In addition to being the mother of Paul Sills, the co-founder of The Second City, Violin Spolin is considered to be the mother of improvisational theater, the games she developed and later wrote about in her 1963 book, Improvisation for the Theater, still being used today.
In conjunction with the 60th anniversary of The Second City, the American Writers Museum unveiled a banner celebrating Spolin that it is adding to its permanent Chicago Writers: Visionaries and Troublemakers exhibit (presumably as a visionary, not a troublemaker).
Unfortunately, the event started out like a bad joke when the president of the museum several times mispronounced Viola’s name, making it sound like the museum was honoring not a person, but a musical instrument, and had to be corrected by one of her descendants in attendance (I couldn’t resist the rhyme, which came to me in the middle of the night).
But the rest of the evening went well. Max Bazer, of WTTW’s cleverly-named The Interview Show with Max Bazer, interviewed Liz Kozak, Director of Editorial and Content Development at The Second City, and co-author of “The Second City: The Essentially Accurate History, 60th Anniversary Edition”, along with some equally-important director-type guy whose name I didn’t catch (let’s call him Mr. X), both of whom had engaging stories to tell.
During the interview, cast members from The Second City sporadically interrupted with short skits as the inspiration struck them, each time successfully delivering an excellent punchline and, thanks to Mr. X showing his directoral Xpertise, ending each scene on a high note.
It’s not a smudge on your screen. Klaudia Kudełko’s last name is spelled with a voiceless alveolar lateral fricative that adds a stroke to the L that makes it look like a T (and now I know how to make it magically appear).
The Candlelight Concert series produced by Fever (don’t worry, it’s not related to the coronavirus) presents its artists, as advertised, by candlelight, which meant that Kudełko had to know the music and where the keys were, just as if she were Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder, or George Shearing.
Though Kudełko was great, I was disappointed by the fact that the candles spread throughout the room all burned (well shone, not burned, as they were battery-powered, because, after all, it was best that Kudełko’s flying fingers were the only thing on fire) yellow. In particular, I would have liked to have seen different colors of candles on top of the piano, changing in sync with the music as if part of some hallucinogenic dream (which led me to an article on “5 reasons to buy color-changing light bulbs”).
Though the colors were uniform, the candles on the piano were of different sizes, which made me hope that Kudełko also might entertain us with some variation of playing glasses of water with different levels, as in the video of the street musician playing Mozart I found. Maybe it doesn’t work with Chopin.
What does work with Chopin is the Tido Music app (which Kudełko promotes in an online video of her playing part of one of the selections she played at the concert), which hears what you’re playing and automatically turns to the next page of music on your tablet at the appropriate time! Most apps can’t hold a candle to that.
A quiet cab ride is a rarity these days, so as our early A.M. trek to the Grammy Awards started, we were grateful for the meditative ride to Midway Airport. It wasn’t until we turned onto Cicero that the driver punched a few buttons, causing the song “Sailing,” by Christopher Cross, to fill the car. It was a nice sendoff, even though we were flying, not sailing, to L.A. The official Grammy fun began on Sunday, January 26th, when our group met in the lobby of Los Angeles’s Hotel Figueroa – an attractively refurbished YWCA hotel built in 1926. Once gathered, we crossed the street to the Microsoft Theater, where the best show of the day – the Premiere Ceremony – began at 12:30. First stop? Posing in front of a Grammy backdrop.
We were there to cheer for Fanm D’Ayiti (“Women of Haiti,” nominated in the Best World Music Album category), conceived and performed by vocalist, composer, and Juilliard-trained flutist Nathalie Joachim, in collaboration with Chicago’s Spektral Quartet.
On the red carpet: Nathalie Joachim in red dress, with Spektral Quartet members Doyle Armbrust, Clara Lyon, Maeve Feinberg, and Russ Rolen, who were nominated for the third time.
We also made a point of cheering at the mention of any Chicago nominee, such as Third Coast Percussion and the Notorious RBG’s son Jim Ginsburg of Cedille Records. Nathalie, a rising star, was chosen to be a presenter in the Classical category, giving us another opportunity to cheer for her, especially as she stepped onto the stage in a stunning red dress created for her by a New York-based designer with Haitian roots.
Not long after the Premiere Ceremony began, word came that Kobe Bryant had lost his life in a helicopter accident. And almost immediately, the area surrounding the theater – just steps away from the Lakers’ home court – filled with Lakers and Kobe fans, quietly holding a vigil for their lost star. Within hours, thousands had streamed into the area, most of them wearing black jackets over Lakers jerseys bearing the numbers 8 and 24.
