Results tagged “theater”

Broadway doesn’t love Chicago as much as it led on. Just one week after the opening of Chicago director David Cromer’s Broadway debut with Neil Simon’s Brighton Beach Memoirs, producers posted a closing notice for Sunday and cancelled plans for Broadway Bound, another Cromer-directed Simon show scheduled to open in a few weeks. Memoirs received mixed reviews, but apparently it needed rave reviews to live on. The show didn’t do well in the box office and advance ticket sales were weak.

Call it a hunch, but we’re guessing you weren’t invited to Redmoon Theater’s Halloween performance at the White House. Yeah, we weren’t either. But no worries, there are plenty of shows to check out this weekend. In no particular order:

First off, we should tell you that we’re more familiar with Mel Brooks’ “Young Frankenstein” than Mary Shelley’s original novel. Or the Boris Karloff movie. Or any other version, really. (Our apologies to the Chicagoist Literary and Film Offices if they’re ashamed of us in any way.) The point is: We fully accept that The Hypocrites’ Frankenstein may have included references that went right over our heads. That being said: Prior knowledge and research certainly enrich the audience’s experience, but they shouldn’t be required. Throughout this entire show, we couldn’t shake the feeling that we had missed something. It was a frustrating 70 minutes.

We love storefront theater. There are no daunting crowds; the actors are right there; and you can usually enjoy a beer during the show. Chicago thrives on these theaters, and Rogers Park’s No Exit Café numbers among the best of ‘em. And while we also love Theo Ubique and applaud their gutsiness in Man of La Mancha, we felt a little too close to this production.

It seems like every other day we're reading about yet another theatrical project that makes us wonder if the success of Glee has caused some kind of collective brain short-circuiting. [Ed. note: I can't wait for Glee to die. How has no one else noticed it's just a cross between American Pie and the 4th season of Ally McBeal?!] Read for yourself.

There is a reason we read certain plays in high school. Sure, they’ve been done countless times across the country, occasionally in god-awful productions. Their plot summaries are all over the internet, and they can be a little boring to read. But sometime, somewhere, those words came to life onstage and changed the landscape of American culture. So before you groan that Death of a Salesman is at Raven Theatre for its second time, you should really go see it.

“Every exit is an entrance somewhere else,” Tom Stoppard writes in his Tony-award winning Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, currently playing in an excellent production at Writers’ Theatre. When the actors leave the stage where do they go? For Stoppard, the characters in Hamlet leave Shakespeare’s world and enter Stoppard's twisted universe of philosophical contemplation that left our heads spinning, in a good way.

The 41st Annual Equity Jeff Awards were held on Monday night - and since we couldn’t attend, we have to admit we were pretty amused to read that the ceremony was a bit of a mess. But despite our predilection for schaedenfreude, we do sincerely congratulate all of the winners - even if some of them didn’t bother to show for the ceremony. Extra kudos to TimeLine’s The History Boys for taking home more awards than any other production (five).

When we saw the advertisements for Lookingglass’; Fedra: Queen of Haiti, we were worried about taking our parents to the show. This “explosive” retelling was sure to bring out the junior higher in us during our folks’ visit, but we braved it anyway. However, we didn’t feel uncomfortable once. Maybe it’s a sign that we’ve outgrown parental awkwardness, but we’re pretty sure that’s not the case. The show simply did not deliver on its promises.

Lettice and Lovage, which opened Redtwist Theatre’s season last week, was written by playwright Peter Shaffer specifically for Maggie Smith. Although it won Dame Smith the 1990 Tony Award for "Best Actress In A Play" and was nominated for "Best Play" in that year, to be honest, we don’t think the script is that good. We certainly appreciate a show that provides two meaty roles for women, and yes, it’s cute - but it’s also way too long, and kind of…fluffy. Fluffy shows can be great, if they’re well-executed. Lettice and Lovage isn’t sharp enough to compensate for its fluff - an issue we suspect was not as prevalent with Maggie Smith driving the show. We just can’t help but wonder: why choose this play?

Yes, we know the headline is cheesy - but if you can’t take it, you probably won’t like the show. Yeast Nation (the triumph of life) is a new musical from the creative minds behind Urinetown, Mark Hollmann (music and lyrics) and Greg Kotis (book and lyrics). Now in its Midwest premiere at American Theatre Company, the show takes place four billion years ago, when single-celled organisms floated in the primordial soup. Although it’s written in the same self-aware style as Urinetown, the music is decidedly more 80s hairband. Perhaps more importantly, any sexual tension written into the show is tempered not only by the fact that yeasts produce asexually, but also - and this isn’t addressed - everyone is related, as they are all descendants of the same yeast. The whole thing is a bit odd - but then again, it’s about a bunch of yeast cells, so what else could it be?

Everyone is afraid of something. Lucinda is afraid of the monster under her bed. but he's not your ordinary monster. And Mia McCullough's brilliant new play Lucinda's Bed at Chicago Dramatists is anything but ordinary. It's plays like these that keep us going to the theater.

There are lots of cheap ways to see theater in Chicago, but free tickets are normally reserved for friends, family and press. Lucky for you, Theatre Communications Group (TCG) thinks you should see shows for free too - at least for this month.

Is it October already? Sure is, but you can still remember September in The Fantasticks at Porchlight Music Theatre. This refreshing production may not be the best one we’ve seen, but this musical has one of the most beautiful scores around. So as long as your cast can sing, which this one certainly can, you’ve got a great show.

