Now in its third year down the hall from A Christmas Carol, Twist Your Dickens one more offers a comic holiday treat featuring the best techniques of Second City to make you laugh during the holidays. Move over Larry Yando – Ron West is your rival as Scrooge. LOL! Comic writers Peter Gwinn and Bobby Mort have penned a smart, hilarious and rambunctious spoof of A Christmas Carol.
The play’s point-of-view is from Christopher’s as we see his reaction of events such as his scary travel to London through vivid lighting, extreme sounds and ensemble movements that pick-up the teen as he screams with fear. This work will tug at your emotions and empathy as you go on the adventure with Christopher. Eventually this play creates sensory overload as the ear-crushing sounds and lighting collide with the wild ensemble movement that moves Christopher along his mysterious journey. You”ll not see fantastical movement like in this play in most plays. These sensory bits are usually only found in musicals. But they exist in Christopher’s perspective.
Add some clever tune mixed with holiday favorites deftly sung by power-voiced Meghan Murphy and This Way Outta Santaland is a precious, deeply human, holiday night of stories celebrating one of the funniest comic entertainers working in Chicago – Mitchell Fain
Herein also lies Dr. Rosenkranz’s personal philosophy on medicine: “There is something beautiful and wonderful about the unknown,” he says, “and I think, in that sense, magic and medicine share a DNA.” As Dr. Rosenkranz demonstrates in his performance, the doctor is the patient’s guide to the unknown realm of medical science just as the illusionist is the same to the metaphysical realm of the paranormal. The perspective with which the patient approaches medicine, whether as an impersonal and clinical system of testing and measuring or as a personal and cooperative engagement between two humans, is as much a paradigm that is set by the doctor as is the illusionist’s theatrics. Both establish the expectations and etiquette of their respective offices that largely determine the patient/audience experience.
Gene Weygandt mixes humor with Jewish irony and loads of Yiddish to tell his family’s history through his unfaltering dreamer uncle’s story. This journey of self-discovery contains a rich depiction of the myths and beliefs from a survivor steeped in Russian Jewish traditions. The immigrant experience in America finds Matty’s father working in jewelry while uncle Philip lives as a homeless wanderer who sells things from his long black coat.
This is a wildly paced and extremely loud production that tells the story of the 1990’s ice skating scandal that marred the rivalry between American Olympic ice skaters Tonya Harding ( Amanda Horvath) and Nancy Kerrigan (Courtney Mack).
The production take a tabloid approach to the story of rivalry and desperation as the quest for Olympic stardom overtakes each skater. We see the role of the mothers both played by Veronica Garza as she belts her way through the opera.
Pygmalion. Shaw’s most popular play was written in 1912 and first performed in 1914. It became the great musical My Fair Lady in the 1950’s that used much of the original Shaw script including much of the dialogue in the song lyrics. Pygmalion, in its initial script, had a different ending that many producers and Shaw himself changed several times. This production used Shaw’s original ending which may be a surprise to My Fair Lady and fans of the 1930’s film of Pygmalion. Kudos to Remy Bumppo for sticking to the initial ending. They did use a framing device that has an older Eliza visiting Higgins’ Whipple Street flat after his death in the lat 1940’s. This didn’t effect Shaw’s ambiguous ending.
Winterset is certainly a political drama, but one that is more timeless than it is merely timely: Anderson composed his script with a keen and empathetic, poetic eye, and his voice is as sympathetic toward justice and truth as it is understanding toward those who hide from it with violence or fear. Under the guidance of director Jonathan Berry, Griffin’s production of Winterset is one of the few Chicago shows I’d say demonstrates the potential of theatre in Chicago.
Without question, The Little Mermaid at Paramount is no less than astounding! Based on the 1989 Disney film and original story by Hans Christian Andersen, this show is directed and choreographed by Amber Mak, music direction by Tom Vendafreddo and the beautiful under-seas puppetry design by Jesse Mooney-Bullock, fantastic costume design by the amazing Theresa Ham. This tale will appeal as much to adults as it does to children.
Jules Massenet’s (1842-1912) Don Quichotte is “comédie-héroïque” with sweepingly lush score composed in 1909-10 while the composer was ill and after he has a failed opera (Bacchus). Don Quichotte features a lighter take on the idealistic, delusional knight and his squire Sancho than the 1964 Broadway musical Man of La Mancha. Both are excellent takes on Cervantes’ classic.