As it turned out, Chicago was blanked. Third Coast Percussion was bested by Quartet Attacca, Jim Ginsburg was bested by Blanton Alspaugh, and the Joachim/Spektral collaboration was bested by Angélique Kidjo’s album Celia. (Earlier in the program, Kidjo had managed to bring the entire theater to its feet with an on-stage performance of her lively call-and-response song, “Afrika.”) Being good sports, we still cheered for everyone. And though we weren’t in the theater for the presentation of the “packaging award” Grammys, the world might not complain if the awards for Best Boxed or Special Limited-Edition Package and the Best Recording Package were combined into one – or none. That would free up some space to award a new and eminently more interesting category, such as Best Christmas Song.
During the short break between the Premiere Ceremony and the later, made-for-TV ceremony in the Staples Center, we wove through the hundreds of mourners, paying respect along the way, to grab a salad before heading into the security gates at Staples. Grammy survival tip: stay in a hotel close to the ceremonies, wear incredibly comfortable shoes, pack earplugs, plan for chilly weather, and have a salad waiting for you in your hotel fridge between the awards programs. You’re welcome.
Amid the sequins, creative tuxedos, flowing gowns, and colorful hairdos, something else was on display: a generational transition. It was seen in flashback programming such as the Aerosmith/Run-DMC pairing, juxtaposed over Lil Nas X; Brandi Carlile reviving the career of Tanya Tucker; and the amazing-they’re-still-alive Osbournes as filler between younger presenters. It’s unclear that anyone in the Staples Center understood why the sloppily executed “I Sing the Body Electric,” with dancers barely hitting their marks, was chosen as a tribute to 40-year Grammy Ceremony veteran Ken Erlich, though some probably took it as a sign that someone new might be stepping in as the telecast producer. One of the best throwbacks of the night occurred during the after-party, inside the L.A. Convention Center, when disco diva Gloria Gaynor – backed by a tight, nimble band – belted out an extended performance of “I Will Survive” as hundreds – or possibly thousands – sang along. (O.K., Boomers, you will survive.)
Grammy correspondent hard at work.
If a disconnect between the generations exists, it was seen in the faces of many who looked at each other and said, “What the …?” when Billie Eilish was called to the stage as the winner of the Best Pop Vocal Album. It continued when she was named Best New Artist. And again, for Song of the Year. And Album of the Year. And finally, when she was called from backstage to accept the night’s final award for Record of the Year. At that point, a man (her dad?) seated in the front row of the main floor, next to where Billie had been sitting, literally fell off of his chair and rolled on the floor.
As we scrolled through the headlines the next morning, this short piece, quoted from Billboard magazine, caught our eye: Billie Eilish “became just the second artist in Grammy history — and the first woman — to take home the Big Four awards: album, record and song of the year plus best new artist … The first artist to do this was Christopher Cross, 39 years ago.” Hmmmm, we thought. The album was entitled Christopher Cross. And the hit single? “Sailing.”
Edward Moore “Ted’ Kennedy, known for his oratorical skills, served in Washington D.C. as a United States Senator for 47 years. Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington, known for his eloquence and charisma, was born in Washington, D.C. and led a jazz orchestra for 51 years.
Sophisticated Ladies is a musical revue based on Ellington’s music that ran for 767 performances on Broadway (1981 – 1983). As far as I know, there never has been a musical about Kennedy’s politics, but there was a 2018 movie, Chappaquiddick, about a rather infamous event in his life.
Sophisticated Ladies is not quite a concert, there being a whisper of a couple plot lines that don’t mean a thing, but it’s all about the music, cause it’s got that swing, accompanied by great singing and dancing, including a lot of tap. I have often expressed my love for tap dancing, but seeing this show inspired me to find an informative entry online from the Library of Congress entitled Tap Dance in America: A Short History.
Lorenzo Rush, Jr., who, when I first saw him a show, wasn’t misbehavin’, kind of is in Ladies, but you still love him, as he struts around the stage, capturing you with his playfulness and powerful voice, expressing all the emotion behind Ellington’s music, even though musical director Jermaine Hill, stationed at the piano and conducting the onstage band, is the physical embodiment of Ellington in the show.
The band and all the singers are excellent, but it’s the dancing that raises the temperature in the room, with kicks, splits, and leaps, and smack talking between the tappers that adds a layer of syncopation to the already animated beat of the music.
Sophisticated is defined as “having, revealing, or proceeding from a great deal of worldly experience and knowledge of fashion and culture”. In a nutshell, not me, but I sure enjoyed the show.
