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The First Lady of Television – Northlight Theatre – Through Oct. 12, 2025

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Gertrude Berg was a television pioneer, but her accomplishments in that regard are totally overshadowed by the real story of the play, the blacklisting that took place in the entertainment industry in the 1940s and 50s.

I’ve seen several movies on the topic – The Front, The Majestic, The Way We Were, Trumbo and Good Night and Good Luck (GN&GL) immediately come to mind, but this was the first time I’ve seen a stage presentation, if you don’t count the filmed version of the recent Broadway production of GN&GL.

Though Berg is the title character, Phil Loeb, who played her husband on The Goldbergs, is the focus of attention. I’d never heard of him before, even though, I’ve now discovered, Hecky Brown, as played by Zero Mostel in The Front, was loosely based on Loeb.

The Goldbergs was a sit-com. The First Lady of Television is not, despite some amusing moments, such as the recreation of a commercial presented by Berg, humorous because it was so corny, not because it was laugh-out-loud funny like the Vitameatavegamin one presented by the second, first lady of television on I Love Lucy.

Rather, the play, as described by the director, presents themes that “are chillingly prescient and sadly so.” One only has to read the daily headlines to agree.

Let’s Go White Sox: Celebrating 125 Years – Chicago History Museum – Through 2025?

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The Chicago History Museum mailing that brought the White Sox exhibit to my attention stated that “The new temporary display in Chicago Crossroads of America nicely highlights the team’s and the museum’s collections.”

The museum’s collection includes a  display, a few feet away, of its Wait ’Til Next Year” exhibit, featuring sections about the White Sox, Cubs, Bears and Black Hawks.

The brochure also says “Among the items are a baseball used in the 1917 World Series, a jersey worn by Jermaine Dye in Game 1 of the 2005 World Series, and a Sox baseball cap from the same season.”

I’m pretty sure that saying “among” implies that there are other items. In this case (subtle reference related to the glass case containing the artifacts), there aren’t.

As far as highlighting the collections goes, the jersey is, I suppose, authentic; the cap looks like it’s never been worn, like one I have in my closet; and the the ball looks old and scruffy, like it could be from 1917, or from the movie The Sandlot after the dog got done chewing on it.

All in all, not worth crossing the road for. But 2026 is the 150th National League anniversary of the Cubs, nee Orphans, joining the then new National League. So, wait ’til next year.

Hershey Felder’s Rachmaninoff and the Tsar – Writers Theatre – September 21, 2025

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The show probably should have been called Down and Out in Beverly Hills, where the less than jovial Rachmaninoff, played by Felder, recaps his life, in his garden, in 1943, shortly before his death, and less than a year after he moved there for his health.  But that title was already taken.

The Tsar in the name of the show is Nicholas II of the House of Romanov, which makes me want to sing (if not for the restraining order) – Romanov, Rachmaninoff, lets call the whole thing off.

I’ve seen several of Felder’s shows, the most recent being when he played Tchaikovsky, and his piano playing was, as always, wonderful. He delves deeply into his characters, but, I must admit that I wasn’t that interested in the long conversations he had with the Tsar about missing Russia and about the downfall of the Romanovs.

Fortunately, however, there was a fair amount of time spent discussing Nicholas’s daughter Anastasia, which allowed me to daydream about Ingrid Bergman while waiting for more music and led nicely to a more interesting discussion in the Q and A postscript.

Such sessions can often be deadly, but not with Felder. I enjoyed his lengthy, informative, detailed responses more than the brooding dialogue that preceded it.

Ashland Avenue – The Goodman – Through October 5, 2025

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Ashland Avenue has been heavily promoted as a vehicle for Jenna Fischer of The Office fame, but Francis Guinan, as her father (not a bartender on the Enterprise), is the focus and star of the show.

I’ve never seen a complete episode of The Office. Jenna could have been Bobby Fischer and I wouldn’t have known the difference, so I had no particular expectations and she was fine, if not memorable.

I have, however, had a special fondness for alliterative play titles ever since Neil Simon took us through all the B’s. Had this world premiere been called The Life and Times of a TV Salesman, I probably wouldn’t have gone.

Guinan’s character is someone you can feel for and, at the same time, want to strangle, especially since the playwright, who, by the way, is Fischer’s husband Lee Kirk (they didn’t promote that fact), decided to go for an abundance of repetition. I’m not into storming stages, so I settled instead for shaming the woman next to me into turning off her phone screen.

The first act was so-so, but the second was somewhat worth the wait, if only the wait had been shorter, with a lot of laughs; a few twists and turns; and a satisfying, unforced resolution to the play, which didn’t seem like a sure thing, until it was.

