'The Showtune Mosh Pit' for January 12th, 2011
By: Paul W. Thompson Jan. 11, 2011
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:
Last week's "Mosh Pit" looked back to the "Top Ten Hot Topics" of the latter half of 2010. This week, we are looking forward to the offerings and activities of the new year. Specifically, there are some high-profile national tours coming through town, brought to you courtesy of Broadway In Chicago.
First up on the horizon is "9 To 5," the touring production of the 2009 Broadway musical from the pen of songwriter Dolly Parton. The tour opened in Nashville this past fall, and we are one of the first cities to get a good look at the show. It's rumored to be rejiggered a bit, and for the better. We have it for two weeks (January 18-31), at the Bank Of America Theatre on Monroe Street. It's "a hilarious story of friendship and revenge in the Rolodex era." That's what it says!
Opening for two weeks on the very next day, at the very same theater, the tour of "Burn The Floor," post-Broadway, will bring the international world of ballroom dance, Australian style, to the Windy City (February 1-13). Special guests are promised, and a hot time will be had by all who love every sequined, sexy step.
But most readers of the "Mosh Pit" are looking forward to a show which will begin its Chicago performances one day later, and play for two weeks more (February 2-27), at the Cadillac Palace Theatre on Randolph Street. I'm talking of course about the new staging of "Les Miserables," one of the most successful musicals ever, re-imagined in England, rehearsed in New York and first produced in the U.S. at the Paper Mill Playhouse, the State Theater of New Jersey. This is a major mounting, peeps, and we have it for a month. You know you want to go. I dare say that anybody who misses this will miss out on showtune conversation for, well, at least the next couple of weeks!
Believe it or not, we will actually have three national tours playing concurrently in the Loop during the second week of February! In addition to "Burn The Floor" and "Les Miserables," "Rain: A Tribute To The Beatles" will also play that week (February 8-13), ensconced at the Ford Center For The Performing Arts, Oriental Theatre on Randolph Street. "Rain" is still running in New York, and we will get the touring version. It's a "multi-media, multi-dimensional experience," but live actors will reenact the Fab Four's biggest hits, "Beatlemania" style.
Speaking of rock music, the granddaddy of all staged rock musicals, "Hair," is next on the docket, playing at the Ford Center from March 8-20. It's the touring incarnation of the winner of the Best Revival Tony Award in 2009, and we have really been anticipating this one. Finally it is here! Let the sunshine in, as it's the dawning of the Age of Aquarius! There's nudity, and there's war and anti-war. There's "Hair." There really is nothing like it.
One of "Hair"'s most honored grandchildren (winner of last year's Pulitzer Prize for Drama in a controversial move) will FINALLY get to Chicago after more intense interest than any other post-Broadway mounting here in quite some time. "Next To Normal," with original Tony-winning star Alice Ripley tearing her heart and her clothes and probably ours as well, will bring its rock-driven story of mental illness and family instability to the Bank of America Theatre for two weeks, April 26-May 8.
Even more than "Les Miserables" and "Hair," this show is the one you simply must see downtown this spring. Without a movie, or a generation or two of theater fans to engender interest in it, "Next To Normal" is, quite simply, a work of musical theater popularity, power and imagination that comes along pretty rarely. It isn't based on a book, movie or set of pre-existing songs, either. And yet, we are thrilled at its arrival, aren't we?
The arrival of a non-union tour of "Spring Awakening" (yet another grandchild of "Hair") May 3-8 at the Ford Center is welcome, though not with the same emotion we felt when a first class production landed here for a week, over a year ago. It should have stayed longer, but at least the eight-time Tony-winner isn't gone for good, just yet. This tour opened in downstate Illinois in September, and if you haven't seen it, you really should. It brings to a close this amazing array of seven top tours to sweep through our town in three and a half months. I hope you have either a subscription or a lot of ready cash! When it rains, it really does pour.
Here's the Home Page for Broadway in Chicago
Obviously, we import musical theater, and we produce it here, too. We have even been known to write some shows, and export that work to New York and elsewhere. We export talent, too. Chicagoans Kevin Christopher Fox and Bruch Reed are among those who have traveled down to Fayetteville, Arkansas to be involved in mounting a world premiere musical by Kevin D. Cohea and 3 Penny Acre, a roots music work of "prejudice and redemption" called "Sundown Town." It runs February 4-20 at the Walton Arts Center in Fayetteville, produced by Theatre Squared. You just never know where Chicago musical theater talents will venture and make their mark. Break a leg, everyone, and don't forget us!
