Chicago Musical Theatre Festival

5th Annual Chicago Musical Theatre Festival – Underscore Theatre Company

Producing a new musical is hard. Nearly impossible. The time, the energy, and the cost make it a daunting task. It’s part of the reason most new Broadway musicals are revivals of classics or adaptations of known, successful properties. There’s no other way to ensure a show will make back its investment. To counter that, Underscore Theater Company is dedicated to nurturing new works in Chicago. For the fifth year, they take submissions from writers around the world and give a chosen few productions over the course of three weeks. By pooling backstage resources like sound and lighting equipment and crews, new musicals can be more economically staged, and hopefully reach a wider audience.

This year, nine shows are getting staged in The Edge Theatre’s two spaces in Edgewater. Each of the shows will get at least five full performances over the course of the festival. Last night, I went to a sampler of all nine. Each show got to put on one or two songs with some minimal staging and a little background on the story. There was one about Sherlock Holmes, one about a group of high school win ensemble, one about a man dealing with cancer, and one based on Tommy Wiseau’s phenomenally terrible magnum ops The Room.

Since each of the nine shows was presented in such a brief setting, and in some cases final changes to book and score were still happening, it’s a little difficult to judge the individual shows in any real way. The number from a musicalization of Brooke Astor’s life about the virtues of marrying for money was a lot of fun, and a supernatural spin on film noir conventions also looked promising. I think that might be more a matter of personal taste, though, than quality of the shows. Honestly, I recommend exploring the line up and seeing what calls out to you. What shone through all the shows more than anything is these were labors of love staffed and cast with people clearly giving it their all. It’s hard not be charmed by that.

The festival runs for the next three weeks, and at the low (especially for live theater) price of $20 a show or $150 for all nine, you’ll get to not just see promising new works and actors, but help get their shows seen and produced elsewhere in the world. I for one, am already looking forward to next year.

Recommended

Reviewed by Kevin Curran

Presented February 4-24, 2019 by Underscore Theatre Company at The Edge Theater at 5451 N. Broadway, Chicago.

Tickets are available in person at the box office, by visiting www.cmtf.org.

Additional information about this and other area productions can be found at www.theatreinchicago.com.