'The Showtune Mosh Pit' for December 15th, 2010
By: Paul W. Thompson Dec. 15, 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:
Have you voted yet? The online voting for the first ever BroadwayWorld Chicago Theatre Fans' Choice Awards will end next Monday, December 20, 2010. There are 25 categories, covering touring and resident, Equity and Non-Equity productions which opened on local stages between September of 2009 and August of 2010. Click HERE to begin the voting process. I'm sure your favorite production or artist needs your vote! And be sure to come out to The Call bar on Wednesday night, December 29th, to celebrate the great year with us and the Chicagoland theater community. You're invited!
List of Nominees By Theater (And Don't Forget That Party)!
The much-anticipated touring production of "White Christmas" opens here this week, for a three week holiday stand (through January 2nd). Rumor has it that this physical production is markedly different from the one that played the Marquis Theatre in New York the last few Decembers. Will theatergoers notice or care? We will find out soon enough (let me know what you think!). Broadway In Chicago presents the stage adaptation of the 1954 Irving Berlin film at the Bank Of America Theatre, joining lonely little "Wicked" in the trio of big touring houses in the north central loop. "Billy Elliot" is gone, but not forgotten.
Chicago Irving Berlin's WHITE CHRISTMAS
There are always an abundance of children's shows at holiday time, even though I usually don't have time to mention them. And speaking of stage adaptations of classic film musicals, "The Wizard Of Oz" at the Marriott Theatre, directed by Rachel Rockwell and playing mornings on the same set used by "The Music Man" at night, has gotten some rave reviews and must be quite the thing. The cast (Dara Cameron, Heidi Kettenring, Andy Lupp, Mary Ernster, Mark David Kaplan, etc.) is pretty top notch, too. It lasts an hour, and it also runs through January 2, 2011.
Marriott Theatre's Wizard Of Oz
There are still new productions coming online, er, onstage (of course). Douglas Post's "The Wind In The Willows" returns once again to City Lit Theater Company this week, directed by Terry McCabe. It plays December 17--January 9 at 1020 W. Bryn Mawr Avenue in the Edgewater neighborhood.
Running December 16--January 8 at the Heartland Studio in the Rogers Park neighborhood is "Striking 12,"described by the Bohemian Theatre Ensemble as "a cross between a rock concert and a holiday show for people who don't like holiday shows." Written by Rachel Sheinkin (who wrote the Tony-winning book for the popular "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee") and members of the musical trio GrooveLily, the show sounds intriguing. Who's going?
BoHo Theatre: Bohemian Theatre Ensemble
Another show with one foot in the music world, and another with onstage musicians as characters, is "Local Wonders," a "play with songs" now underway at Chicago Dramatists on Chicago Avenue. First produced by the Nebraska Repertory Theatre in Lincoln in 2006, it's the work of Virginia Smith, an associate theater professor at the University of Nebraska, and Paul Amandes, Associate Chair of the Theatre Department at Columbia College Chicago. The show began performances November 27, and runs through January 9.
LOCAL WONDERS - A play by Virginia Smith and Paul Amandes
An African-American musical that brings music into a theatrical context is poet Langston Hughes' "Black Nativity," which has been recast by playwright McKinley Johnson as "The Nativity," now being produced in a big way by Congo Square Theatre Company at the Goodman Theatre downtown. Aaron Todd Douglas directs, and Kevin Iaga Jeff choregraphs, a cast of 15, which includes the remarkable voice of Melody Betts. The show runs December 3-31.
Another tried and true local African-American musical theater staple has received near-universal rave reviews, and has announced an extension through January 23, 2011. It is "The Other Cinderella," pretty much the show that put the Black Ensemble Theater on the map in 1976, now updated a bit. As BET prepares to move into new digs, it's nice that they are throwing themselves a farewell of sorts at their old space on North Beacon Street.
The Other Cinderella - Black Ensemble Theater
Another show with great reviews that has announced an extension is "Cats," the litterbox-sized production of the Andrew Lloyd Webber "Memory" musical by Theo Ubique Cabaret Theatre at the No Exit Cafe. The felines will now be flexing and flouncing (and serving you dinner, if you pay to come early) until February 20, 2011, essentially doubling the length of the show's run, and needing to replace only one actor. You don't have an excuse to not go now--really!
And, lastly for this week, we were stunned to hear a significant showtune development hidden in the news that superstar operatic soprano Renee Fleming has been named Creative Consultant to Lyric Opera Of Chicago. Buried in the list of items she apparently brought to the table is "fostering an annual commitment to American music theater" for the company, to begin with a production of "Oklahoma!" in the spring of 2013! Just two years from now, the Mosh Pit will be all abuzz with speculation about the production and its tone, size, scope, ticket sales and so many other considerations. I suspect this will be the first in a series of non-subscription "add-on" productions to a number of seasons at Lyric, which has produced subscription productions of "Sweeney Todd," "Street Scene" and "Porgy And Bess" in the past (among other titles). But what will the new emphasis include? "Follies?" "Wonderful Town?" "The Secret Garden?" "The Most Happy Fella?" "My Fair Lady?" "A Chorus Line?" Speculation is both fruitless and fascinating. Thank you, Lyric! Hire us! And don't get this wrong.... Right?...
Well, the weather outside is... Chicago, and yet we have so much to talk about each week in our various haunts of musical theater culture and tradition and innovation and education and relaxation. In terms of the latter, you have some free time coming up, don't you? I know I'll see you under the video screens.....--PWT
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