Steve Leary - Page 6

Carla Gordon in Hotsie Totsie A Salute to Sophie Tucker.

A special signed performance of the holiday musical A Wonderful Life, sponsored by Munster High School's American Sign Language Club, will be hosted on December 5 at 8 p.m. at Theatre at the Center, 1040 Ridge Road. Tickets for the interpretive section of the theatre are available by contacting Lynn Schumacher at lcschumacher@munster.k12.in.us by November 12. All other tickets can be purchased through the Box Office at 219.836.3255 or Tickets.com at 800.511.1552.

Hold on tight, because Victory Gardens Theater's smash hit winter musical The Snow Queen - conceived by Chicago folk music legend Michael Smith, Tony Award-winning director Frank Galati, and master puppeteer Blair Thomas & Co - is sledding back into town for her third season as Chicago's #1 alternative to traditional holiday fare.

A collection of sketch comedy and improvisation from Second City and iO actors, 'Santa's Great American Depression Holiday Show! America.' is a hilarious hour where the holidays bring out the worst (and best) in a wide array of characters, where Batman comes to terms with economics, a bomb is loose in an American city, Santa gets no rest, and Thomas Jefferson rediscovers what it means to be an American. For mature audiences only.

The Texas Chainsaw Musical will be adding two 12:30 am productions for closing weekend (Oct 31 - Nov 2) -- Saturday, Nov 1 - 12:30 am, Sunday, Nov 2 - 12:30 am The Flaming Dames in Hell's Belles -- Adding a Halloween Midnight Show Saturday November 1 at 12:00 am-(FORTHIS NIGHT ONLY -- Immediately following the 10:30 pm show currently scheduled/listed on October 31) -- Extending run an extra week through November 14. Show will now close on Friday November 14.

Following three sold-out performances opening weekend, Village Players has added two performances to meet additional audience demand for tickets. Additional performances will take place Friday, November 21 at 8 PM and Sunday, November 23 at 3 PM.

Theo Ubique Theatre Co. (in association with Michael James) presents another exciting new work with the Premiere of Belle Barth: If I Embarrass You, Tell Your Friends. This original musical reaches its first staged performance at the No Exit Café after highly noted workshop performances during the 2008 Stages Festival of New Musicals at Theatre Building Chicago. Clever original songs underscore funny and touching scenes from the life and bawdy, raucous humor of the 1950s iconic sensation, Belle Barth, who sold millions of records with her audacious 'too-blue-for-Ed-Sullivan' comedy that stood in acute contrast to prude and proper 1950's.

New Millennium Theatre Company (NMTC) presents The David Bowie Hepzikat Funky Velvet Flarney Solstice Spectacular, Live... From Space! (David Bowie's Christmas Special 1977)

Broadway In Chicago encouraged Chicagoans to 'Skate to the Box Office.' The first 20 people to roller skate to the Drury Lane Theatre Water Tower Place box office (175 E Chestnut St) received a XANADU CD and a free pair of tickets to the first performance on Friday, January 16, 2009.

Ten Chimneys Foundation, the National Historic Landmark estate of Broadway legends Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, has chosen Mary Beth Fisher as one of its eleven inaugural fellows to participate in the LUNT-FONTANNE FELLOWSHIP PROGRAM, a groundbreaking national program to serve regional theater actors and the future of American Theater. Fisher, who was nominated by Goodman Theatre, will receive a cash fellowship and participate in an intensive week-long master class and retreat at Ten Chimneys with a world-renowned and respected master teacher; acclaimed actress Lynn Redgrave will be the first master teacher in the Lunt-Fontanne Fellowship Program. In addition to a prolific, award-winning career on Broadway, in London, and in film and television, Ms. Redgrave was named in honor of Lynn Fontanne - making her a particularly meaningful choice to launch this important program.

The Chicago Jazz Orchestra took on a big challenge - honoring the work of the late, great Ella Fitzgerald and they met it with imagination, class, great music and sass. The result was an almost perfect afternoon hearing some of jazz's' great songs interpreted by three of today's most gifted jazz singers - Spider Saloff, Dee Alexander and Frieda Lee.

