Theo Ubique Cabaret Theatre Announces 2017-18 Season

Theo Ubique Cabaret Theatre's founding artistic director Fred Anzevino today announced the company's lineup for the 2017-18 season, its last in its Rogers Park venue, the No Exit Café. The company will move into a new home in Evanston for the 2018-19 season. Their '17-'18 season will open in September with William Finn and James Lapine's 1998 off-Broadway hit, A New Brain. The musical, which was inspired by a real-life medical crisis Finn experienced, concerns a songwriter who while in a coma and awaiting life-threatening brain surgery, hallucinates about the songs he has yet to write and the people in his life. Its score includes some of Finn's most romantic, humorous and joyous songs, such as "I'd Rather Be Sailing," "The Music Still Plays On" and "I Feel So Much Spring." A New Brain will be directed by Anzevino, with music direction by Jeremy Ramey and choreography by Cameron Turner. It will run from September 15 through October 29.

Theo Ubique's holiday season show will be, appropriately, Altar Boyz - a mock concert by a fictitious Christian boy band including singers named Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and Abraham (he's Jewish). One of off-Broadway's longest-running musicals, Altar Boyz gently parodies both boy bands and Christian pop music through a score of comic and tuneful songs. It will open to the press on December 4, following previews from December 1, and play through the holiday season up until January 14, 2018. Courtney Crouse, director of Theo's A Marvin Hamlisch Songbook and Honky Tonk Angels, will direct.

One of the greatest early musicals of the "Golden Age," 1947's Finian's Rainbow, will receive its first professional Chicago production in 20 years when Theo Ubique opens its production of the Burton Lane-E.Y. "Yip" Harburg musical in March. Though seldom revived locally, the musical featuring such standards as "Old Devil Moon," "How Are Things in Glocca Morra?" and "When I'm Not Near the Girl I Love" enjoyed highly successful revivals by New York City's Irish Repertory Theatre in 2004 and 2016-17. Theo Ubique will perform the "two-piano concert" adapted by Charlotte Moore for the Irish Repertory Company. With its lead characters of Irishmen Finian and Sharon Mc Lonergan, as well as the amorous leprechaun Og, Finian's Rainbow will be perfectly timed for music lovers to celebrate St. Patrick's Day all the way through the end of April.

The company's last production in the No Exit Café before moving to its new home on Howard Street in Evanston in fall 2018, will be a cabaret saluting their many hits in that Glenwood Avenue venue. Since their first production at No Exit - 2004's A Kurt Weill Review: Songs of Darkness of Light - the company has won acclaim and fans for its mountings of musicals like Cabaret, Chess, Man of La Mancha, Evita, The Light in the Piazza, Passion, Jesus Christ Superstar and Rent; and for revues including Always... Patsy Cline and salutes to songwriters like Harold Arlen, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Cole Porter, Jule Styne and Marvin Hamlisch. This farewell revue will bring back memories for long-time Theo Ubique fans.

All performances will be staged in the intimate No Exit Café, 6970 N. Glenwood Avenue in Rogers Park. Season tickets will go on sale soon.

A New Brain
Music and Lyrics by William Finn, Book by William Finn and James Lapine
Directed by Fred Anzevino
Music Directed by Jeremy Ramey
Choreography by Cameron Turner
September 15 - October 29, 2017
Press Opening Monday, September 18, 2017, 7:30 pm
Ticket prices previews September 15-17: All seats $20.00
Ticket prices regular run: Thursdays and Sundays $34.00, Fridays and Saturdays $44.00
$4.00 discount on regular run prices for seniors and students
Dinner (optional) is $25.00. Advance reservations required
Curtain Times: Thursdays at 7:30 pm, Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00 pm; Sundays at 7:00 pm.

All performances will be held at the No Exit Café located at 6970 N Glenwood Ave.
More information at www.theo-u.com or by phone at 800-595-4849.
Student Rush All Season Long! (All unsold tickets are $20 at the door with college ID. Tickets will be sold on site, cash only, at curtain. First come, first served, subject to availability.)

An energetic, sardonic, often comical musical about a composer during a medical emergency, by the Tony Award-winning authors of Falsettos. Gordon collapses into his lunch and awakes in the hospital, surrounded by his maritime-enthusiast lover, his mother, a co-worker, the doctor, and the nurses. While in the hospital, Gordon fears he will die with his greatest songs still inside of him; and so from his hospital bed, and in while in a coma, and all throughout his ordeal, he begins writing the songs. He also has several hallucinations that involve various people whom he has encountered.

