BWW Blogs: 'The Showtune Mosh Pit' for March 10th, 2010
By: Paul W. Thompson Mar. 10, 2010
THE LATEST IN UNAUTHORIZED GOSSIP AND BUZZ
FROM THE HEART OF CHICAGO'S SHOWTUNE VIDEO BARS,
AND MUSICAL THEATER NEWS FROM CHICAGO TO BROADWAY
by Paul W. Thompson
Overheard last weekend under the showtune
video screens at Sidetrack and the Call:
This past Monday night, between 10:30 and 11:00, the crowd at Sidetrack was treated to a performance by the cast of the Promethean Theatre Ensemble's production of "The Fastasticks!" You just never know when a live event will spice up the videos at Showtune Night. Erik Kaiko and Jes Mercer as Matt and Luisa performed "Metaphor" for the Main Bar Mosh Pit crowd, followed by Kaiko and Michael Reyes (as El Gallo) performing "I Can See It." The show runs through March 21st at the City Lit Theater on Bryn Mawr Avenue, just off Lake Shore Drive. Thanks for dropping by, you guys!
Click Here for The Fantasticks
There was another theater group there Monday night as well, though the cast of their upcoming show wasn't performing. You see, they are all in junior high school. The musical "13" makes it Illinois professional debut in a production Friday and Saturday, March 19th and 20th, at the Genessee Theatre in downtown far north suburban Waukegan, produced by Libertyville's Wishing Star Theatre. Producer Maggie Spence and her adult production staff were working the rooms with flyers, hoping to drum up support for the three-performance run of the show. It ran in Libertyville earlier this winter, featuring changes to the script and score made by composer-lyricist Jason Robert Brown and bookwriters Dan Elish and Robert Horn after the 2008 Broadway production. Enthusiasm for the finished product at Wishing Star was so great, that Spence and company just had to have a remount. There's a pretty cool promo video of the Waukegan production, too.
"13" The Musical at The Genesee Theatre
Mosh Pit residents are still talking about last week's announcement by Broadway In Chicago of the 2010-2011 subscription series and several "bonus" productions offered by our town's primary road show producer. Well, we are talking about what ISN'T being offered--namely, three award-winning productions currently running in New York, and not here. Of course, I'm referring to the Tony Award winner for Best Score, "Next To Normal," the Tony winner for Best Revival, "Hair," and the Grammy Award winner for Best Musical Show Album, "West Side Story." Where are the tours? Well, rumor has it that there eventually will be tours, and that Chicago will of course be among the first stops. But, the Nederlander Organization-controlled Broadway In Chicago had to announce what was available to them, or else postpone offering a neatly packaged "season" for subscribers to commit to. You can't blame them for not wanting to wait. But, what will they do when these three shows do become available? Offer them as surprise one-offs? Delay them until 2011-2012? Heaven forbid! Maybe they should go to two series per year--a summer-fall series and a winter-spring series, rather than one year-round one. Hmmmm. Maybe this is why I'm not a road show producer.
Click Here for Season Tickets to Broadway in Chicago
Christopher Pazdernik, friend of the Mosh Pit and active Chicago musical theater artist and bon vivant, has drawn our attention to a little something that might keep us satiated until "Next To Normal" hits local theaters. It's a little hard to believe, but a five-minute choral medley of four songs from this quasi-rock musical about mental illness is now available from Alfred Music Publishing, arranged by Lisa De Spain. I guess all the "Glee"-type groups will be snapping this right up! Well, actually, I hope they do. Check this out!
Click Here to Listen to or Purchase NEXT TO NORMAL: A CHORAL MEDLEY
We learned just a few days ago what Court Theatre, down in the Hyde Park neighborhood on the campus of the University of Chicago, will be offering a little over a year from now. Buckle your seat belts--they are mounting "Porgy And Bess." That's right, the show that started as a Broadway musical, but in my memory has been only staged by opera companies in recent years, is returning to its roots in May and June of 2011--well, sort of. Usually viewed as the culmination of George Gershwin's compositional career in both the musical theater and classical music worlds, the show will be directed by Charles Newell and musical directed by Doug Peck. Don't be surprised if there isn't a full symphony orchestra playing the rapturous and popular score, though, or if the instrumentalists they do have are placed in the midst of the action. If you thought that Mary Zimmerman's production of "Candide" at the Goodman Theatre next fall was the music-theater event of Chicago's upcoming resident theater season, you may have been mistaken. We're not sure yet--stay tuned.
