'The Showtune Mosh Pit' for April 11th, 2012

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:

The boys are back in town!  Walking and talking like men, the boys of “Jersey Boys” have returned to Chicago and the theater where they triumphed for over two years, the Bank Of America Theatre on Monroe Street. They arrived last week, and are playing through June 3, 2012. There are two tours out, you know, but I’m sure we have the better one! And both tours of this 2006 Tony winner and 2007 Grammy winner are booked into 2013 already, too. As Chicago loves this show so much, it wouldn’t surprise me if they came back at least one more time before it’s all said and done. But in the meantime, there are nine weeks (well, now it’s eight) to see what is perhaps the best juke-box musical of them all, and one which sets a pretty high bar in that regard. Many in the cast kicked their heels back on Monday night at Sidetrack, btw, enjoying the ambiance of the Glass Bar and the showtune videos. Welcome back, boys!

Jersey Boys Tour

The other big news from Broadway In Chicago is the continued excitement surrounding the family musical “Pinkalicious” at the Broadway Playhouse at Water Tower Place, a transfer from the Apollo Theater of the successful Emerald City Theatre production. This local children’s theater show (of a recent Off-Broadway title) been extended yet again (!), now through August 5, 2012, with local actors on stage and, I assume, mostly tourists in the audience. Its surprise move to the big time, for a run of more than a year, is a huge success story. Congrats!

Pinkalicious2011

In addition to “Pinkalicious,” there are two other musicals in the area right now that begin with the letters “Pi.” What are the odds? I’m not sure how many shows are possible in this category, but we’ve got three. “(The) Pirates Of Penzance,” while Gilbert and Sullivan, actually premiered in New York on December 31, 1879, before its run in London, so purists could claim it as a Broadway musical of sorts long before its popular New York Shakespeare Festival revival in Central Park and on Broadway in the early 1980s. Theater companies have mounted it fairly regularly since that time, and now it’s in previews at the Marriott Theatre in Lincolnshire. The official opening is this weekend, with the run scheduled through June 10th. Fetching Marriott newcomers Omar Lopez-Cepero and Patricia Noonan star as Frederic and Mabel, with Chicago favorites Ross Lehman as the Major-General, Alene Robertson as Ruth and Andrew Lupp as the Sergeant of Police. Broadway’s Kevin Earley, who got his professional theater start as a child at the Marriott, headlines as the Pirate King.

http://marriotttheatre.com/

Almost 100 years more recent than “Pirates,” the 1972 Stephen Schwartz musical “Pippin” has received pretty good reviews up in Highland Park at the Music Theatre Company, directed and choreographed by founding artistic director Jessica Reddish. It runs through May 6th at the Karger Center on Green Bay Road in downtown Highland Park. Andrew Keltz and Joey Stone star.

http://www.themusictheatrecompany.org/

Reddish is keeping herself busy though, as choreographer of the highly anticipated production of “Rent” now in rehearsal here, directed by New York and Chicago auteur David Cromer. The Jonathan Larson Pulitzer, Tony and Grammy winner will be onstage April 27-June 17 at the American Theater Company, in a co-production with About Face Theatre. And the cast has recently been announced! Actor and composer Alan Schmuckler stars as filmmaker Mark Cohen, opposite Derrick Trumbly as Roger Davis. Grace Gealy will be Mimi Marquez, with AIleen May as Maureen Johnson, Esteban Andres Cruz as Angel Dumott Schunard, Alex Agard as Tom Collins and Lili-Anne Brown as JoAnn Jefferson, with Tony Santiago as Benjamin Coffin III. Musical direction is by Tim Splain. Can’t wait!

David-Cromer-Directs-ATC-and-About-Face-Co-production-of-RENT

And more than one theater critic has noted the brilliance with which Chicago will have a Jonathan Larson festival going, since Porchlight Music Theatre is mounting his “tick, tick…BOOM!” (did I get that right?) at the same time as “Rent,” on the boards at Stage 773 from April 28-June 10. What are the odds?.....  ;-) Adam Pelty is directing, with music direction by Diana Lawrence. The show is even more autobiographical than “Rent,” about a young artist struggling to create, and will star Adrian Aguilar, with Jenny Guse and Bear Bellinger. Aguilar, you may remember, starred in American Theater Company’s “The Original Grease” less than a year ago. Ah, symmetry.

Porchlight's-TICKTICKBOOM

Another show from the mid-90s and the post-Sondheim school of Broadway composers is Jason Robert Brown’s “Songs For A New World.” Produced briefly Off-Broadway in 1995, the show is a contemporary revue, popular and yet demanding. In the far southeastern reaches of Chicagoland (in Indiana!), the Crown Point Community Theatre is mounting the show, in honor of moving into its own storefront performance space. Sounds very apt. Friend of the Mosh Pit Eric Reithel directs a cast of ten, with music direction by Ryan Flemmer. It’s just two weekends, April 20-29, so you better move fast!

http://www.cpct.biz/NewWorld2012.php

Opera and musical theater always make for a heady combination, and Northeastern Illinois University’s opera program is presenting Kurt Weill, Elmer Rice and Langston Hughes’s 1947 “Street Scene” in the campus’s Steinberg Fine Arts Center Auditorium this week, April 11-14. It’s directed by Sasha Gerritson and conducted by Michael Melton. Rose Guccione is Anna Maurant. Bryn Mawr and Pulaski.

Departments_Programs/Music/Concerts/eventschedule

And local opera singer and friend of the Mosh Pit (and Schiller Park native) Garrett Johannsen is performing an evening of Broadway songs on Friday night, April 20, at Stage 773’s Cabaret Theatre. “Let Them Hear You,” with Aaron Benham on piano, will include songs from “Man Of La Mancha,” “Miss Saigon,” “Ragtime” and “Wicked,” to name a few. 7:30 pm. $10. What’s not to love?

Garrett Johannsen at Stage 773

Last but not least, we haven’t mentioned “Million Dollar Quartet” lately. It is indeed still running at the Apollo Theater (which it briefly shared with the above-mentioned “Pinkalicious”), after transferring from the Goodman Theatre’s smaller space in the fall of 2008. The original Chicago company (mostly) transferred to Broadway (where Levi Kreis won a 2010 Tony Award), and the show is now running Off-Broadway and on tour. But Chicago’s show runs on and on. I believe they’ve announced ticket sales through Labor Day, which pretty much brings them to the four-year mark. Not too shabby. Not bad, not bad at all.

MILLION DOLLAR QUARTET Official Site

And so that’s it! For this week, anyway. I know you will be out and about, as soon as you finish your taxes. Well, I will see you somewhere, I’m sure, and I know I'll see you under the video screens.....—PWT

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