Mark your calendars and hang on for the ride. Chi-town is theatre town and this fall is full of great season openers. Here are just a few productions of note, that are high on our must see list. Check back with ChiIL Live Shows like we vote in Chi, IL... early and often, for the heads up on great upcoming theatre, music and more.
ChiIL Live Shows Phone Photo Theatre Montage 2012/13
Here's just a smattering of what we saw and reviewed this past season:
AMERICAN THEATER COMPANY
It’s a Wonderful Life: The Radio Play
Adapted from the Frank Capra film
Directed by ATC Artistic Director PJ Paparelli
Dates: November 22-December 29, 2013
Location: American Theater Company, 1909 W Byron St., Chicago
Bedford Falls, 1948. After ten years, American Theater Company will revise its annual holiday production of Frank Capra’s beloved story of one man’s affect on his community. This year’s production-- directed for the first time by ATC’s Artistic Director PJ Paparelli-- will include new Foley sound effects and commercial breaks in the style of a traditional 1940’s radio play.
Subscriber Only Event
The Wizard of Oz: The Radio Play
By L. Frank Baum
Adapted by Frank Gabrielson
With Music and Lyrics of the MGM score by Harold Arlen and E. Y. Harburg
Directed by ATC Artistic Director PJ Paparelli
Dates: November 8-10, 2013
Location: American Theater Company, 1909 W Byron St., Chicago
Kansas. 1939. L. Frank Baum’s unforgettable story of a little girl’s journey over the rainbow to discover the true meaning of home is told for the first time in over 60 years as a radio play. This unique telling of America’s most beloved movie includes a tour-de-force of live Foley sound effects and powerful ensemble acting that celebrates this heartwarming tale of the life lessons learned over the rainbow. Note: This limited engagement is for ATC subscribers only and not open to the general public.
We'll be reviewing all of Broadway in Chicago's offerings again this season, at The Oriental, Cadillac Palace, Broadway Playhouse, Auditorium Theater and more.
BLACK ENSEMBLE THEATER
It’s All-Right To Have A Good Time (The Story of Curtis Mayfield)
Produced, written and directed by Jackie Taylor
Directed by Jackie Taylor
September 14 – October 20, 2013
Previews begin September 14, 2013
Opening: Sunday, September 22, 2013 at 3:00 p.m.
Location: Black Ensemble Theater Cultural Center, 4450 N. Clark Street. Valet parking available.
Tickets: $55 on Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Saturday matinees;
$65 on Fridays, Saturday evenings, and Sunday matinees.
A 10% discount is available for students, seniors, veterans and groups.
Black Ensemble’s tribute to Chicago’s own music legend Curtis Mayfield is the story of a musical giant who is equally celebrated as a singer, song writer and record producer. From the anthemic music of The Impressions like “Gypsy Woman,” “I’m So Proud,” “Choice of Colors” to movie hits like “Super Fly,” The Curtis Mayfield Story will bring to vibrant life the rare musical genius that was Curtis Mayfield. Mayfield’s timeless music is known and celebrated all over the world, and he is the winner of the Grammy Legend Award (1994), the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award (1995) and a double inductee into both The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (1991, 1999) and the Grammy Hall of Fame.
Chicago’s Golden Soul
Written and Directed by Black Ensemble Theater Founder and CEO Jackie Taylor
November 16, 2013 – January 5, 2014
Previews: November 16, 17, 22, 23
Opening: Sunday, November 24, 2013 at 3:00 p.m.
Location: Black Ensemble Theater Cultural Center, 4450 N. Clark Street. Valet parking available.
Tickets: $55 on Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Saturday matinees;
$65 on Fridays, Saturday evenings, and Sunday matinees.
A 10% discount is available for students, seniors, veterans and groups.
First produced in 1998, this wonderful treasure of a production is a tribute to the music that put Chicago on the map as a national musical force. This Chicago celebration brings back the music of Jerry Butler, the Chi-Lites, Gene Chandler, Barbara Acklin and many, many more in this rollicking tribute to the music that made Chicago famous.
