Theater

It’s a Wonderful Life Live in Chicago – American Blues Theater – December 6, 2024

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The American Blues Theater has presented It’s a Wonderful Life as a staged radio show every year since 2002, complete with breaks for singing commercials that reminded me of my visit to the Grand Ole Opry, but this was my first time in the audience, because, well, bah humbug.

I had my reservations, both literal and figurative, but decided it was time to see what the fuss over this consistently recommended show has been about all these years.

The theater encourages you to get there early to enjoy some rowdy renditions of holiday songs by the cast to warm up the attendees coming in from the cold.

After that there’s a little too much introduction to what you’re about to witness, especially given the fact that, unlike me, a fair number of people there were annual regulars, as evidenced by some comments collected before the show and read aloud by the actors during the breaks between acts.

The play itself is true to the movie. If you’re one of those people who can’t imagine watching anyone but Jimmy Stewart as George Bailey and Lionel Barrymore as Mr. Potter, then, of course, you’ll be disappointed. But if you’re there for the material, and the enjoyment of watching a talented ensemble do their thing, with cast members instantly, audibly transforming from one character to the next, all while Michael Mahler provides background music on the piano and J.G. Smith does her thing as the resident Foley artist (which is fun not only to hear, but also to watch), the evening is a crowd pleaser.

And there were free homemade cookies in the lobby afterwards.

YIPPEE KI YAY – The Parody Celebration of DIE HARD – Broadway Playhouse at Water Tower Place – November 26, 2024

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Richard Marsh in YIPPEE KI YAY.
A one-man rhyming Die Hard play
A parody of the movie for those who know it
Created for the stage by this British poet.

Playing all of the parts, with all of the voices
While questioning some of the cinematic choices
And drawing stories from his personal life
And marriage to an equally nerdy, Die Hard fan wife.

Marsh plays Alan Rickman leading the evil guys
Relieving Nakatomi of its money supplies
Taking bearer bonds from a safe that’s not
While all around get shot at and shot

There’s a wink of the eye to the career of this plotter
And his role of a professor in a tale of a Potter
While Marsh as Willis as a barefoot McClain
Mumbles to himself as each bad guy is slain

There’s an ongoing joke about a fountain displayed
With a humorously simple visual aid
And the giant teddy bear brought as a gift
To help patch the McClain-Gennaro marital rift

Marsh mocks Alexander Godunov’s turn as Karl
For his mountain of hair that’s a very big gnarl
And monstrous weapon and angry emotions
While moving gracefully with Bolshoi balletic motions

Marsh plays Al Powell the cop and Argyle the driver
And Holly, the wife, each a movie survivor
And of course the coke-snorting, idiotic Harry
Who even March decided to bury.

Marsh is a treat, the show is a blast
From the opening lines to the very last
A Christmas story that begs one to say
Thumbs up for him and YIPPEE KI YAY.

 

 

A Beautiful Noise – Cadillac Palace – November 19, 2024

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There’s a lot to like in this show about Neil Diamond’s life. If you’re a fan of his music, as I am, there’s lots of that, with a rocking band.

And Nick Fradiana sounds just like Diamond. According to Broadway.com, Fradiani “spent a year and a half analyzing videos on YouTube and absorbing Diamond’s voice (speaking and singing), mannerisms and general aura.”

Hard work is great, but it’s not as good a story as when Stephanie J. Block won a Tony as Cher after she found her voice while wearing a teeth-whitening device,

Diamond’s first two wives play a big part in the show. Hannah Jewel Kohn as his second wife, Marcia Murphey, grabbed the spotlight with her rendition of Forever in Blue Jeans, while lighting up the stage throughout with her dancing and non-stop motor, even when she was “just” part of the outstanding chorus, which was backed by great choreography and a couple of very clever entrances that looked like magic.

I also really liked Kate Mulligan’s spirited turn as record producer Ellie Greenwich, but wouldn’t have minded a little more background on the woman who had her own impressive list of big time songwriting credits, which earned her a place in the Songwriters Hall of Fame with Jeff Barry, who also played a part in Diamond’s career, but not in the show.

The real Greenwich and Barry can be seen in Bang! The Bert Berns Story, a highly-rated documentary, promoted on IMDB as “music meets the mob,” about another character in the play who merits more attention.

The energy in the house started dragging a little at a point in the second act when the psychoanalysis that constitutes the framework of the show went on too long, while the audience craved more music.

But all was forgiven when the cast led the audience in the mandatory reprise of Sweet Caroline.

