4-27-07
Hits Galore!
In Yankee Doodle Dandy, the great musical bio-pic about George M. Cohan, there’s a backstage scene during which Sam Harris, Cohan’s producing partner, tells him their new show is a sure hit. “It’s in the air, kid, it’s in the air! You can’t stop anything that’s in the air!” he enthuses.
We don’t know what’s in the air this spring but we can’t recall more local theatre hits at the same time. The number of Off-Loop shows extending or transferring increases each week. The Sparrow (House Theatre of Chicago) transferred to the Steppenwolf Reskin Theatre; The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow (Collaboraction) transferred to the Chicago Center for the Performing Arts; The Strangerer (Theatre Oobleck) transferred to Links Hall. Extensions include Golden Child (Silk Road Theatre Project), Thom Pain (Theatre Wit), Equus (Actors Workshop), Landscape of the Body (Artistic Home), The Musical of Musicals: The Musical (Noble Fool) and Is Chicago (Theatre Seven). There may be more; apologies for omissions.
Commercial theatre is on a tear, too. The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee rescinded its closing notice (Drury Lane Theatre Water Tower Place); The Color Purple (Cadillac Palace) opens May 3 with an advance way in excess of $10 million and Jersey Boys (LaSalle Bank Theatre) has added 14 weeks to its run six months before it opens. (Can anyone say “sit down show”?) Meanwhile, the Second City has possibly its biggest hit ever with Between Barack and a Hard Place, its 94th revue.
William Massolia has left Court Theatre after four years as director of marketing and communications. Massolia carried out his Court briefs while retaining his affiliation with Griffin Theatre Company, of which he is a co-founder. After a summer trip to Italy, Massolia is expected to jump into Griffin’s purchase and renovation of a new home. Griffin is negotiating with the City of Chicago to purchase a vacated police station at 1940 W. Foster Avenue. The City is willing to sell for $1, but renovations will cost about $2 million, Massolia has e-mailed friends. The new Andersonville digs are less than a mile from Griffin’s first space on Clark Street. We wonder what they’ll make of the dark, damp, chilly, holding cells with little or no natural light and tinny toilets. Yeah, you’re right, they’re perfect for dressing rooms. Griffin’s next show, Maugham’s The Constant Wife, runs at Theatre Building Chicago May 6-June 24.
The winner of this month’s opening night pile-up contest was Shakespeare’s 443rd birthday, April 23. Five shows opened, appropriately among them Troilus and Cressida at Chicago Shakespeare and Hamlet at Signal Ensemble. In addition, the 23rd also was the evening of the Merritt Awards and scholarship benefit, the Ann Barzel celebration of life and the Park District’s preview of the 2007 Theater on the Lake season, all at the same time. Theater on the Lake picked a lovely setting for its first-ever press event, the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum. Too bad many folks had to miss it.
May 21 is the date for the League of Chicago Theatres’ biggest-ever gala, a dinner dance on the stage of the Auditorium Theatre. Honorees for the event are Broadway in Chicago and the Chicago Community Trust. A highlight of the evening will be the presentation of a new, annual award of $5,000 for an emerging theatre, underwritten by Broadway in Chicago, which also will supply the winner with a marketing support package. To be considered, a troupe must be 3-9 years old, a League member and have a track record of artistic excellence and fiscal responsibility. Theatres may nominate themselves, although it’s too late for this year (the cut-off was April 13). A League committee reviews all applications and narrows the field to an unspecified number of “top candidates,” from which the League membership votes a winner via e-mail (one vote per company). League managing director Lyle Allen reported that between 12 and 15 nominations were received for the inaugural Broadway in Chicago Emerging Theater Award.
Summer stock season starts soon. Todd Schmidt already is up in Door County pruning the Peninsula Players’ pines, where he will present the first regional production of Doubt (Aug. 27-Sept. 2) starring Carmen Roman. Roman and Greg Vinkler will star in Ken Ludwig’s latest play, Be My Baby (Sept. 4-Oct. 14).
Just up the highway in Peninsula State Park, American Folklore Theatre offers the world premiere of Cabin with a View (in rotating rep, June 12-Aug. 25) by Paul Libman and Dave Hudson, the Chicago team that recently won its second Richard Rodgers Award for Musical Theatre from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. At the other end of Lake Michigan, the Mason Street Warehouse in Saugatuck, MI also has a regional first, snaring rights to open its season with Altar Boyz (June 22-July 8).
The GreyZelda Theatre Group offices have moved to 4725 N. Kilpatrick Avenue,1st Floor, Chicago, 60630. Phones have changed, too: 773/267-6293 (principal) or 312/730-4044 (alternate).
When it comes to theatre coverage, The Reader’s loss may be the Tribune’s gain. Not only has the Trib spiffed up its Sunday arts section, but it’s also launched a Chris Jones blog, www.chicagotribune.com/chrisjones. “The Theater Loop,” as it’s called, has expected links to Jones’ online reviews and reportage, but also has short bits and pieces updated by Jones daily, often with a cheekiness not found in his print stuff. Indeed, the blog’s header promises “News. Criticism. Gossip. Show’s that must not be missed – and shows to avoid at all costs.”
The day PerformInk went to press, the blog had a lead story on Rabbit Hole winning the Pulitzer Prize for Drama the day before, including Jones’ explanation that the Pulitzer board rejected the recommendations of its expert drama jury. The coverage included a video clip from the Goodman Theatre production of Rabbit Hole. There also was a tribute to the late actor Roscoe Lee Browne, and the following tale told out-of-school, dated April 13:
“All for One? None for Boston – When the Chicago Shakespeare Theater prepared its production of The Three Musketeers last winter, the informal expectation was that the production would then move to the North Shore Music Theatre outside Boston. And then? Maybe Broadway.
It did not work out that way. Although the musical (music by George Stiles, lyrics by Paul Leigh, book by Peter Raby) is going to North Shore, the Chicago director, David H. Bell, has been replaced. So, it appears, have all the actors. Members of the Chicago cast have been invited to travel to New York to ‘re-audition’ for the new director.
Such is showbiz, of course. The Three Musketeers had its problems on Navy Pier. But those problems, as is typical, lay mostly with the book and the colossal confusion of style. Invariably, it’s the actors who pay the price.”
Yeah, actors. Send ‘em to the jail cells at Griffin.