CHICAGO SHAKESPEARE THEATER
Cyrano de Bergerac
By Edmond Rostand
Translated and Adapted for the stage by Anthony Burgess
Directed by Penny Metropulos
September 24 – November 10, 2013
Location: Chicago Shakespeare's Courtyard Theater, 800 East Grand Avenue, Chicago
Tickets: $48-$78
The stars have aligned to reunite the actor-director team behind our wildly popular production of The Madness of George III. The illustrious Harry Groener, who took home the Best Actor Jeff Award for his turn as King George, will play the nobleman whose gift for romance is shadowed by his all-too-prominent nose. Director Penny Metropulos takes the helm of this enduring masterwork that speaks as directly to the heart today as it did more than 100 years ago. Featuring some of the most clever, touching lines ever written, this homage to poetry, love and panache reminds us that sometimes what you seek is right under your, well…nose.
The Table
October 16-27
World’s Stage Upstairs Theatre
In Blind Summit Theatre’s The Table, a cantankerous puppet with a cardboard head is having an existential crisis—on a table. Blind Summit Theatre, founded by Mark Down and Nick Barnes, is reinventing puppetry for modern adult audiences and pioneering new methods of performing with puppets. Pushing the boundaries of puppetry in their own productions and in international collaborations, they have created puppetry for Anthony Minghella, Complicite, and Danny Boyle’s Olympic Opening Ceremony. Their work is inspired by Bunraku puppetry in which three puppeteers combine to operate one beautifully crafted puppet, communicating through finely detailed movement and gesture. The Table will be performed in the Upstairs Theater at Chicago Shakespeare from October 16-27th, 2013.
COURT THEATRE
The Chicago premiere
The Mountaintop
By Katori Hall
Directed by Ron OJ Parson
Featuring David Alan Anderson (Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.) and Lisa Beasley (Camae)
September 5 - October 6, 2013
Location: Court Theatre, 5535 S. Ellis Ave. in Chicago
Tickets: $35-$45 previews, $45-$65 regular run
Winner of the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play
On the eve of his assassination, a weary Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. returns to his lonely hotel room in Memphis. Restless, he begins to work on his next speech when he’s suddenly interrupted by the arrival of a young hotel maid named Camae. The two strike up an unlikely conversation and as the hour grows late and Dr. King’s fate presses closer, Camae reveals that she is more than she appears. The Mountaintop offers a beautiful and powerful meditation on mortality, destiny, and the liminal space where the material meets the divine. Resident Artist Ron OJ Parson will direct this revelatory new portrayal of Dr. King.
An Iliad
By Lisa Peterson and Denis O’Hare
Directed by Charles Newell
November 13 - December 8, 2013
Featuring Timothy Edward Kane
Location: Court Theatre, 5535 S. Ellis Ave. in Chicago
Tickets: $35-$45 previews, $45-$65 regular run
Winner of an OBIE Award and the Joseph Jefferson Award for Best Solo Performance
Timothy Edward Kane returns to reprise his jaw-dropping, award-winning performance in this highly anticipated revival of Artistic Director Charles Newell’s critically acclaimed 2011 production. A one-man adaptation of Homer’s Iliad created by Lisa Peterson and Denis O’Hare (TV’s True Blood), An Iliad returns Homer’s epic poem to the voice of the lone poet as he recounts a story of human loss and folly that echoes across three millennia of war and bloodshed. An Iliad will once again illuminate this ancient classic by taking a harrowing look at the human cost of war.
LOOKINGGLASS THEATRE
World Premiere
The North China Lover
Adapted and Directed by Ensemble Member Heidi Stillman
Based on the novel by Marguerite Duras
Featuring Ensemble member Tracy Walsh, Walter Owen Briggs, Amy J. Carle, Tim Chiou, Deanna Dunagan, Rae Gray, JJ Phillips and Allison Torem
October 6 – November 10, 2013
Previews: September 25 – October 4, 2013
Location: Lookingglass Theatre Company, located inside Chicago's historic
Water Tower Water Works, 821 N. Michigan Ave. at Pearson.