Nicholas Meyer – American Writers Museum – September 18, 2025

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Nicholas Meyer came to discuss his new book, Sherlock Holmes and the Real Thing, his seventh based upon the remembrances of John H. Watson, M.D., the first having been the highly successful The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, which also led to Meyer’s Academy Award-nominated screenplay of the same name.

Meyer is equally, if not better, known for his involvement in three Star Trek movies – The Wrath of Khan, The Voyage Home and The Undiscovered Country. Coincidence? I think not, as the following exchange from the BBC show Sherlock might suggest –

Mycroft Holmes: “Oh, Sherlock. What do we say about coincidence?”
Sherlock Holmes: “The universe is rarely so lazy.”

To confirm, in season 3, episode 4 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Mr. Spock says “Well, as my ancestor, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, would write, ‘The game is afoot.’”

Based on his work, it was no surprise that Meyer came across as an extremely well-read, engaging and amusing speaker. Here come a few quick highlights.

The new book throws Holmes into the world of art forgery. Meyer’s discussion of copying versus forging versus plagiarizing was thought-provoking.

It led to a mention of the aggressive copyright action Doyle’s descendants have taken against various authors. Meyer suggested that his payments to the estate regarding his first three Holmes books (and none others thanks to the 2014 case of Klinger v. Conan Doyle Estate, Ltd.), exceeded a seven-per-cent solution.

His recap of Edgar Allen Poe’s case study of The Raven in The Philosophy of Composition was a terrific presentation that added another layer to Poe’s intriguing, alleged methodology of writing.

When asked about Holmes depictions in the movies and on TV, Meyer allowed that he hated the Basil Rathbone movies; liked the visual presentation style used in the Robert Downey, Jr. movies, but didn’t think much of the stories therein; and very much liked the aforementioned Benedict Cumberbatch BBC series, which employed an actor who has crossed over into the Star Trek universe, portraying a character (Khan) that first appeared on the big screen in a movie directed by Meyer. Coincidence?

Porchlight Music Thetare’s ICONS Gala – Ritz-Carlton – September 14, 2025

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Another year, another great Porchlight season-opening event. Where to start. I was able to have a short, one-on-one conversation with the honoree, Leslie Uggams. Lovely woman, strong handshake.

For those not so lucky, local TV celebrity Paul Lisnek interviewed her from the stage. Afterward I told Paul I would mention his name. So there. I did. Paul did his usual well-prepared, informative job. And you can see more by watching his interview of Uggams on his show, Behind the Curtain.

Some tidbits. During her acceptance speech prior to the interview, Uggams gave us a little treat with her Carol Channing and Chita Rivera impressions, while recalling her interactions with them.

After seeing the tribute to her via commentary; photos; and songs performed by talented Porchlight pros Juwon Tyrel Perry, Ava Stovall, Bethany Thomas and Aerie Williams, Uggams proclaimed “Wow, I did a lot of stuff . . . and I’m still going.”

No kidding! She had a regular 20-minute act at New York’s famous Apollo Theater when she was nine years old and at 82 is appearing in movies and TV shows on regular basis, while acknowledging that ‘Everything is not a success. Every decision is not a good one.” (referencing, in particular a musical she had long wanted to appear in, only to be stuck in an awful production over a decade ago) .

The gala is, of course, a fundraiser (insert subliminal message here – “send Porchlight a donation”). This year Patrick Desmond took over auctioneer duties and, in addition to his excellent job, had, perhaps, the best joke for the day, poking good-natured fun at an earlier mispronunciation by someone else of the word philanthropy.

Also of note, the brunch provided by the Ritz-Carlton again justified my day-before starvation diet. I feel confident in this appraisal, as one of Chicago’s top chefs, sitting at my table, cleaned his plate, as did his wife.

Printers Row Lit Fest – September 6, 2025

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I originally intended to go to the Lit Fest program featuring Pulitzer Prize-winning author Maureen Dowd speaking about her most recent book – Notorious: Portraits of Stars from Hollywood, Culture, Fashion, and Tech – but decided that the subject wasn’t serious enough and the title wasn’t long enough, so, instead I went to the stage featuring sports historian Don Zminda talking about his book – Justice Batted Last: Ernie Banks, Minnie Miñoso and the Unheralded Players Who Integrated Chicago’s Major League Teams.

If nothing else, I learned that, as of August 2023, there is a Chicago Public School named after Miñoso, a childhood favorite of mine, even though he once turned down my request for an autograph, thereby traumatizing me to the extent that I never again asked for one from an athlete.

