Monthly Archives: March 2020
The Queen of Cabrini Green
Her Honor Jane Byrne – Lookingglass Theatre
Jane Byrne, the 50th Mayor of Chicago, left behind a large, impressive legacy of accomplishments. Despite her mayoral predecessor, Michael Bilandic, proclaiming in a memorandum that she was “a shrill, charging, vindictive person,” Jane Byrne won the Democratic bid to become the first female to hold that office. The Chicago Blizzard of 1979 that paralyzed the city only fueled the fire that Bilandic was an ineffective leader and helped elect Byrne. Labeling herself as a reformer, Jane Byrne became Mayor with 82% of the vote, the largest margin in Chicago history.
Read MoreI Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter
Steppenwolf for Young Adults’ performance of I’m Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter, encourages audiences to lean in and engage with a captivatingly beautiful and emotionally complex story.
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Confessional Catharsis
Five Encounters on a Site Called Craigslist – Pride Films & Plays
Whenever theatergoers attend a production they know, deep down inside, that what they’re about to see is make-believe. The drama is made-up, the characters aren’t real but are being portrayed by actors who’ve memorized dialogue that a playwright has written. The story takes place in an mock setting that another theatre artist has designed and built, and it’s lit with artificial, colored stage lighting, created by yet another designer. Even the clothes that the characters wear have been carefully chosen or designed and built by another artist.
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Filled With Good Vibrations
In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play) – Idle Muse Theatre Company
Utilizing Edison’s 1880 discovery of electricity, Dr. Givings has created a machine to treat women’s “hysteria.” Relegated to the sitting room, to care for their new baby and answer the door, his young, lonely, inquisitive wife Catherine is understandably restless. She’s especially curious about what goes on in the next room, her husband’s operating theatre. The distracted doctor thinks that since he’s given his wife a comfortable home and a child, she has plenty to keep her busy and from meddling in his “dry, boring science.” But Dr. Givings is mistaken.
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Spicy, Homespun Humor
Steel Magnolias – BrightSide Theatre
In 1985, New York actor Robert Harling was devastated to learn of the sudden death of his beloved younger sister to kidney failure. Because of her Type 1 diabetes, Susan had been warned that having a child would likely be dangerous to her health. However, she ignored her physician’s advice, gave birth and died before her son reached school age.
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A Civil Rights Movement Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow
The Healing – Black Ensemble Theater
Jackie Taylor, the amiable creative heart and soul of Chicago’s beloved Black Ensemble Theater, has declared 2020 as the company’s Season of Change. She opens with this original, ambitious musical battle cry, a movement against the injustice and bigotry that’s overtaking our country today, thanks to an administration that has set our country back 200 years. And this is just the beginning of Ms. Taylor’s aggressive theatrical approach in trying to helping combat the racism that’s reared its ugly head in America since the Orange Menace was elected.
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You Gotta Have Friends
Middletown – Apollo Theatre
Dan Clancy’s sweet, sometimes piquant drama is a 90-minute, readers theater production that’s guaranteed to touch the hearts of every audience member. It’s a particularly meaningful story for that large, growing group of theatergoers called Baby Boomers, patrons who are contemplating or already enjoying their retirement years. Because it’s so mysterious: one minute you’re 20, in the 70’s; the next moment, it seems, you’re 70, in the 20’s! This is a gentle story that deals beautifully with all the joys and sorrows of life. It tells the tale of two married couples, both of whom love their partners deeply, and who’ve been close companions for several decades. In the end, this emotionally compassionate production reminds us that, in order to get through the ups and downs of living, you gotta have friends.
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More Brecht Than Ibsen
Hedda Gabler: A Play with Live Music – TUTA Theatre
It’s always interesting and kind of fun to shake things up a bit, especially with a play. When a time-honored play has been adapted and produced in a fresh, starkly different style, it earns some attention. But when the drama is a groundbreaking classic that’s stood the test of time, a new interpretation becomes a little risky. If the writer can offer some new insight into the original work by updating it, then it makes sense to craft a new adaptation. Otherwise, it’s simply merely showing off.
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Something You Don’t Know
Here Lies Henry – Interrobang Theatre
Henry enters an empty stage alone and addresses the audience. His task to tell the audience something they don’t know. Over the course of the night, he’ll tell you a lot of things, about life and love and loss. Some of them might even be true.
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