Prices: $28-$70
Box Office: located at Water Tower Water Works, 821 N. Michigan Ave.
You never forget your first lover. The affair plays like a moving picture over and over in your mind: passionate, consuming, secret, taboo.
Fade in: the seamy French Quarter of Southern Indochina in the 1930s where the 14-year-old impoverished schoolgirl who will someday be French novelist Marguerite Duras is about to meet and captivate a wealthy 27-year-old Chinese aristocrat.
With the older Duras as our guide, The North China Lover transports us on a provocative and haunting journey of awakening and sacrifice, revealing the delicate and indelible effect of life on art.
MILLION DOLLAR QUARTET
Book by Floyd Mutrux and Colin Escott
Directed by Eric Schaeffer and Floyd Mutrux
Location: Apollo Theater, 2540 N. Lincoln Ave in Chicago
Tickets: $25 - $85
via the Apollo Theater box office, 2540 N. Lincoln Ave in Chicago,
by calling (773) 935-6100 or through Ticketmaster
Tickets on sale through January 5, 2014
On December 4, 1956, an auspicious twist of fate brought Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and Elvis Presley together. The place was Sun Records’ storefront studio in Memphis. The man who made it happen was Sam Phillips, the “Father of Rock ’n’ Roll,” who discovered them all. The four legends-to-be united for the only time in their careers for an impromptu recording that has come to be known as one of the greatest rock jam sessions of all time.
Featuring a treasure trove of the greatest rock ’n’ roll, gospel, R&B and country hits from these music legends, including “Blue Suede Shoes,” “Fever,” “Sixteen Tons,” “Who Do You Love?,” “Great Balls of Fire,” “Ghost Riders,” and “Whole Lotta’ Shakin’ Goin’ On,” Million Dollar Quartet captures the infectious spirit, freewheeling excitement and thrilling sounds of a singular moment when four of the music industry’s most extraordinary talents, all in their creative prime, came together for one of the most memorable nights in music history.
We'll also be reviewing at The Goodman & Steppenwolf again this season.
NORTHLIGHT THEATRE
4000 Miles
By Amy Herzog
Directed by Kimberly Senior
Featuring Emjoy Gavino (Amanda/Lily), Caroline Neff (Bec), Josh Salt (Leo Joseph-Connell) and Mary Ann Thebus (Vera Joseph)
September 13 – October 20, 2013
Location: Northlight Theatre, 9501 Skokie Blvd, Skokie
Tickets: $25-$72
Tickets for those 25 and under are $15, any performance, (subject to availability)
At the end of an arduous cross-country bike trip, a rudderless 21 year-old seeks refuge in his elderly grandmother’s West Village apartment. These two outsiders face ideological differences, but ultimately find their way together in “a beautifully rendered portrait” (The New York Times) of a cross-generational relationship.
4000 Miles was a Pulitzer Prize Finalist; Time Magazine's #1 Play of 2012; the winner of the Obie Award, Best New Play (2012); and received The New York Times Outstanding Playwright Award (2012).
Detroit '67
By Dominique Morisseau
Directed by Ron OJ Parson
Featuring Tyla Abercrumbie (Chelle), Cassandra Bissell (Caroline), Kamal Angelo Bolden (Lank), Coco Elysses (Bunny) and Kelvin Roston, Jr. (Sly)
November 8 – December 15, 2013
Location: Northlight Theatre, 9501 Skokie Blvd, Skokie
Tickets: $25-$72
Tickets for those 25 and under are $15, any performance, (subject to availability)
It’s 1967 and the world is changing around Chelle and Lank, who run an after-hours club in the basement of their late parents’ house. Tensions mount when the siblings discover that their dreams have diverged, their tight-knit community is threatened by the arrival of an outsider, and the city around them erupts in violence. The music of Motown fuels this riveting new play set in America’s Motor City.
The Northlight production marks the Midwest premiere of Detroit ’67, which recently completed an acclaimed run in New York with the Public Theatre in conjunction with the Classical Theatre of Harlem and the National Black Theatre. Ron OJ Parson will make his Northlight directing debut with this powerful and Motown-infused production.
