Reviews Category
We Should Totally Hang Out Sometime
Amicable – Theatre Above the Law
Amicable, Theatre Above the Law’s final show for its third season, finds a group of six people on a Metra train. Each seems to coincidentally know or have met one or two of the other people on the train. One pair of friends or one pair of exes running into each other on their morning commute is a common coincidence. But every person on this train making one of these connections, sometimes more than one? Something strange is going on here…
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Not Ready for Prime Time
August Rush – Paramount Theatre
There’s no denying that John Doyle is a gifted genius. The Artistic Director of Classic Stage Company in New York City, Doyle has won awards for his productions of beautiful “Passion,” “Carmen Jones” and “The Visit.” He’s primarily known for his much-acclaimed, pared down productions of “Sweeney Todd” and “Company,” where, in addition to acting, singing and dancing, the reduced cast also provided all the musical accompaniment. His latest production, adapted from a popular 2007 film of the same name, is now enjoying a pre-Broadway tryout at the Paramount Theatre in Aurora. With mixed results, Doyle has simplified the story and amped up the musical component.
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Cataclysm in a Cottage By the Sea
The Children – Steppenwolf Theatre
Set in a run-down cottage by the sea, somewhere on the eastern coast of England, over and above the soothing sound of waves and seagulls there’s a strong sense of foreboding. The end of the world has begun, thanks to mankind’s selfishness and refusal to face facts. Lucy Kirkwood’s one-act drama, which is laced with dark humor and even an unexpected dance number, deals with the effects of cataclysmic climate change, cancer, nuclear science, morality and self-sacrifice in the face of inescapable doom. In America, the current, bloodsucking Administration is more interested in squeezing profits out of an already wounded planet, rather than trying to control the environmental bleeding, before it’s too late. There’s no concern, as Ms. Kirkwood points out, that we’re leaving a home for our children that portends certain apocalypse.
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In My Day…
The Undeniable Sound of Right Now – Raven Theatre
Kids today. With their haircuts and their music.
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Taking a Moment to Breathe
Too Heavy for Your Pocket – TimeLine Theatre
In the early moments of Jireh Breon Holder’s old-fashioned period drama, set in 1961 Nashville, one of the four characters, about whom we come to care deeply, emerges from the darkness to simply spread his arms and breathe. His name is Bowzie and it’s his story that fuels this drama and shapes the path of Holder’s other characters. But in those first few minutes, and several times during the play, the two couples, who are best of friends, simply stop, step out of the story, and deeply inhale. These beautiful moments of solitude offer both the characters and the theatergoer a few seconds to come together for reflection.
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The Most Beautiful Sound I Ever Heard…
West Side Story – Lyric Opera
Back in the 1950’s when newspapers were just beginning to report tragic stories of teenage gangs and turf wars, a new show evolved from these events that would forever change the American Musical. Noteworthy, too, was that this new theatrical form resulted from a collaboration between artistic geniuses Arthur Laurents (book), Leonard Bernstein (score), Jerome Robbins (direction and choreography) and a new kid on the Broadway block named Stephen Sondheim (lyrics).
Loosely based on Shakespeare’s tragedy, “Romeo and Juliet,” the show was originally considered controversial. It was dark and edgy, characters fought and died and it didn’t have the traditional happy ending found in musical comedies of the day.
Razzle Dazzle Redux
Chicago – Broadway in Chicago
For a show that’s been around for almost four decades, Kander & Ebb’s Vaudevillian satire of the American justice system and, more specifically, of criminals emerging as celebrities, shows no signs of running out of steam. Indeed, the 1996 Broadway production (upon which this National Tour is based), sprang from a crowd-pleasing, well-reviewed NYC City Centers Encores! concert version, and set a record in 1997 for earning the most Tony Awards for a Broadway revival. It’s now the #1 Longest Running Musical, and is still playing in New York after over 7,000 performances. Productions of the show have broken attendance records all over the world and each National Tour proves more popular than the one before it.
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Going Off Road
Mad Beat Hip & Gone – Promethean Theatre Ensemble
I have a confession to make. I have never read Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. It didn’t make it into a reading list in high school or college, and I think that’s the window for reading it. After that, it’s just never going to float to the top of my perpetually lengthy To Read list. Like Mark Twain once said, a classic is a book everyone wants to have read but no one wants to read.
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Sleuthing the Night Away
The Secret of the Biological Clock – Eclectic Full Contact Theatre
Back in the 1930’s, following the earlier success of his Hardy Boy mystery series, Edward Stratemeyer created a young female sleuth who would become the star of her own string of whodunnits. He named her Nancy Drew. As he did with the Hardy Boys, Stratemeyer wrote the plot outlines and then hired various ghostwriters to flesh out the stories. The Hardy Boy books are credited to the fictional Franklin W. Dixon, while the Nancy Drew novels were published under the pseudonym of Caroline Keene. Nancy is a precocious, independent 16-year-old, greatly influenced by her fictional lawyer father, and an old-fashioned model of the American Girl. Over the years, Nancy’s popularity has never waned, although the character has been continually modernized, bringing the supergirl sleuth into the 21st century.
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Little Foxes
First Love is the Revolution – Steep Theatre
A shy, motherless, teenage boy unexpectedly falls in love with a young, fatherless female fox who has been sent out into the world on her own. This interspecies romance both surprises and fascinates. Rita Kalnejais’ riveting play is unusual, inventive, often funny and unexpectedly violent, quite like nature. One thing is certain: audiences will be hard-pressed to find a more unique and captivating theatrical experience this Spring.
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