Cindy Lou Who Returns

Who’s Holiday!

Yes, it’s true: Cindy Lou Who has returned once again to Theater Wit for another bawdy holiday season. Matthew Lombardo’s one-woman comedy about the young, juvenile heroine of the Dr. Seuss classic, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, has returned to the Windy City. This unauthorized sequel to the beloved children’s holiday morality tale stars the story’s winsome youngster, Cindy Lou Who. Of course, she’s all grown up now and is a forlorn, 40-year-old lush. Oh, she still speaks in those cute, singsong rhyming couplets that everyone will recognize from the Dr. Seuss books. But now Cindy Lou swears like a sailor, drinks nonstop, smokes a great deal and enjoys a hit or two off her bong. 

Sleeping with Beauty

PrideArts is opening the holiday season with a queer pantomime by Tom Whalley, who wrote last year’s pantomime production, Jack Off the Beanstalk. For those unfamiliar with pantomime, it’s a very British form of theater, ordinarily aimed at children, full of songs and stock characters and a lot of audience participation in the form of call and response to the actors. PrideArts reimagines the format, and the story of Sleeping Beauty, for decidedly adult audiences.

A Sweet Christmas Story

Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas

Back in 1977, during the holiday season, a sparkling, brand new television special aired that was directed by Jim Henson. It was a sweet Christmas story called “Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas,” based upon the popular children’s book by Russell Hoban. The story was a takeoff of O. Henry’s classic short story, “The Gift of the Magi,” in which a loving young, but impoverished, married couple each make sacrifices in order to buy a treasured gift for their spouses. But the irony of their sacrifices is discovered when each opens his or her gift on Christmas morning. For Emmet and his widowed Ma, the sacrifices each makes deeply affects their livelihood.

A Timeless Treasure

She Loves Me

Citadel Theatre is presenting a musical masterpiece for their holiday offering. “She Loves Me” is a tuneful timeless treasure that has been called the perfect musical comedy. And audiences flocking to this intimate theatre in Lake Forest are in complete agreement, as evidenced by the standing ovation. With the talented cast, director and artistic staff supporting their work, this is a perfect production of a perfect show!

Dollywood

No Trip to Tennessee is complete without at least a day stop at Dollywood. In my opinion this is the perfect park for so many reasons.

For starters those who do not want to drive, you can park your car at Patriot Park and there is a trolley that takes you right up to the door. And it just keeps getting better from there.

Pure Imagination

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Prepare to have your eyes popped and your mind blown when you attend the new holiday production at the Paramount Theatre. But first, a little history about this show. In 2013, Sam Mendes directed the original London production that, despite lukewarm reviews, managed to run for three-and-a-half years in the West End. When the much-anticipated production transferred to Broadway four years later it had been completely reworked. The production had a new director, choreographer, set design and now adult actors played all the kids except for Charlie. Also, in a wise decision, four of the songs from the much-loved motion picture were included in the score of the stage version.

Polish Your Glass Slippers

Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella

Well, I have to confess from the get-go that gifted and talented, Jeff Award-nominated director Amber Mak has made me fall in love with this musical, all over again. After seeing it on Broadway I wasn’t a fan. I was so disappointed at how respected playwright Douglas Carter Beane’s changed his new book for this charming Rodgers & Hammerstein musical. He totally reversed the tone of this beloved fairy tale. Beane’s revisions took a sweet, romantic story about a young girl finding her prince and injected it with a soapbox of causes. Cinderella and her friends spent much of the musical conversing about the need for social reform, environmental changes, equality and personal choice and freedom for women. Certainly, all of these themes should be explored, but not in a favorite fairy tale. There’s a time and place for everything. This once much-adored musical turned into a platform for changes in American society. To put it bluntly: the musical had lost its magic.   

Every Family Has Its Ups and Downs

The Lion in Winter

James Goldman’s twelfth century historic comic-drama depicts a life-and-death struggle between King Henry II, Eleanor of Aquitaine and their three resentful sons. But fear not: this isn’t Shakespeare. Goldman’s play is purposely anachronistic, making it feel completely contemporary. The playwright penned his play to seem like a dark, contemporary-sounding drawing room comedy about, you know, a typical family struggling for absolute power. After one of the many knockdown drag out fights, Queen Eleanor quips, “Well, what family doesn’t have its ups and downs?” You might imagine a production that’s similar to Edward Albee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf,” but with a few more characters and performed in Medieval drag.

A Can of Worms

The Lifespan of a Fact

Buddha said that three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon and the truth.  And so it goes in TimeLine Theatre’s exciting new production. Loosely based upon a book by the same title, written by John D’Agata and Jim Fingal, the play deals with the accuracy or truthfulness of a certain magazine article, also loosely based upon real events. D’Agata and Fingal also happen to be the two main characters in this comic three-hander. The third character is Emily Penrose, the  Senior Editor of a fictional, New York-based periodical. As the play opens she’s interviewing Jim, one of her topnotch interns, looking for a fact-checker for D’Agata’s article—correction, “essay,” as John would continually correct Jim Fingal. Little did Ms. Penrose know the can of worms she was opening.

You’ve Got a Friend

Beautiful – The Carole King Musical

In the first of three Chicagoland productions this season, the Marriott Theatre’s ebullient biopic musical, which is pure theatrical joy, draws the audience into its catchy music and captivating story. The production grabs you and never lets go until after the final bows. Relating the artist’s formative years, “Beautiful” celebrates the brilliant career of singer/songwriting legend, Carole King. Douglas McGrath’s libretto depicts the many ups and downs experienced by this modest, gifted artist. From a precocious 16-year-old, who skipped two grades in high school to study music education at local Queens College, to her first published and recorded hit song, “It Might as Well Rain Until September,” we watch a talented young lady grow from a sharp kid into a wise and gifted woman.