PROFILES THEATRE
Midwest Premiere
In God’s Hat
By Rhett Rossi
Directed by Artistic Director Joe Jahraus
Featuring Co-Artistic Director Darrell W. Cox as Roy, Larry Neumann, Jr. as Mitch with John Victor Allen and Bruce Cronander.
August 29 - October 13, 2013
Previews: August 23 - 28, 2013
Location: Profiles Theatre, The Main Stage, 4139 N. Broadway
Tickets: $20 previews, $30 - $40 regular run
In God's Hat examines the extremes of humanity and the love of family as well the contempt for it. For nearly a decade, estranged brothers Roy and Mitch found themselves kept apart by prison bars and a nefarious history. On the day of Mitch's release, he is shocked to see Roy waiting for him, unsure of his intentions. Together they travel down a desolate road stopping at the only lodging around - a fleabag motel where confrontation and tension manifest themselves through darkly comical situations. In the end, the brothers must confront both the past and present as some secrets are revealed and new ones must be kept.
Produced off-Broadway by the Apothecary Theatre Company, Rhett Rossi’s critically acclaimed play In God’s Hat premiere in July 2010. His other plays include the one-man show Burnt, first performed by the Present Company Theatorium and From Red to Black, runner up for the Laurents/Hatcher Prize, which received a reading at South Coast Rep. Rossi currently lives in Brooklyn and recently developed a pilot for HBO about minor league hockey.
Midwest Premiere
Wrecks
By Resident Artist Neil LaBute
Directed by Guest Artist Jason Gerace
September 26 – November 17, 2013
Previews: September 27 – October 2, 2013
Location: Profiles Theatre, The Alley Stage, 4147 N. Broadway
Tickets: $20 previews, $30 - $40 regular run
Edward Carr, an ordinary man, an adoring father of four and a successful business owner, sees his world shattered by the death of his beloved wife JoJo. Through his grief, he picks through his past, piecing together the story of his life, like the wrecks of the cars he so lovingly restores. In this fiercely passionate, unflinching and concise powerhouse of a play, LaBute explores the boundaries of love, and the extent of what society accepts as opposed to what the heart desires.
Commissioned and produced by the Everyman Palace Theatre in Cork, Ireland as part of the city's Capital of Culture program, Wrecks premiered in 2005. In 2006, it received its American debut at the Public Theatre in New York, followed by an extended run. Both productions, directed by Neil LaBute, starred Ed Harris as Edward Carr.
Return of the Seasonal Favorite
Hellcab
By Will Kern
Directed by Artistic Director Darrell W. Cox
November 14 – January 12, 2014
Previews: November 8 - 13, 2013
Location: Profiles Theatre, The Main Stage, 4139 N. Broadway
Tickets: $20 previews, $30 - $40 regular run
Presented last season for its 20th Anniversary, Profiles remounts their acclaimed production for the holidays. Hellcab portrays the story of a cab driver during the longest night of his life as he transports a bizarre and mysterious array of customers through the gritty streets of Chicago. Playwright Will Kern draws from personal experience as a former cab driver to create this alternately frightening, hilarious and poignant journey. Throughout his long shift, the eclectic collection of passengers includes a trio of drug-addicts, a born-again couple, a smug lawyer, and a randy duo on their way to a motel. Set during a bitter cold Christmas Eve, Hellcab presents a rear-view image mirroring the passing parade of humanity.
First produced as a late-night show by Famous Door Theatre in 1992, the play, originally scheduled for twelve performances, ended up running for over nine years, becoming one of the longest running shows in Chicago theatre history. Hellcab, performed all over the U.S. and abroad, including Scotland, Israel, Singapore, and Ireland, won numerous awards, including a Fringe First at the Edinburgh Festival and later adapted for the screen by Kern in 1998.
VICTORY GARDENS THEATER
The Co-World Premiere of
Appropriate
By Branden Jacobs-Jenkins
Directed by Gary Griffin
In association with Actors Theater of Louisville
Featuring Cheryl Graeff, Leah Karpel, Kirsten Fitzgerald, Keith Kupferer and Stef Tovar
November 8-December 8, 2013
Opening: Friday, November 15, 2013 at 7:30 p.m.