 

New Faces Sing Broadway Now – Arts Club of Chicago – Nov. 12, 2024

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It’s been four and a half years since I wrote about a Porchlight Music Theatre New Faces Sing Broadway Now event at the Arts Club. The world has taken quite a few turns since then, but one thing hasn’t changed. Once again, Artistic Director Michael Weber managed, I suspect on purpose, to pick people for the trivia contest who may have wandered into the wrong party, two of them admitting that someone else had filled out their entries, which, of course, makes it a lot more fun to watch, as audience aficionados squirm in their seats and admonish their neighbors when they anxiously start to shout out answers prematurely.

The other audience participation moments occur during the two sing-along songs, always my least favorite part of the evening, but intriguing this time as I wondered how people would handle the yodel in the song Popular, from Wicked. Fortunately, they didn’t even try to insert it, lest I find the need to insert my ever-ready ear plugs.

For the rest of the evening, the cast of 10 (plus host Adrian Aguilar, whom I singled out after the recent ICONS Gala), narrowed down from a pool of 700(!) according to Weber, showed off their skills in 18 tunes, most of which I’d never heard before, from a group of current Broadway shows, most of which I haven’t seen.

Apropos of a collection of “New Faces,” the hit of the evening probably was Lorenzo Shawn Parnell’s rousing rendition of Gotta Start Somewhere, from Back to the Future.

Some Like It Hot – Cadillac Palace – October 29, 2024

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If you go to the musical Some Like It Hot merely expecting to see a live replica of the movie with songs inserted in a perfunctory fashion, you’ll be disappointed. It’s much better than that.

As Cole Porter said in Anything Goes, “times have changed.” It was true then and it’s true now.

Thus, at a few key moments when the show veers from the original, or rather openly annotates with 21st century sensibilities, there was no shortage of appreciation from at least a portion of the audience, and no interruption of the comedic flow.

The plot is mostly the same, but the characters are much more three dimensional, or dare I say, four dimensional, given that the show is still set in 1933.

But enough of that. Go for the dancing. Casey Nicholas deservedly won the Tony for Best Choreography.  The extended, madcap, dizzying, dazzling, dance denouement alone, complete with enough entrances and exits to inhabit a dozen door farces, left me delighted and drained.

And go for the music. Marc Shaiman, as always, hits the nail on the head.

And, by the way, the cast is great. High energy, great voices, terrific timing, tap dancing the night away.

Finally, contributing to my thorough enjoyment of the evening, an usher quietly told the woman sitting in front of me to turn off the screen on her phone during the performance (which she then did). No need for Patti LuPone to appear and take the phone away.

Noises Off – Steppenwolf – October 16, 2024

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Noises Off is not the kind of show I would expect to see at Steppenwolf, but it’s also the kind of show that I have a hard time resisting, as evidenced by the fact that it’s the third different production of it I’ve seen, in addition to the two productions of the similarly insane, though more physically demanding upon the actors and set, The Play That Goes Wrong that I’ve attended.

I enjoyed this version, but I think I preferred the immersive one I saw at Windy City Playhouse, where we were right on top of the action, and which, speaking of physically demanding, featured a staircase pratfall that outdid even the one performed so well by Andrew Leeds (as Garry) in this production, though not as spectacular as the one in Death Becomes Her. I now am in search of more shows with actors careening down stairs.

For now, I’ll have to be content with checking out the two streaming seasons of The Goes Wrong Show, having already watched part of the play Peter Pan Goes Wrong, which, for my money, went wrong, but not all that amusingly.

Inherit the Wind – Goodman Theatre – September 28, 2024

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Not being a Blacklist viewer, the last time I may have seen Harry Lennix he was giving Superman a hard time when all the poor guy was trying to do was save the world from General Zod.

In Goodman Theatre’s Inherit the Wind, it is Lennix, as Henry Drummond, who is trying to save the world, from the followers of the close-minded honorary Colonel Matthew Harrison Brady, in a play that is as forceful and timely today as it was when it debuted in 1955, especially when one considers the reports that came out this past week (Banned Books Week) from the American Library Association and Pen America concerning the enormous amount of book censorship taking place across the country.

I was particularly struck by the following exchange – Brady: “I do not think about things I do not think about.” Drummond: “Do you ever think about things that you DO think about?” It reminded me of the famous 2002 Rumsfeld quote – “There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we don’t know.”

The other thing that struck me was how much Brady, when addressing the town, came across as a much scarier version of Professor Harold Hill. I could almost hear him saying “We got trouble, right here in Hillsboro, and that starts with T and that rhymes with D and that stands for Darwin.”