I hope you’ll forgive my forsaking the usual Chicagoist first-person plural on this one - I think it’s warranted.

Mistakes Were Made, starring the Oscar nominee and currently running at A Red Orchid Theatre in Old Town, has been extended. The remainder of its run had been sold out but now Wednesday evening performances have been added through October 28. Hurry up and get tickets now. Shannon's performance is absolutely volcanic, and at only $30 a pop they won't last long.

We realize we’ve written a lot of “but” reviews lately. As in “it’s good, but…” Although it probably wouldn’t be very interesting to read, we really do wish we could tell you everything we see is good - we love theatre, and we want you to love theatre too. So we’re both relieved and slightly giddy to be able to say to you all: The Goodman Theatre’s Animal Crackers is damn good theatre.

Year Zero is a play of many firsts: The first of two plays presented in the first cycle of Victory Gardens’ “Ignition Festival,” and the first play to open in the theater’s brand-new Studio Theater. Created “to introduce exceptional new writers of color under the age of 40 to Victory Gardens,” the festival presents an exciting opportunity for playwrights and audience alike - unfortunately, we just weren’t that excited.

We've fallen in love with The Moth and its regular podcast -- discovered through its being featured on This American Life a few times -- and are excited to see they're kicking off a regular StorySLAM in Chicago, beginning with tonight's event at Martyr's.

Folding theaters, plunging box office numbers and mass layoffs have dominated the theater headlines of late. And as journalism suffers along with the stage, reviews, profiles and upcoming show previews have become few and far between in some publications. So as we were flipping through our Wall Street Journal this morning (O.K., O.K., it was a press release), we were surprised and excited to hear that there is some hope out there for the business we call show. Our very own Steppenwolf Theatre Company has been named on of the top 15 places to work by the Wall Street Journal’s Top Small Workplaces 2009.

At the center of Fake, which opened Steppenwolf Theatre’s season on Tuesday night, is the “Piltdown Man.” A reconstructed skeletal head consisting of skull and jawbone fragments allegedly discovered in a gravel pit in Piltdown, England in 1912, Piltdown Man was considered to be the missing link between man and ape. Although its authenticity was challenged almost immediately, it was not declared a forgery by the scientific community for 40 years, when advances were able to prove that the reconstruction was actually an orangutan jawbone combined with the skull of a modern man. Got it? Now on to the actual play.

We didn’t know much about Brendan Behan’s The Hostage before we showed up at Griffin Theatre's opening night, but after reading dramaturg Stefka Mihaylova’s program notes, we figured we were up to speed. It’s 1960, the Republic of Ireland is independent from England but separate from Northern Ireland, and former I.R.A. (Irish Republican Army) member Pat is renting his inn as a brothel to make ends meet. It sounded pretty heavy. But then some drag queens started doing a jig. And we realized we should’ve brought some whiskey to the party.

After giving ourselves a little vacation (aka “working overtime at our paid jobs”), the theatre staff at Chicagoist got back down to business this week. We’ll have a bunch of reviews coming up for you next week, but we figured we should all catch up on some news first.

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."

"I suppose I should say that all my roots are all in Chicago," Wallace Shawn told us. "Both sides of my family. My parents were very identified with being from Chicago, really. My childhood memories of visiting the relatives in Chicago are central to my being. And all sorts of things that some people associate with New York, I associate with Chicago, like going to hear jazz. I went with my uncle to hear Erroll Garner in Chicago." Shawn is usually thought of as the quintessential New Yorker (in fact his father William was the long-time editor of The New Yorker) but his new book is published by Chicago-based Haymarket Press. Essays is Shawn's first all-nonfiction collection, with pieces about the theater and writing, and impressions of living in post-9/11 America.

Did you catch the forty person masked chorus making random appearances throughout the city this summer? That was Redmoon Theater’s Momentary Opera. Have you seen weird mechanical contraptions being installed at Belmont Harbor? That’s for Redmoon’s Spectacle ’09 (subtitled Last Of My Species: The Fearless Songs of Laarna Cortaan). What is ricocheting around in these people’s brains? We have no idea. But we tried to find out.

We may regret admitting this, but there are some nights when we just don’t want to go to the theatre. We’re moody, we’re tired, it’s gross outside, but some very nice person has arranged for us to see his or her company’s play, and we know we have to go. We try very hard to leave our grumpiness at the door, but it doesn’t always work. These were the conditions under which we attended the opening of Under Milk Wood - the fact that we left charmed, uplifted and impressed is a testament to the strength of Caffeine Theatre’s production.

The Steppenwolf is on it. The Broadway musical Next to Normal took it to the next level. And now, The Playground Theater is bringing it to the stage. (We're talking about Twitter in case you were wondering.) The Tweet Life is an improv show that uses one guest's tweets as scene suggestions for the performance. Each week, a different twitter follower of @the_playground will be chosen as the subject of an original show. If you want to participate, follow @the_playground and @reply "I want in on #thetweetlife." The selected follower will receive two complimentary tickets to that week's show. If you're not on Twitter, we can't help you. Or just sign up.

Recently transplanted from Kalamazoo, The Ruckus is a company dedicated to finding fresh ways to develop new work, and, according to their mission statement, bringing the ruckus. The world premiere production of Heist Play doesn’t quite bring the ruckus, but it’s on the right track. With a few cuts and some refining, the script has the potential to be as sharp as some of its killer one-liners.

We’re gonna cut to the chase on this one. Watch this - if your time is limited, skip to the 3 minute mark.