Reviews Category
Infused With Spectacle and Wonder
The Sound of Music – Marriott Theatre
On the heels of the Marriott’s highly recommended production of “West Side Story,” eight-time Jeff Award-winner, Nick Bowling returns to guide and lend his creative touch to a new production of what has become Rodgers & Hammerstein’s most popular musical. This beloved family story is magnificently realized and brilliantly performed in a way that makes Marriott’s imaginative production feel fresh and new. It fills the arena stage with glorious music and honest, three-dimensional performances, as well as some spectacular sights and sounds. This fictionalized biographical story will no doubt be familiar to audiences due to the popularity of the beloved 1965 film. But the splendor found in the movie’s sweeping Austrian vistas and Julie Andrews’ dazzling portrayal of Maria von Trapp are fully matched here in this live, heartfelt production.
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I Just Wanna Dance With You!
The Prom – Broadway in Chicago
So much praise needs to be heaped upon this glitzy, glittery, relatively new Broadway show that’ll put a huge smile on every audience member’s face within the first few moments; then, except during a couple of genuinely heartfelt scenes that evoke a few tears, keep that smile growing into full, laugh-out-loud joy for the entire production. This show is all that and a gardenia corsage! It’s so incredibly jubilant and upbeat. It’s a musical filled with memorable, toe-tapping songs and eye-popping choreography, all executed by a gifted cast of triple threats who seem so real and personable that you’d just like to take them home with you. As the finale says, “It’s Time to Dance!”
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Her-story Is About to Be Over-throne
Six, The Musical – Broadway in Chicago
Divorced, Beheaded, Died, Divorced, Beheaded, Survived. Sound familiar? this is the rhyme taught to history students to help them remember the fate of each of Henry VIII’s six wives. It also happens to be the opening lyrics of “Ex-Wives,” the haunting musical number that launches this exciting, eye-popping theatrical spectacle. It’s sung by the six bodacious babes whose greatest claim to fame is that they were all married at one time to Britain’s notorious Henry VIII. But the ladies want to be known for more than that.
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Next Year…Jerusalem
In Every Generation – Victory Gardens Theatre
In Ali Viterbi’s new play, now having its world premiere at Victory Gardens, the close-knit Jewish Levi-Katz family are gathered together to celebrate their Passover Seder. The time is the present, and this evening there are three generations at the dining room table: grandparents, Davide and Paola; their divorced daughter, Valeria; and her two daughters, Yael (nicknamed Yaya), and Devorah (called simply Dev), her adopted Chinese-American sibling.
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Something Wonderful
The King and I – Drury Lane
Love flows across the Drury Lane stage, thanks to Alan Paul’s wise and sensitive direction. Like most every show presented at this venue, Mr. Paul’s “The King and I” feels at once grand, and yet intimate and personal. Every detail, every moment of growing affection, often spiced with unexpected humor and brimming with a vibrant humanity, simply radiates with honest emotion. This mismatched couple’s journey from courteous respect to genuine caring ultimately develops into a restrained Victorian expression of love, all thanks to Mr. Paul’s caring and empathetic direction.
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Real or Imagined
Molly Sweeney – Irish Theatre of Chicago
Set in the fictional village of Ballybeg, Ireland, Brian Friel’s story of a blind, young woman’s journey to regain her sight, and the two men who most influence her life, is a tale of how this miraculous surgery ultimately fails. Friel’s theme that seeing is not the same as understanding infuses each moment of this drama. Offering the titular character the possibility of restoring her vision is rationalized with the question, “What does she have to lose?” Well, the audience gradually learns the answer to this query, as the characters discover that things may not actually be as they appear.
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A Romantic Atmosphere
She Loves Me – Blank Theatre Company
At Mr. Maraczek’s perfume shop in Budapest, longtime clerk Georg Nowak and new hiree Amalia Balash are constantly butting heads. Whenever they aren’t finding fault with each other, they’re trying to one up each other selling skin creams and potions to the housewives of Budapest. Little do they know that they are each other’s secret pen pals, connected through a ‘lonely hearts club.’ If the story of business rivals unknowingly falling in love via correspondence rings a bell, it’s because the Hungarian play that this musical is based on also formed the basis for the Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan comedy “You’ve Got Mail,” among a few other movies. It’s an old story, and one often told to be sure, but that’s part of its charm. Everyone in the audience and everyone on stage except the leading couple know exactly how this story ends from the moment the curtain goes up. The pleasure is watching the leads catch up with the rest of us.
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A Season of Healing Begins
It’s Just Like Coming to Church – Black Ensemble Theatre
As we gradually pull ourselves out of the isolation imposed by two-plus years of a crippling pandemic, and try to slowly return to a healthy and safe world, companies, like the Black Ensemble Theater are finally opening their doors again. We still need to wear masks throughout the show and they are offering socially distanced seating. But Jackie Taylor, the tireless, multitalented creative genius who’s the Founder and CEO of this company, has once again brought back her entertaining and inspiring musical productions to Chicago audiences. Written, directed and choreographed by Ms Taylor, this new production, the beginning of the company’s Season of Excellence, faces today’s challenges so the healing can now begin.
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Sing Ho For the Life of a Bear
Disney’s Winnie the Pooh – Mercury Theatre
How magical it would be for a child to actually experience some of their favorite storybook characters brought to life on stage? That’s precisely what happens in this new family production having its Chicago premiere at the Mercury Theater. Winnie the Pooh and his friends are here for a 13-week stay in the Windy City, arriving on a Blustery Day in March and continuing through June. The production is fresh off a sold-out run in New York City. In the course of an hour, children and their adults will be able to enjoy this enchanting, live production that depicts a year in the life of Pooh Bear, Christopher Robin and their friends. It’s the perfect way to welcome the much-anticipated arrival of Springtime to Chicago.
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The Petulant Prodigy
Good Night, Oscar – Goodman Theatre
Oscar Levant was an incredible man. He had an encyclopedic mind. His knowledge about classical music, baseball, films and books was astounding. Levant’s mind was always going a hundred miles an hour. He was forever multitasking before the word was even coined. He was unbelievably witty and unexpected jokes and hilarious observations just tumbled out of his mouth. Oscar Levant was extremely surly and cynical. Although he suffered from excessive stage fright, Levant was a genius at the piano. During the 1940’s Oscar Levant was the highest paid and most temperamental classical musician in America. He was, quite simply, a petulant prodigy.
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