Chicago Critic Must See recommendations.
Blue Man Group is for everyone: kids, couples, visiting in-laws, clients, fun people, boring people, people with taste, people without taste. It’s an immersive, multi-media, comedy-rock-dance-party-show spectacle for all! If you haven’t seen it, you should; if you haven’t seen it recently, bring the kids, the new girlfriend, the family you have nothing to talk about with; if you have seen it recently, you might just as well wait a couple years, it’ll be around.
The Scottsboro Boys – The Musical is presented in the style of the notorious “minstrel show.” By utilizing a strong Brechtian satire motif led by the razor-sharp commentary by Larry Yando (The Interlocutor), the only white man in the cast, the show becomes a theatrically thrilling telling of a sad history factual story of a group of nine teens taken off a train in 1931 Alabama and accused of raping two white women in the Jim Crow South. The woman were both prostitutes.
The History Boys covers the life of eight English boys prepping for their entrance exams designed to get them into Oxford or Cambridge. But playwright Alan Bennett has a much larger agenda than merely a coming of age story or a debate about the purpose and style of education. He tackles issues such as sexual identity, teen angst and the role of teachers as mentors to their students
Kudos to the creatives at Chicago Shakespeare theatre for commissioning and producing The Book of Joseph from Richard Holland’s publication of his father’s story and the collection of family letters: “Every Day Lasts A Year.” Karen Hartman was commissioned to adapt the Holland letters into a stage play with the help of Rick Boynton and directed by Barbara Gaines. The result is a most compelling and empathetic story
Despite early old fashion drawing room structure laced with comedy, Greenberg develops unique characters centering on the two strong ladies–Julie as the charming graceful matriarch and Faye as the cynical realist with bittersweet life views. He weaves an engaging family saga that echos change and loss over time. The dialogue is smart, often cynically funny, the characters interesting and the work effectively presents a family over time coping challenges.
Utilizing a futuristic set (design by John Musical) with creepy lighting (by Mike Durist), The Nether becomes a haunting drama that questions responsibility, both individuality and governmental, as to the limits of entertainment in the new tech realities. The Hideaway goes farther than our present violence-oriented virtual games that many are playing too much.
From the beginning, Norma has a somber tone that becomes intense upon the haunting melodies that work with the extreme bel canto attributes to create a romantic atmosphere that inevitably leads to tragedy. Norma is a wonderful opera that engages, enchants and entices audiences.
Played on the fabulous two apartment set (designed by Linda Buchanon). Pearl Cleage’s wonderful script, Blues for an Alabama Sky, is staged with dramatic panache by director Ron OJ Parson. We meet the creatives in Harlem as they struggle during the start of the Great Depression as the Black Renaissance erodes the accumulated affluence of the 1920’s.
Pride’s Priscilla: Queen of the Desert -the musical is a sweet, energetic and superbly danced, sung and acted musical long on heart and peopled by empathetic characters. Filled with stunning show-stopping dance numbers by the creatively innovating choreographer Jon Martinez with a peppy orchestra lead by Robert Ollis,
This well-stage fable explores class, gender, and the history of women in sports, and asks just who can afford the luxury of playing basketball? The Tall Girls is a most entertaining stage play about the early days of women playing sports. I must confess that I was a high school and college basketball referee for over twenty years in Chicago and South Florida and I worked hundreds of women’s college games yet I was not familiar with the early days and rules of women’s basketball. Director Louis Contey has his cast delivering fine renditions of the skill level of those pioneering players.