Q Brothers

Chicago Shakespeare Theater – Season Preview Party – October 2, 2018

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The Urban Dictionary defines ghost as “to avoid someone until they get the picture and stop contacting you.” If only that worked with robocalls. Americans received 30 billion robocalls last year and a friend of mine insists that all of them were to him. But I digress.

Long before it became a verb, Shakespeare wrote about ghosts in five of his plays. And Dickens famously wrote about several apparitions in “A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas.” (How many of you knew the whole name of the novella?)

The Chicago Shakespeare Theater unites with Dickens every year to present “A Q Brothers’ Christmas Carol”. The 2018 production is one of this season’s shows that was highlighted at the preview party. I go every year. Do yourself a big favor and see it (even if you think you don’t like hip-hop).

Barbara Gaines, the Chicago Shakespeare Theater’s Artistic Director, asked the audience how many of them had seen productions of the company in the Ruth Page Auditorium, where it resided for 12 years before moving to its present location in 1999. A smattering of people raised their hands, which inspired me to shout out to Gaines, after only one glass of wine, “What about the Red Lion?”, a pub that is owned by an friend of mine and that also is known for being haunted by ghosts.

Rather than ghosting me or asking staff to remove me from the room, Gaines asked me to repeat myself, and when I did, and she realized that I knew about the company’s birth on the rooftop of the Lincoln Avenue bar in 1986, she rose from her chair, and bowed and raised her hands in praise to me, whereupon Creative Producer Rick Boynton, who was on stage with her, jokingly took it one step further by asking if anyone had been to Barbara’s living room. A woman sitting in front of me raised her hand, thereby unceremoniously putting me in my place.

 

 

Q Brothers Christmas Carol – Chicago Shakespeare Theater – December 2, 2017

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I have now seen the Q Brothers’ version of A Christmas Carol at The Shakespeare Theater four years in a row. It never gets old. Last year I gained special insight into the show when I struck up a conversation with an usher, who turned out to be the Q Brothers’ high school drama teacher from years ago. She was very proud of the boys.

Despite my recommendation (or perhaps based on it) I have many friends who say they won’t go to this show because they hate hip hop – good, stay home – more room for me to see a high energy, intelligent, fun-loving, live performance of familiar, but reinvented material, where four actors play a dozen parts and I leave with a smile on my face, along with some glitter that rained down from the ceiling. I’m going to keep going every year until the seemingly indefatigable GQ runs out of energy.

This year the show moved into Shakespeare’s new space, The Yard. I was a little misled trying to interpret their online seating chart for the first time. Though we probably wound up with the best seats in the house, getting to them unexpectedly involved climbing stairs (raise your hand if you’re over 65 and have knee problems). There probably was an elevator somewhere but it wasn’t obvious (raise your hand if you’re over 65 and have trouble seeing in the dark) And the seats were right behind the balcony railing, which for someone like me, who isn’t fond of heights, even when they aren’t all that high, is a little disconcerting. So I had to avoid laughing and applauding too hard (not an easy thing to do at this show), lest I lose my equilibrium, tumble over, and interrupt the show to allow for cleanup in aisle 2.

Big Red & the Boys – Theater Wit – December 11, 2017

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Meghan Murphy is Big Red. Her website says “If Lucille Ball, Bette Midler, Bonnie Raitt, Rita Hayworth and Etta James had a baby, her name would be Big Red. Now who doesn’t want to see THAT?!” I wanted to.

My friend Karen accompanied me to the Theater Wit to see Big Red and the Boys with the expectation that we would be the only two straight people in the audience. We weren’t. Maybe not even the two oldest. We’re usually either the oldest or the youngest in the crowd. It was, to say the least, an eclectic audience. I turned to Karen when I saw a family enter, one that included a preteen girl, and said “How can they bring a kid to this show?”

The show, Get Your Holiday On, was, as expected, rollicking, bawdy, good fun. Near the end of the show Meghan noticed the young girl in the audience, and, in a moment that seemed to be real, not part of the act, rhetorically said “There were children in the audience?”, before shrugging it off to the delight of the crowd, including the parents.

We both loved the show and may make it yet another holiday tradition (see comment on the Q Brothers), but what really impressed Karen was Meghan’s ability to navigate the show, with all its dance steps, while wearing three-and-a half-inch spiked heels. How is it that women can measure heels from a distance? It’s for insights like this that a partner in crime is invaluable on forays into unchartered territory.

So now we have tickets to see Meghan, along with Danni Smith and Cassie Slater in “We Three: Loud Her. Fast Her. Funny Her.” at Steppenwolf Theater of all places. The title is promising. Stay tuned.