Steve Leary - Page 7

DISNEY's ALADDIN opens October 30th and runs through January 4th at The Marriott Theatre for Young Audiences, 10 Marriott Drive. Based on the smash hit 1992 Disney film Aladdin, DISNEY's ALADDIN is a magical journey for all ages, featuring an Academy Award-winning score. DISNEY's ALADDIN is directed and choreographed by Marriott Theatre for Young Audience's favorite, Rachel Rockwell (Seussical, Wizard of Oz, Princess and the Pea).

Theatergoers will receive $10 off tickets to the Halloween performance of Porchlight Music Theatre's hit musical comedy Candide at 7:45 p.m. on Friday, October 31. The witty operetta, based on the 1759 French masterpiece by Voltaire, is running through November 2 at Theatre Building Chicago, 1225 West Belmont. For reservations call 773.325.9884.

Mary-Arrchie Theatre Co. will present the US Premiere of Our Bad Magnet at Angel Island, 735 W. Sheridan. It will open Monday, November 17, 2008 at 8 p.m. and run Thursday through Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 7 p.m. Tickets are $18 on Thursday and Sunday, $20 on Friday, and $22 on Saturday. There will be previews on November 13-16 at 8 p.m. Tickets for previews are $10. Performance closes on Sunday, December 21, 2008. There is parking available in the Mobil Gas Station across from the theater at a fee determined by Mobil Gas. For more information and reservations call (773) 871-0442.

Every December, the residents of Deer Run Lane, a tiny cul de sac in Elk Woods Village, get together for their annual holiday party. The games, refreshments, and carols are all the same but this year the neighborhood party goes awry.

Broadway In Chicago encourages all Chicagoans to vote and then celebrate the election of the 44th President by offering theater patrons $44 tickets on Election Day, November 4, 2008, to the international stage hits DIRTY DANCING, Jersey Boys and WICKED. Election returns will be announced during intermission and at the close of the show.

Victory Gardens Theater will welcome playwright Sarah Ruhl back to her hometown Chicago with a special public event - Ruhl Makers - a panel of leading women theater artists in Chicago who have helped Ruhl escape 'reading hell' to become arguably the top contemporary playwright in America today.

Torben Betts' The Unconquered is a fast-moving satirical portrait of patriarchy, political indolence and over-reaction. The laughs begin when the 're-liberation' knocks on the door of your average upper-middle class family after aggressive revolutionaries have overthrown the government. Strange and unsettling, their new found freedom provokes the parents to reminisce about the comfort of life under the previous aristocracy while their spirited daughter criticizes her parent's banal and conforming attitudes with great, yet impotent, ferocity. The piece is a reflection of war's long-reaching effects on the domestic front, demonstrating the encompassing ambiguity of a public out of touch with reality. With great wit, poetics and charm, Betts sketches the self-hypocrisy that materializes during times of opaque identity and societal partition.

Kicking off the new season in the Village Players Blackbox is Betrayal, an intimate three person look at relationships by Harold Pinter, the 2005 winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Court Theatre continues its 2008/09 season with SITI Company's Radio Macbeth adapted from the play by Shakespeare and co-directed by SITI Company Artistic Director Anne Bogart and Darron L. West. The production will run November 6, 2008 - December 7, 2008 at Court Theatre, 5535 S. Ellis Avenue. The press opening will be Saturday, November 8, 2008 at 8:00 p.m.

With the election year upon us, we are looking to our newly elected leaders to fix the economy, the war, the environment, the health care system, the educational system, fill potholes, feed and shelter us, deliver us from harm and read to us when it is bedtime. It's a lot to ask, but that's why they get paid the big bucks in special interest money.

Queen Elizabeth's Dwarf, a unique solo performance by Chicago actress and little person Kathyrn Jones exploring the personal relationship dwarves and other people with disabilities played in the queen's court and during the Renaissance, is the kick-off presentation for the Victory Gardens Access Project 2008-2009 Crip Slam series.

Artistic Director BJ Jones and Executive Director Timothy J. Evans announce the Chicago premiere of the Tony Award-winning musical Grey Gardens, book by Doug Wright, lyrics by Michael Korie and music by Scott Frankel. The production, directed by BJ Jones with musical direction by Doug Peck, choreography by Marla Lampert and featuring Hollis Resnik, Tempe Thomas and Ann Whitney, has already been extended and will now run November 12-December 28, 2008, at Northlight Theatre, 9501 Skokie Blvd in Skokie.

Million Dollar Quartet, the new musical inspired by the famed 1956 recording session that brought together legendary rock 'n' roll icons Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and Elvis Presley, will move to the Apollo Theater at 2540 N. Lincoln Ave., Chicago, immediately following the conclusion of its limited engagement at the Goodman's Owen Theatre. Performances in the Owen continue through October 26, 2008; preview performances at the Apollo Theater begin Friday, October 31, 2008. The official Apollo opening is Wednesday, November 5, 2008, at 7:30 p.m.. Tickets for the Apollo run are currently on sale through January 4, 2009.

The record-breaking Chicago Company of WICKED is now presenting an opportunity for audience members and fans to get up close and personal with WICKED the last two Tuesdays in October. Fans are able to go 'Behind the Emerald Curtain' for free when they purchase a ticket to WICKED on Tuesday, October 21 or October 28, 2008. The tour takes place prior to the show at 5 pm, followed by a 7:30 performance of WICKED at the Ford Center for the Performing Arts, Oriental Theatre (24 W. Randolph St., Chicago).

The first 50 people to arrive at The Mercury Theater, 3745 N. Southport, to see the acclaimed drama THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS on Friday, October 31 at 8 p.m. will receive a festive goody bag filled with fall treats from Wrigleyville's gourmet candy shop Candyality.

CHICAGO SHAKESPEARE'S WORLD'S STAGE SERIES PRESENTS MULTILINGUAL 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' Director Tim Supple's Adaptation-a Vivid Dream from India featuring Acrobats, Dancers, Martial Artists and Musicians. November 25 through December 7, 2008

'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.

Kita y Fernanda is a look at class, immigration and women's friendships as it follows the lives of two girls growing up in the same household; one the privileged daughter of a rich Mexican family living in Texas, the other the child of an undocumented maid.

Photos from the opening night reception for Drury Lane Oakbrook's production of MAME. MAME is currently running through December 21 at Drury Lane Oakbrook Terrace, 100 Drury Lane, Oakbrook Terrace, IL. For tickets call (630) 530-0111 or visit www.ticketmaster.com or www.drurylaneoakbrook.com.