That said, the problem with the opposite side of the argument is exemplified by people like the clearly unevolved guy sitting behind me, whose 18.5 minutes of high decibel, bag rustling, open-mouth chewing at the beginning of the show made me yearn for a Rose Mary Woods to turn off his sound.

Chicago Live – Navy Pier – September 21, 2024

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I heard that they moved the Sunday performances indoors because of the rain. I wished they had done that on Saturday because of the heat – 90 degrees and blazing sun less than 24 hours before the autumnal equinox. Don’t wait, buy your new winter getaway home in Chicago while they last.

Last year I saw a dozen different acts and planned to do much the same this time around. I wanted to see Black Ensemble Theater and Dee Alexander again and catch Second City, which I haven’t gone to in years, even though I can tell you, from personal experience, that comedy is hard and outdoor comedy in front of mobile audiences, near impossible.   

After enjoying the Porchlight Music Theatre presentation that highlighted their forthcoming 2024-25 season, I began my quest for shade, to reenergize, before my next selection. (Unlike Superman, I don’t get my strength from the sun, just my Vitamin D, and I’d already gotten my required dosage for the day, based upon the new portable body monitor I’m envisioning but haven’t yet invented.)  

Unfortunately, going inside the building that once upon a time (1945-1965) housed the University of Illinois Chicago campus (or as it was known at the time, no joke, Harvard on the rocks) brought no relief, as I was now subjected to overexposure, not to the sun, but rather to children, suburbanites and toxic aromas from fast food restaurants, more burden than anyone should have to bear. 

Same time next year.    

Porchlight Music Theatre’s ICONS Gala – Ritz Carlton – September 22, 2024

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If you get invited to a brunch event at the Ritz, go. The food is great.

This was my 5th in-person Porchlight ICONS Gala (plus one online during the height of Covid), but only the second one that was a Sunday brunch. As honoree Raúl Esparza might have heard said when he played Fagin in last year’s New York City Center Encores! production of Oliver! (please excuse all the exclamation marks – they’re not mine), “please . . . , I want some more.

And, as usual, I can say the same about the entertainment Porchlight provided, a dozen songs from shows in which Esparza has appeared, flawlessly performed, if you ignore, as everyone chose to except those of us required to faithfully journal the event, the problems with a microphone that plagued one of the artists throughout, despite repeated attempts by hotel staff to replace the offending device. Rest assured, the problems didn’t detract from the audience’s enjoyment, as the performers efficiently dealt with the issues.

While all four singers brought talent and joy to the stage, I want single (double?) out two of them. First, Adrian Aguilar, whom I last saw as Tommy DeVito in Jersey Boys, for not taking even a moment off, displaying his showmanship at all times, in every little movement and facial expression, whether he was singing or reacting to others.

Second, Ava Stovall, for her rendition of Maybe This Time (Cabaret), which, justifiably, brought the biggest round of applause from the audience.

My only complaint is that I would have liked to have seen a full-out dance version of Let’s Do the Time Warp Again (Rocky Horror Picture Show), because the song is just not the same without the choreography.

During his interview by Paul Lisnek, Esparza was down-to-earth, engaging and humorous, treating us to his voice and mannerism impressions of Stephen Sondheim; his memories of starting out in Chicago in the worst production he’s ever been in; and his opinion about the movie Evita (not a high one) and what he went through in the context of playing Che (Evita) in the national tour his own way.

 

Network – Invictus Theatre Company at Windy City Playhouse – September 1, 2024

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I really liked this new theatrical adaptation of Paddy Chayefsky’s movie Network, and not just because a friend of mine was in it.

They tell you to come early to add to your enjoyment of the immersive process, and, sure enough, the bulk of the excellent cast is on and around the stage, in character, doing their business as if really preparing for a tv show that is getting ready to go on air.

I learned a new word, adamantine, a description that, I admit, may occasionally have personal relevance.

Even though the film came out in 1976, the script, the gist of which I’m certain remains unchanged, remains eerily current.

An exception would be the way people were watching Howard Beale back then, the reference being to 21-inch televisions. That seems archaic in the age of size matters.

Speaking of TV sets, the play’s use of screens was well-conceived and executed, a far cry from the use of the screen I criticized in my review of The Band’s Visit.

And speaking of size mattering, the sex scene, normally a boring or uncomfortable, or both, moment in a play for me, was short, cleverly imagined, useful to the story line and funny.