Location: 2433 N Lincoln Avenue, in the heart of Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood
Tickets: $20 - $40 previews, $20 - $50 regular run
When the Lafayettes descend upon a crumbling Arkansan plantation to liquidate their dead patriarch's estate, his three adult children collide over clutter, debt, and a contentious family history. But after a disturbing discovery surfaces among their father's possessions, the reunion takes a turn for the explosive, unleashing a series of crackling surprises and confrontations. Acclaimed director Gary Griffin (Chicago Shakespeare Theater's Sunday in the Park with George and Follies) directs a potent and exciting play about the trouble with inheritance, memory loss, and the art of repression. Appropriate was developed and workshopped through Victory Gardens' IGNITION New Play Festival in 2012.
Appropriate was developed, in part, at Vineyard Arts Project, Ashley Melone, Founder and Artistic Director; the 2012 Sundance Institute Theatre LAB at the Sundance Resort; and Victory Gardens Theater, Chicago, Illinois, Chay Yew, Artistic Director, as part of IGNITION 2012.
WRITERS THEATRE
The Midwest Premiere of
THE OLD MAN AND THE OLD MOON
A New Play with Music
By PigPen Theatre Co.
Directed by Associate Artistic Director Stuart Carden and PigPen Theatre Co.
Featuring PigPen Theatre Co. - Alex Falberg, Ben Ferguson, Curtis Gillen, Ryan Melia, Matt Nuernberger, Arya Shahi and Dan Weschler.
September 3 – November 10, 2013
Location: Writers’ Theatre, 325 Tudor Court, Glencoe
Tickets: $35 - $75
The Old Man and the Old Moon creates an epic new mythology, centered on a man whose job is to collect spilled light to refill the leaking moon. When his wife unexpectedly leaves home in pursuit of much-needed adventure, he abandons his post to follow her, throwing the world into chaos as he searches for his lost love, his fading memory and, ultimately, himself.
A blend of resonant storytelling, spirited indie-folk music and inventive puppetry creates a theatrical experience that will win audiences over with its wit, style and depth of emotion.
Writers’ Theatre is thrilled to collaborate with the young men of PigPen Theatre Co., who bring the story of The Old Man and the Old Moon to such brilliant, vibrant life that its New York production earned a coveted spot on multiple “Best of the Year” lists.
The Old Man and The Old Moon premiered in New York City, at the Gym at Judson and was produced by: Britt Lafield/BKL Productions, SoHo Playhouse, Inc., Aaron Glick, Ronnie Planalp/Deborah Taylor, and The PigPen Company.
The Midwest Premiere of
PORT AUTHORITY
By Conor McPherson
Directed by William Brown
Featuring Patrick Clear (Joe), Rob Fenton (Kevin) and John Hoogenakker (Dermot)
October 29, 2013 – February 16, 2014
Location: Books on Vernon, 664 Vernon Avenue, Glencoe
Tickets: $35 - $70
Featuring Patrick Clear (Joe), Rob Fenton (Kevin) and John Hoogenakker (Dermot)
Acclaimed playwright Conor McPherson (The Seafarer, Shining City, Dublin Carol) crafts a series of interconnected monologues that explore the heart and soul of three generations of Irishmen.
A young man escapes his parents’ house to share digs with two alcohol-soaked friends and a mesmerizing young woman; a middle-aged laborer lands a dream job that he’s not remotely qualified for; and a widower receives a mysterious package that touches a hidden part of his memory.
The lightly interlocking stories of these three men at three different stages of life weave together a tale that is both spirited and moving in its portrait of ordinary lives.
Directed by Writers’ Theatre favorite William Brown (The Liar, A Little Night Music, Heartbreak House), Port Authority revels in the rough lyricism of McPherson’s language and the poignancy of these stories of lost love, big dreams and the consequences of even our smallest choices.
Check back early and often for the latest on our favs at The House Theatre and Hypocrites.