Having never before heard of Neil Simon’s play Jake’s Women, I wasn’t expecting the Odd Couple, and didn’t get it, but did get the odd octet, as Jake struggles with his relationships with seven women, two of whom are actually the same woman, his daughter, at different ages.
But enough about the play, which there’s no particular reason to see, although the acting is solid and there’s one great comedic moment when (spoiler alert) Jake goes to the bathroom, leaving his sister and psychiatrist (with whom he has the most engaging interaction throughout the play) alone in his living room, leading to an obvious, but nonetheless hysterical scene where the two women can’t speak or do anything else until he returns, because Jake has brought them to his apartment only in his mind, where he creates all their dialogue.
Simon provided some other laughs, but the funniest moments actually were provided by Keith Gerth, the Executive and Artistic Director of the theater, during his introduction of the show and his tour de force as ticket taker extraordinaire (he seemed to know everyone except me).
Seeing the theater itself was my prime reason for seeing the show. It’s very small, seating only 60 in an oddly narrow room with a small stage that must narrow the range of plays they might present, though it was perfect for this one as all the action takes place in Jake’s living room.
Next time, however, I’ll know to sit in an odd numbered row (actually odd lettered, if that’s a thing), as visibility is better in those seats.
The experience starts as a doorman does his door job and welcomes you into a cozy waiting area where cups are provided for those who have taken advantage of the theater’s BYOB policy, which, again, was almost everyone but me.
Most importantly though, and the lure to go back, are the free chocolate chip cookies and M&Ms that are laid out on the bar.
How could little Red Ridin’ Hood have been so very good and still keep the wolf from the door? It’s a question we’ve all pondered, but who knew there was a song about it written in 1926? Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs – maybe. The Chicago Cellar Boys – definitely.
This is my second time seeing the Boys. I loved their whole set, but their revelation about that “modern child” “runnin’ wild” was one of my favorites, among a set list that included songs from the 1920s and 30s written by Fats Waller, Jelly Roll Morton, George Gershwin, and others.
Seeing the video of Ina and her all women band also made me thing of Some Like It Hot, but, returning to reality, I also thought about the Boys’ clarinetist/trumpeter giving the beat at the start of each song, which is all fine and good, except it seems like too much to ask of everyone to play the correct notes and contemporaneously maintain the same beat for more than about three measures. I think playing very short songs is the answer.
I also noticed that the piano player held his right shoulder slightly higher than his left, which led me to a website about posture and piano playing. With all these distractions, it’s amazing that I was able to enjoy the music, but I did.
In this, the 80th anniversary of Bugs Bunny’s debut in The Wild Hare, this program of classic cartoons being accompanied live by the Warner Bros. Symphony Orchestra listed Bugs, Elmer Fudd, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Wile E. Coyote, Road Runner, Michigan J. Frog, and Giovanni Jones as starring. I was glad to see that there wasn’t an insert telling me that an understudy would be filling in for any of them. I would have been disappointed at seeing Donald, rather than Daffy, playing the role of the duck.
I also was glad to see that I wasn’t the only adult in the audience unaccompanied by a child. I wasn’t counting my inner child, as it didn’t need its own seat.
The program also told me that Max Steiner composed the Warner Bros. Fanfare. Steiner was a man of many firsts in regard to scoring movies, including the use of click tracks, which the musicians at the Symphony Center were listening to on headphones, which were not merely acting as earmuffs, as I originally contemplated given the cold temperatures outside.
Steiner was a major influence for John Williams, whom, I will gratuitously mention, was played by the son of a friend of mine on the Apple Podcast, Blockbuster, which tells the story of the early directing days of Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, and which led me to research further and come to believe that Lucas’s film editor and wife of the time, Marcia, who won the Oscar for Best Film Editing (one more Oscar than George has ever won) was probably the real force behind the success of the original Star Wars.
Speaking of directors, the great Chuck Jones, the animation director of about half the cartoons shown at Symphony Center, was represented by his grandson and great granddaughter, who, on behalf of the Chuck Jones Center for Creativity, presented the Symphony Center with an original drawing by Jones of Bugs as conductor. There’s no Oscar for best animation director, but there should be given how difficult it must be to deal with temperamental cartoon characters, like Yosemite Sam.
What’s Opera, Doc?, an operatic performance even I can get behind, was greeted with cheers from the audience as conductor, and co-creator of these concerts, George Daugherty informed us that we would be hearing eight Wagner operas in the space of six minutes and four seconds, rather than 30-40 hours.