Come enjoy a special evening featuring emerging composers and excerpts of new musicals presented by Chicago theater companies this season, including Annoyance Productions, Bare Boned Theatre, Bohemian Ensemble Theatre, Theatre Building Chicago Musical Theater Workshop, a special first look at American Theater Company's Yeast Nation, Victory Gardens' own The Snow Queen, and more.

A free staged reading of the drama 'Ordinary Miracles,' a Catholic nun's story that sets the sacred versus the profane, written by Wilmette playwright Joe Bendy and directed by Lisa Dodson. Amidst her struggle to keep the venerable college she heads viable in the face of drastic cultural change, modern-day feminist Sister Felicity must deal with the brash ideas of the school's newly hired young publicist, an overbearing and unscrupulous businessman trustee, and, most daunting, the unwelcome visit of an apostate pop-music icon alumna whose global celebrity and surprise gift proposal force her to make a faith-testing moral choice.

Jeffrey A. Katz, presents the world premiere of 'Slaphappy,' a romantic comedy of lost lovers and tormented ducks, by Chicago playwright Gary Slezak. Set in a Paris hotel, the play explores the idea of happiness through the eyes of four Americans, a loopy bellboy, an astute concierge, and a society of pâté lovers. Battling couples, exploding rockets, mistaken medications and a taste of foie gras come together in a delirious confection. This Equity show runs about two hours plus two intermissions. The poster illustration is by New Yorker cartoonist Pat Byrnes (copy below; more info at www.patbyrnes.com).

Set in the present-day DRC, Ruined is the captivating story of Mama Nadi (Ekulona), the owner of a canteen who serves up everything from a cold beer and a warm meal-to the company of a woman. Through the eyes of this savvy businesswoman who both protects and profits from the women whose bodies have become battlegrounds, Nottage captures the constantly shifting allegiances and tragic absurdity that marks the civil war in the DRC. Ruined, rendered with Nottage's trademark humanity, clarity and surprising humor, gives a glimpse of a country that has suffered immeasurable losses since the beginning of this war that has raged for more than a decade.

At Large! is a brand new one-woman show that tackles weight issues head on. Playwright and actress Keri Marcouillier interviewed many plus-size woman, as well as drawing on her own experiences, to write this show in the style of 'The Vagina Monologues'.

Broadway In Chicago and the producers of CHICAGO The Musical are delighted to announce that John O'Hurley will star as Billy Flynn in a limited engagement of the hit musical, CHICAGO, beginning February 25, 2009 at the Ford Center for the Performing Arts, Oriental Theatre (24 W Randolph St). CHICAGO will be extending its previously announced limited run for an additional week through March 8, 2009. Individual tickets go on-sale to the public on Friday, December 5 at 10 a.m. Group tickets are currently available by calling (312) 977-1710.

TimeLine Theatre Company announces the 2008-09 season of its TimePieces Play Reading Series, a series of one-night-only readings designed to offer Chicago audiences a chance to hear new and rarely produced plays and to extend TimeLine's mission of presenting stories inspired by history that connect to today's social and political issues.

'Rosie! A Tribute' is a loving and well-told musical adventure spanning the 40 year career of the great Girl Singer, Rosemary Clooney. Heather Moran has deftly created a musical tapestry from the colorful life of Clooney, spanning from her birth in Maysville, Kentucky, through her nervous breakdown in the late 1960's, her mid 1970's comeback, all the way to her death in 2002. Heather has assembled some of the hottest young jazz musicians in Chicago, including Damian Espinosa as musical director/pianist, Kevin Woods on bass, Jim Gifford on drums and a wonderful Chicago jazz singer and trumpet & flugelhorn player, Jeff Hedberg. Heather is also thrilled to include two fantastic Chicago vocalists, Marymonica Thomas and Daryl Nitz.