize-winning August: Osage County, Lynn Nottage won the 2009 Pulitzer for her play Ruined, which premiered at the Goodman Theatre last fall. We don’t like to brag, but two Pulitzers in two years is a pretty good record.

Drum roll, please: Lynn Nottage's play "Ruined," which premiered at the Goodman Theatre, is the winner of the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. “Ruined” is set in Congo and details the horrors of wartime rape and brutality while still finding affirmation of life and hope amid despair.

Today marked the third and final performance of Greg Allen's take on the Eugene O'Neill epic Strange Interlude. We saw it last night and it was not your typical evening at the Goodman Theatre, involving as it did the singing of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" and a sex scene with a Cabbage Patch Kid. In true Neofuturist fashion, Allen's adaptation took the play completely apart and then put it back together in ways that a lot of audience members found shocking. In fact hecklers attempted to disrupt the first two performances, shouting "Why are you butchering this play?" and "You don't know how to do O'Neill!" Yet at the end of Saturday's show there was a standing ovation.

Just as the hullabaloo surrounding last year’s “it” play August: Osage County dies down, Chicago takes on the Great White Way for a second time with the Goodman Theatre’s production of Eugene O’Neill’s Desire Under the Elms. The show is scheduled to start performances on April 14 at the St. James Theatre with opening night on April 27, making the Tony Award eligibility cutoff by 3 days.

The Wooster Group's production of Eugene O'Neill's 1920s play The Emperor Jones opened last night at the Goodman Theatre to a sold out crowd, despite the boycott initiated hours earlier by local publishing company and African-American activist group, Third World Press. The organization objects to the use of a white actress in blackface playing the leading role, which they believe mimics 19th century-style minstrelsy.

The timing of this Goodman Theatre production sure is right on the money. "The gas station that inspired the play----which was on the corner of Lincoln and Berteau Streets on the North Side--closed, and I was sort of flabbergasted. I'd lived in the neighborhood for a long time, and Gas For Less was a landmark," explains playwright Brett Neveu. "When the station closed, I asked around to find out what happened. I heard that the owners couldn't afford to buy gas anymore." Neveu's play centers around his fictionalized version of this gas station; but it could take place in a neighborhood bar, or an indie coffeehouse, or any other homegrown business that's threatened with extinction when an area starts to gentrify. What do people do when a neigborhood landmark that's been there for decades suddenly disappears? Where do they go?

Love fades. Existence kills our dreams. It’s all shite in the end anyway.

In his new memoir/cookbook Tastes Like Cuba: An Exile's Hunger for Home, author and playwright Eduardo Machado spins a nostalgic account of the Cuban exile experience, framed by meals he remembered as a child in Cuba, as an exile entering the States during the Peter Pan airlifts, as a young actor and writer and, later, on return visits to Cuba as an adult. "All my life I've been trying to get food to taste like I remembered it as a kid", Machado told Chicagoist in an interview last week. "To me, the smell of food like roast pork and tamales is my childhood."

Want to go to a play--but you don't know how? The Trib has you covered. This "Theater 101" article is full of such helpful tips as "If the show starts at 8:00, get there at 7:50." Honest to God, we can't tell if the item "Applause: When the play ends, there's a blackout, then the lights come back on and all the actors come on stage to take a bow. This is when you should...

Looking for a woolly mammoth costume? Ha! Does the pope shit in the woods? Of course you are. Then you're in luck: Tomorrow's the Goodman Theatre's costume sale, and believe it or not, there is indeed a woolly mammoth up for grabs. The Snuffleupagus-esque get-up is from the Goodman's 1992 production of , as is a dinosaur costume (also available!). No word on how crusty/not crusty the 15-year-old outfit is, but we're guessing it's leaning toward the crusty side of things.

Well, we've been hearing about Looptopia for awhile. A big overnight festival held in the Loop, blah blah. We didn't think too much about it. We pretty much dismiss the Loop after 5 p.m. and give it up for lost on the weekends. Looptopia is obviously working hard to change all that. It's going on this Friday through early Saturday morning and since we're going to be down there, we decided to check out the...

As playwrights age, their work may increasingly confront how they, or anyone, will be remembered after death. Their passing will command respectful obituaries and festivals in tribute, but it’s also the moment when they relinquish all control of their legacy. What a terrifying thought for someone who’s made a living playing God! This season, the Goodman and Shattered Globe pay tribute to Pulitzer Prize winners August Wilson (1945-2005) and Arthur Miller (1915-2005), respectfully, in productions...

Sean Chercover definitely writes what he knows. In his debut novel, Big City, Bad Blood, Chercover takes us on a ride with private investigator Ray Dudgeon. Dudgeon is hired to protect a Hollywood patsy, Bob Loniski, who saw something he shouldn’t have and is now being hunted by the Chicago Outfit. Chercover himself was a private eye, and obviously a lover of Chicago, and his knowledge of both make for an enjoyable read.

Note: “Behind the Scenes” is a new series exploring the arts as a business and a craft. For every playwright enjoying a production on a Chicago stage during this busy theater season, many more are waiting their turn. Rebecca Gilman knows both sensations well. Ms. Gilman is one of Chicago’s most acclaimed playwrights, her work has been produced at the Goodman Theatre, London’s Royal Court Theatre, Manhattan Theatre Club and regional theaters across the country....

Theaters typically sell subscriptions on the strength of tried and true stories, and no story is more tried and true than the unhappy family. Writers write, and actors play, what they know or can easily research. Patrons take comfort, or catharsis, in seeing characters who have it worse. This week, three Chicago companies opened the the 2006 season with Tolstoy’s overquoted observation about unhappy families in mind.

Jane Hamilton’s new book, “When Madeline Was Young,” begins with the unfortunate knowledge that there is no more waiting, the other shoe has definitely dropped.

It must be something in the air. Look beyond the explosion of neighborhood Summer Fests, “Taste Ofs”, and nationally recognized rock smorgasbords, and you’ll find… still more festivals. Taking a cue from music promoters, local theaters know you’re excited to spend hours upon hours being entertained along some kind of theme. Festivals grab attention, and these festivals grabbed ours: Darknight Theatrical Productions pays tribute to Twilight Zone master Rod Serling, presenting three original one-acts inspired...

The Goodman Theatre is welcoming David Mamet back home, throwing a party to celebrate the native son, his prolific career and versatile success. Mamet’s best known as the writer of such honest, bruising work as Glengarry Glen Ross, Sexual Perversity in Chicago, and American Buffalo, where characters fight a soul-crushing world and deliver rapid-fire dialogue, spouting salty terms like f&*#^ng c#^>$*{(~#s. But the Pulitzer Prize winner has also written clever nostalgic s#’% like The Old...