A second Doug Peck project had an announcement this week as well. Glencoe's Writers' Theatre has announce the fourth extension of the run of the critical, and apparently, popular success "Oh Coward!," which opened November 16, 2009 and will now run until May 17, 2010-- a full six months. There's a cast album too (called "Bright Young People," available from the theater and its website). Original cast member John Sanders has been replaced by Brandon Dahlquist, and Kate Fry will be replaced by Tammy Mader next month, but Rob Lindley continues, with Peck at the piano for most performances. At this point, you don't want to have to say that you missed it. Really.
The third big announcement coming over the wires was the long-awaited interview in "The Advocate" of "Will And Grace" alumnus Sean Hayes, now preparing for his debut in the Broadway revival of "Promises, Promises" opposite Kristin Chenoweth this spring. He announced his hardly hidden sexuality in a way we love--by referencing a very gay-friendly Broadway musical! "I Am Who I Am," says Hayes, with no doubt a nod toward Jerry Herman and Harvey Fierstein. And you may be wondering why I am mentioning this? We can now discuss the long-standing rumor that Hayes used to be a Monday night Mosh Pit regular at Sidetrack back in the early 1990s, while he was studying improv at The Second City! Not that that would raise any eyebrows now, but 15 to 20 years ago, not many straight men, actors or not, were seen in these here parts. Thank goodness that's changed! And bravo for one of us!
Sean Hayes: Advocate.com
Speaking of shows opening in New York, we mentioned last week that one of our gifts to the Main Stem, "The Addams Family," is now in previews on Broadway. The same is about to be true for our other spring export, "Million Dollar Quartet," beginning performances Saturday, March 13th , at the Nederlander Theatre on 41st Street. Of course, the very well-reviewed and phenomenally popular Chicago production (600 performance and counting!) is still very much alive at the Apollo Theater on Lincoln Avenue, but the show's four leads have made the jump to East Coast stardom, with our best wishes. Do us proud, boys.
Million Dollar Quartet - Official Site
Back on the home front, and also on March 13th, Porchlight Music Theatre is hosting its spring gala in the Boulevard Room at the Hilton Chicago on South Michigan Avenue. It's a "black tie creative" evening, and priced correspondingly, but "will include dinner, dancing and special musical performances by Porchlight artists of favorite selections from the past 15 years." There you are. Hence, a mention in "The Showtune Mosh Pit!"
A third event on that very busy Saturday night will be "Cole Sings Cole," a performance by jazzy cabaret singer Amy Cole sponsored by the Skokie Music Theatre Foundation. Cole will sing music made famous by Cole Porter, Nat "King" Cole and Natalie Cole, backed by Tom Vaitsas, piano, and Joe Policastro, bass. Paul Marinaro is musical directing. It's at the Skokie Theatre in, well, Skokie.
Skokie Theatre Music Foundation
And last but not least, the annual spring production by the Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Company in Hyde Park is upon us, once again, reminding us of one of the roots of contermporary American musicals. This year's production is "The Mikado," scooping Lyric Opera of Chicago's production of the same work by nine months! Oh, wait, it's hardly a secret how the plot turns out, is it? But it's bound to be a more or less traditional staging (if you're into that sort of thing, and who isn't?), in Mandel Hall on the English-looking U. of C. campus (or is it called "U. Chicago" these days?). Performances are this weekend only, March 12-14. And while you're down there, you can scope out the Court Theatre, so that when you go there to see "Porgy And Bess" fourteen months from now, you'll know how to get there! Tell 'em that the Mosh Pit sent ya......
The Gilbert & Sullivan Opera Company
So until then, or hopefully sooner (!), I'll see you under the video screens.......And is "Spring Awakening" yet???--PWT
Comments
Videos