Zminda also, as promised by the publication’s title, spoke about some unheralded players, but I’ve already forgotten their names, so they have maintained their status with me.

The blocks-long fest was jammed with a crowd that seemed larger than I can remember from past years, apparently undeterred by any possible threat of National Guard troops taking any prisoners or burning any of the thousands of books on display.

Donna Herula – Navy Pier – August 30, 2025

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After seeing Donna Herula at the Old Town Art Fair, and good to my word (see my June 14 blog), I went to see her at the Navy Pier Beer Garden, or, in my case, the bottled water garden.

As before, she played some classic blues numbers and a bunch of songs from her award-winning Bang at the Door CD, adding some recently-recorded ones that are part of a forthcoming release, including Backseat Driver, not to be confused with the three other songs of the same name I found online.

The biggest difference from June was that her husband Tony was in attendance, resulting in Herula calling him up to the stage to sing Can’t Wait to See My Baby with her. Thankfully he then went back to his seat. The duet was better (and amusing) last time when he was absent and she sang both parts.

There was a short interruption at one point for Herula to adjust her guitar (one of four she had on stage), whereupon she apologized by saying “we tune because we care.” I’m guessing she’s used that line before. I’ll be waiting for it next time I see her play.

Last Week Today, Musically – August 24, 2025

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I went to my first, and last, since the season is now over, Rush Hour Concert of the year at St, James Cathedral. I went for the Florence Price Concert Overture No. 2 (Iso trendy) and stayed for the Dvořák Wind Serenade, Op. 44, not just because it was so good, but also because it allowed me to exercise my skill at putting the appropriate accents over the letters in the composer’s name. I would tell you the name of the group, but it didn’t have one, apparently being an assemblage of a dozen top-flight musicians who found themselves together in a rehearsal hall at some point and decided to put on a show.

The week took a downturn with the Noonday Concert at Fourth Presbyterian Church, where I suffered through about 20 minutes of Carla Gordon’s attempts at humor and less-than-fulfilling vocal presentations of what she inaccurately described as early 20th-Century Broadway show tunes. One attendee used the time to do deep knee bends. On the other hand, to paraphrase Julius Caesar, and perhaps quote Sid, Veni, Vidi, Verti (I came, I saw, I gave up).

Order was restored on Saturday, starting with the two guys who entertain every week on the sidewalk by the Green City Market Lincoln Park, playing a combination of the blues and Motown on guitar, keyboard and kick drum. Next time I need a small band for an event (which will be the first time) they’re my choice, though I have no idea what their names are or if they are in witness protection.

Finally, I topped off the week’s musical adventure at the Thirsty Ears Festival, which I wrote about three years ago and returned to once again to see pianist Marianne Parker, whom I’ve written about many times before, this time paired with violist Michael Hall, who, among many other things, is the co-founder of the first professional orchestra in Indonesia.

Before that excellent duo, I saw a fun performance by the Chicago Sinfonietta and a weird one, by my standards, by pianist Alex Reyes, who not only played some with his elbow, though not in an entertaining Jerry Lee Lewis way, but also, at times, with the aid of what appeared to be an old rag or dish cloth, perhaps due to either a fear of germs or the sudden urge to clean. Fortunately Parker and Hall followed, so as to calm my otherwise urgent need to depart, as if Gordon had followed me to the event.

If I Only Had a Brain – Grant Park Music Festival – August 13, 2025

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As explained in the program, composer Chelsea Komschlies’s Mycelialore combines her interests in neuroscience and fungi. I would have preferred something that combined interests in timbre and rhythm.

Komschlies starts from saying that mushrooms have a root-like structure that can function like a human brain, and then wonders whether, if they “can remember and tell their own stories, what would they say and how would they sound?” Her musical answer led me to conclude, I don’t care. I wish conductor Giancarlo Guerrero had not waited for nearby sirens to die down before giving the down beat.

Fortunately, after 10 minutes of this fungal brain scan, pianist Clayton Stephenson and the orchestra cleansed the auditory cortex and nucleus accumbens with a terrific rendition of Liszt’s Piano Concerto No.1 that left Guerrero bouncing with joy at its conclusion.

Stephenson earned his standing ovation, but didn’t stop there, giving the audience a delightful encore with his performance of Art Tatum’s jazzy Tea for Two.

Last, but not least, we were treated to Saint-Saen’s Symphony No. 3, wherein, I am happy to report, an organ (not the brain) is used well as an accent, and not as a droning focal point, and certainly not as a representation of the communication skills of something related to athlete’s foot or fungal meningitis.