Altar Boyz
Music and Lyrics by Gary Adler and Michael Patrick Walker
Book by Kevin Del Aguila (based on an idea by Marc J. Kessler and Ken Davenport)
Directed by Courtney Crouse
Music Directed by Jeremy Ramey
December 1, 2017 - January 14, 2018
No performance Christmas Eve, December 24
Press Opening Monday, December 4, 2017, 7:30 pm
Ticket prices previews December 1-4: All seats $20.00
Ticket prices regular run: Thursdays and Sundays $34.00, Fridays and Saturdays $44.00
$4.00 discount on regular run prices for seniors and students
Dinner (optional) is $25.00. Advance reservations required
Curtain Times: Thursdays at 7:30 pm, Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00 pm; Sundays at 7:00 pm.
All performances will be held at the No Exit Café located at 6970 N Glenwood Ave.
More information at www.theo-u.com or by phone at 800-595-4849.
Student Rush All Season Long!
(All unsold tickets are $20 at the door with college ID. Tickets will be sold on site, cash only, at curtain. First come, first served, subject to availability.)

Altar Boyz is a foot-stomping, rafter-raising, musical comedy about a fictitious Christian boy-band on the last night of their national 'Raise the Praise' tour. The Boyz are five all-singing, all-dancing heartthrobs from Ohio: Matthew, Mark, Luke, Juan and Abraham. As they perform their signature hits such as 'Rhythm In Me,' 'The Calling,' and 'I Believe,' the Boyz question their loyalty to each other and ask whether or not faith is really holding them together. They finally deliver a message of unity, that 'there is no star as bright as its constellation, no harmony in a single voice.'

Finian's Rainbow
Two-piano concert version
Music by Burton Lane, Lyrics by E.Y. Harburg, Book by E.Y. Harburg and Fred Saidy
Book revised in concert form by Charlotte Moore
Directed by Fred Anzevino
Music Directed by Jeremy Ramey
March 9 - April 29, 2018
Press Opening Monday, March 12, 2017 at 7:30 pm
Ticket prices previews March 9-11: All seats $20.00
Ticket prices regular run: Thursdays and Sundays $34.00, Fridays and Saturdays $44.00
$4.00 discount on regular run prices for seniors and students
Dinner (optional) is $25.00. Advance reservations required
Curtain Times: Thursdays at 7:30 pm, Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00 pm; Sundays at 7:00 pm.
All performances will be held at the No Exit Café located at 6970 N Glenwood Ave.
More information at www.theo-u.com or by phone at 800-595-4849.
Student Rush All Season Long!
(All unsold tickets are $20 at the door with college ID. Tickets will be sold on site, cash only, at curtain. First come, first served, subject to availability.)

Aging Irish dreamer Finian McLonergan and his savvy daughter Sharon travel to America to bury a small pot of gold, which Finian believes will grow to yield millions. When they arrive in fictional Rainbow Valley in Missitucky, the McLonergans encounter goodhearted sharecroppers, bigoted blowhard politicians... and a romantic leprechaun! One of America's classic and most original musicals, FINIAN'S RAINBOW remains as timely now as when it was first written. The charming score includes hits like "Old Devil Moon," "Look to the Rainbow," and "How Are Things In Glocca Morra?" Theo Ubique will perform the "two-piano concert version" created for New York's Irish Repertory Theatre in 2004 by Charlotte Moore.

Last Call at No Exit: A Summer Cabaret
June 15 - July 22, 2018
Director TBA
Music Direction by Jeremy Ramey
June 15 - July 22, 2018
Press Opening Monday, June 18, 7:30 pm
Ticket prices: Thursdays and Sundays $25.00, Fridays and Saturdays $29.00
$4.00 discount on regular run prices for seniors and students
Dinner (optional) is $25.00. Advance reservations required
Curtain Times: Thursdays at 7:30 pm, Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00 pm; Sundays at 7:00 pm.
All performances will be held at the No Exit Café located at 6970 N Glenwood Ave.
More information at www.theo-u.com or by phone at 800-595-4849.
Student Rush All Season Long!
(All unsold tickets are $20 at the door with college ID. Tickets will be sold on site, cash only, at curtain. First come, first served, subject to availability.)

Theo Ubique's summer cabaret will be its last at the No Exit Café, the venue the company has called home since 2004. The cabaret will feature a selection of songs from the many musicals and cabarets that have been produced by Theo at No Exit - shows like Cabaret, Chess, Man of La Mancha, Evita, The Light in the Piazza, Passion, Jesus Christ Superstar and Rent; and revues including Always...Patsy Cline and salutes to songwriters like Harold Arlen, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Cole Porter, Jule Styne and Marvin Hamlisch.

ABOUT THEO UBIQUE
Theo Ubique was founded in 1997 by artistic director Fred Anzevino. Productions were first staged at the Heartland Studio Theatre, and then in 2004, at No Exit Café, where the company began focusing on musicals and revues, reigniting the cabaret theatre trend in Chicago. Since then, Theo Ubique has produced more than 50 shows and received more than 40 Jeff Awards, having received more than 100 nominations. It has also received three After Dark Awards.

To post a comment, you must register and login.