The audience also was treated to three new Road Runner shorts and the world concert premiere of Dynamite Dance, a new cartoon, based on The Dance of the Hours, created for Bugs’s 80th birthday.
Fittingly, at the end of the performance, Daugherty was presented with a bouquet of carrots.
I still haven’t scaled Mt. Everest or qualified for the Astronaut Candidate Program (my lack of a degree in one of the required sciences certainly being the only thing holding me back), but now I can scratch off walking the 606 Trail, or at least most of it, from my bucket list (from which I also scratched off a bucket handle tear of meniscus cartilage earlier this year).
Make no mistake about it, the trail has some elevation changes (okay, pretty gentle, more like the ramp leading into Mt. Sinai Hospital than the South Col Route up Mt. Everest). But, at 2.7 miles each way, the trail required me to cover a lot more ground in my extravehicular activity (from a good nearby parking space), and with more gravity holding me back than it did either Neil Armstrong or Buzz Aldrin (the moon’s is one-sixth that of the earth’s), and in a lot less time than their 2 hours, 31 minutes, 40 seconds (but who’s counting).
Besides being unencumbered by automobile or lunar module traffic (but watch out for the bicycles whizzing by), the trail offers great people watching and interesting views down tree-lined streets and into a variety of nearby residences for those who relish peeking into others’ homes (you know who you are).
While the path itself is hard, like a typical sidewalk, each side has a narrow (but wide enough for one person) rubberized lane that is a godsend for the weak-kneed. Water fountains abound, and I assume that, in those months when warm weather is expected (a list that’s growing and will soon include December), the fountains may actually be turned on.
The only thing the trail lacks from my standpoint (besides refreshments and jazz musicians at rest stops), is an intriguing destination (though the dog area at Walsh Park seemed to be popular) and perhaps some moon rocks to gather.
My favorite cast member in this incarnation of the Black Ensemble Theater’s annual production of The Other Cinderella was Stewart Romeo, who played the Page. According to his bio in the program, Romeo is a trained singer, actor and carpenter (and he’s funny and can dance). When I saw the carpenter credential, I wondered, given the family atmosphere of the theater, whether Romeo had been enlisted to build any sets. Sure enough, he’s listed in the program under set construction. It reminded me of Harrison Ford, who was a carpenter between early acting roles, and Alexander Godunov, who also danced a little during his career, showing off their carpentry skills while nailing their parts in the barn-raising scene in the movie Witness.
The theater’s family atmosphere continued after the show when the actors went into the lobby and formed a receiving line for the patrons. It was like being at Cinderella and the Prince’s wedding, though, disappointingly, there wasn’t any cake. I was a little embarrassed because I didn’t bring a gift (you have a year, right?), but I didn’t bring one to Tony and Tina’s wedding either.
Also embarrassingly, this was my first time at the theater’s current location – they moved into it in 2011. It’s a nice building, but some things haven’t changed. The indefatigable Jackie Taylor is still running it all as the CEO, and, in addition to having written The Other Cinderella, including many of the songs, over 40 years ago, she’s listed as the producer, director, costume designer, and, why not, understudy for this production.
Though the plot is essentially the same, this isn’t Disney’s or the Grimm Brothers’ Cinderella, or Strabo’s Rhodopis. No brothers from the hood there. And Taylor keeps it updated. I’m pretty sure the original production didn’t include references to Idris Elba, Michael B. Jordan, and social media.
Ironically, I found the map society meeting without the help of a map.
While a meeting of a map society may seem somewhat anachronistic, I enjoyed it and am pretty sure it was more interesting than a meeting of computer-driven global positioning system advocates would have been.
Five people presented. The first showed us various inflatable and pop-up globes, including an inflatable one that might have been big enough to transport the stars of the movie The Aeronauts to new heights. The pop-up globes made me think of Sydney, Australia’s Shakespeare Pop-up Globe Theatre, though the closest I’ve come to it is an evening at San Diego’s Old Globe Theatre.
The second person displayed a map of Chicago from the 1933 World’s Fair showing Chicago as it was in 1833, although apparently not really, as it was just something to sell at the fair (printed t-shirts didn’t become popular until the 1960s), without the need for, or regard to, accuracy.
As proof that maps, computers, and people under the age of 30 can coexist, a student from Jones College Prep then gave the crowd an introduction to Minecraft, the best-selling video computer game of all time(?), and a mapping project he worked on with it, which led to him showing us a prize-winning map of a Canadian province created by one of his Minecraft buddies.
The last map we saw was the most timely, showing receding ice caps, world heat and humidity levels, and annual storm concentrations, a veritable Tempest.