Sundown Town - TheatreSquared: Northwest Arkansas's Regional Theatre
A tour that we are NOT getting hereabouts, at least for the foreknown future, is "West Side Story." And so, we are producing it ourselves! A theater company in Palatine, Music On Stage, is taking advantage of that fact, and presenting the Bernstein-Sondheim-Laurents tuner for three weekends, January 14-29, at the 1928 Cutting Hall Performing Arts Center. The production is directed by Frank Roberts, with choreography by Kirsten Markham. Steve Lugovsky is Tony, with Hema Sathia as Maria, Colette Todd as Anita, Mario Mazzetti as Riff and Mike Jaramillo as Bernardo.
Cutting Hall Performing Arts Center
The Mosh Pit has been abuzz all week about a possible major project first reported, I believe, by Michael Riedel in the New York Post. It seems that one Barbra Streisand is interested in starring in a film remake of a certain Styne-Sondheim-Laurents musical called "Gypsy." Never mind that the Rosalind Russell film isn't really that bad, that the Bette Midler TV movie is awesome and that nearly everyone that has played Mama Rose Hovick in the last forty-odd years is still alive. Or that Barbra is old enough to play Gypsy Rose Lee's grandmother, let alone her mother. Apparently, I'm the only one who thinks this is a problem! And I love Barbra Streisand. I actually hope I'm wrong! Apparently, she has been given the green light by the powers that be, so this may actually happen. If she can pull this off, brava to her!
Barbra Streisand in 'Gypsy' - NYPOST.com
A musical movie already made, already out and not attracting much attention from the showtune crowd is "Country Strong," the Gwyneth Paltrow tuner co-starring real life country star Tim McGraw. Am I wrong? It's a biopic about a fictional singer. Too stereotypical? Too rural? What's the deal, Mosh Pit? What say you?
Country Strong - Official Site
A strong woman of another kind is bringing her concert to The Venue in Hammond, Indiana on Saturday, March 19, 2011. I'm talking about Tony and Oliver Award-winner Lea Salonga ("Miss Saigon"). A star in her native Phillipines since she was a teen, Salonga has starred in "Les Miserables" and "Flower Drum Song," and lent her voice to "Mulan" and "Aladdin." She's a force to be reckoned with. And so close by!
Lea Salonga at Horseshoe Hammond
A concert next Monday night, January 17, will showcase singer/songwriters who are also active in Chicago theater. It's called "Chicago Theatre Rock Stars," and it's a night of singing at Martyrs', 3855 N. Lincoln Avenue. Jess Godwin takes the stage at 8:30, Diana Lawrence (of Diana and the Dishes) will be at 9:40, and Michael Mahler and Alan Schmuckler will perform at 10:50. What a neat evening! It's a trio of triple threats.
Speaking of bars and singers and showtunes, Chicago's very own Davenport's was just named the eighth most important mover and shaker on the national cabaret scene! NiteLifeExchange.com put out the ranking, after consulting with some experts in the field about who were the inviduals and locations and groups and things that were the most influential in the current cabaret scene. And there it is at number 8, behind Chicago native Ann Hampton Callaway but ahead of the well known Michael Feinstein and Chicagoan Karen Mason! What a nice surprise, but, once you think about it, one that makes a great deal of sense. Bravo to everyone at the Bucktown boite!
The 50 Most Influential in Cabaret for 2010
And, last but not least: an item out of left field. You just never know where you will run across a bit of musical theater history. I had occasion to be backstage in the Performing Arts Center at Dominican University last week (the former Rosary College in west suburban Forest Park). And there, in the green room, and usually off limits to visitors, was an oil painting by legendary musical theater star Mary Martin! And not just any oil painting, either, but a depiction of backstage life at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre in New York during the original run of "The Sound of Music!"
First of all, I didn't know that the late star of "The Sound Of Music," "South Pacific," "I Do! I Do!" and "Peter Pan" even painted! Or that the mother of TV star Larry Hagman had any passions other than the musicals she inhabited so fully for so many years. But then it all began to make sense, as I remembered reading about Martin's friendship with the then professor of theater at Rosary, Sr. Gregory Duffy, who acted as a consultant to Martin, Oscar Hammerstein II and others during the writing and production of the show in 1958 and 59. Dominican apparently has a lot of letters and paraphernalia about the show in its archives, and some are displayed in the building's lobby. But I was quite taken by the painting. It's a touch primitive, but a far sight better than I could do. To me, it's priceless. And I was privileged to see it! It's a bunch of actresses dressed like nuns, lounging about, with Martin herself gazing out a window onto 46th Street, her back to the viewer. Does the musical theater world even know it's there? Well, now it does.......
And that's the Mosh Pit for this week. I hope you're warm and dry, and keeping yourself occupied with showtunes and other fields of endeavor during these long winter nights. An evening in a showtune bar, perhaps? Or some live performance venue or other. A cast recording, a DVD, a script or score? I thought so. You're hooked! Well, have fun, and I will see you when I see you, at some point or other, under the video screens.....--PW
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