Tom Williams Seldom to you see one actor so dominate a musical as Brandon Dahlquist did playing Georges Seurat, the obsessed 19th Century French painter! Dahlquist’s golden voice deftly navigated the tough Sondheim lyrics especially in the “Finishing The Hat,” “Putting It Together” and “Move On.”
At 3:20 PM on Tuesday, May 21, 1946 at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Louis Slotin was doing a most dangerous demonstration using a plutonium bomb core when his hand slipped and large amounts of radiation instantly escaped infecting him fatally. The play vividly depicts Slotin’s last nine days of life as he struggles to understand why this happened and what is legacy will be.
A Chorus Line is the greatest backstage musical ever – and one of the finest dance shows ever! The 1975 show won 9 Tony’s and a Pulitzer as it run for 6, 137 performance – a record at the time. It was Michael Bennett, Marvin Hamlisch and Edward Kleban’s masterwork. A Chorus Line is a simple yet telling work about a group of dancers, “gypsies” who are auditioning for a spot in the chorus of a new Broadway show.
Big River is the retelling of Huck Finn’s adventure that finds him and his friend Jim moving through the river each escaping troubles in their lives. Andrew Mueller (the youngest of the expert Mueller clan that has enriched the musical stages in Chicago for years), has all the tools necessary to be a most likable Huckleberry Finn – charm, boyish innocence, with enough guile to manipulate through Twain’s adventures. Mueller adds strong guitar picking with a golden tenor voice that nails his songs with verve.
By Steven Petersen Directed by Richard Perez At Chicago Dramatist, Chicago Comedy and drama conflict in backyard tale of a Jewish family My trouble with Steven Peterson’s world premiere The Invasion of Skokie arises from his contradictory blend of comedy and drama in a most predictable and cliched TV-sitcom style work that has major characters … Read more
Arthur Miller’s 1955 one-act set in a Brooklyn auto-parts warehouse: the characters, the play’s history, and our review of Eclipse Theatre’s 2010 staging.
Playwright Kathleen Akerley’s script features writing that is filled with excellent mystical storytelling told in vivid language as well as whimsical and wryly speeches that bring out the quirkiness of the characters. Akerley’s plot keeps the mystery suspense mounting throughout. With death as a character and myth of the nature of life itself, Theories of the Sun is both an ‘idea play’ and a mystery on the nature of aging and life itself.
The story focuses on the perspective of two Chicagoland families, a black family living in Cabrini Green and a white suburban family living in Lake Forest. The daughter, Sam (Stephanie Stroud,) from Lake Forest is now living in Chicago’s wealthiest neighborhood, Gold Coast, and working for the Chicago Tribune (a job her politician father got her.) Sam is a bleeding-heart liberal filled with white guilt and determined to make a difference with her stories.
We meet two sets of lovers: Claudio (Aaron Kirby in a charming turn) and the beautiful Hero (Jessica Record) and the commanding Beatrice (Meg Elliott) and her picture-taking lover Benedick (the emotionally wrenching Ned Record). Claudio/Hero are aggressively in love while Beatrice and Benedick are engaged in a “love/hate merry war” that finds each scorning love, marriage and each other.
Seeing a seldom mounted two part early work from famed Irish playwright Brian Friel is a fine way to start off the fall theatre season in Chicago. Director Terry McCabe has cast well for this two part work….Lovers is a fine early Friel work that aptly depicts Northern Ireland in the 1960’s where family and religion dominated society. We love these characters.