Frankenstein, presented by The Hypocrites @ Museum of Contemporary Art

FRANKENSTEIN

Directed by Sean Graney

Featuring John Byrnes, Matt Kahler, Jessie Fischer, and Stacy Stoltz

Set design by Tom Burch

I’m the type of audience member who admittedly would rather sit in a chair out in the dark and watch actors do their work, sans interruption or interaction with me. Actors are artists, and I shouldn’t be in their way.  Along those lines, audience participation fills me with dread.  I got my tickets for Frankenstein weeks before I’d heard the news it was being done as a promenade and went in expecting to spend the whole time panicked about being in the way of actors, tripping over things, and generally being in the way. (It wasn’t as bad as all that. The actors do a great job of letting you know where they’re heading. And, for the shy among you, if you hang out in the back corners, you won’t have to move all that much.)

I got my tickets to this show on the strength of the name of The Hypocrites and because Frankenstein is among my favorite books of all time.

For all it’s pomp, potential, and possibility, Director/Adapter Sean Graney’s production… is kinda boring.  What’s going on isn’t always clear, there are way too many strange things happening (why does Victor have a cell phone? why is the pen huge? Did he just plug her in? Is it a musical?) and one gets the sense that the novel of Frankenstein was thrown in a blender with some episodes of Doctor Who, a Tim Burton sketch, and a bag of pixie sticks, and turned on high.  The milkshake that results is jumbled, at best.  Then - said milkshake was topped off with the black and white classic film being shown on a screen in the background, a set that looked like a hotel room, 1970s furniture, scattered TVs, some confusing songs, and – the cherry on top – probably 200 bloody baby dolls hanging from the ceiling.

I’m all for trying new things and expressing things in new ways, but.. I think you should know what you’re expressing.  I just feel like that was the great unknown of this show. 

Regarding the cast, I applaud Byrnes (Victor Frankenstein), Kahler (Daemon), Jessie Fischer (the Strange Girl) and Stacy Stolz (Elizabeth) for keeping their focus and characters solid while climbing around set pieces like it’s a giant playground. I understand that, as it’s a promenade, elevating the actors helps them be seen, but do they really need to circle the room on platforms like they’re playing that childhood game where you can’t touch the ground because the floor is lava?  Kahler comes out the best, in the role of the monster in search of his creator and a companion.  He’s a big guy with a James Barbour-esque resonating voice, and he’s quite a find.  Fischer is making bold choices and is also very good, though I’m still not sure exactly what her character was all about.  Stacy Stoltz is fortunate to have the most complete character of the bunch in Elizabeth, who loves Victor and kills herself when she thinks she’s lost him.  She’s a sincere actress, and grounds her moments in the midst of all the multi-media madness  around the show.  Byrnes is fine, though he jumps from one emotion to the next a lot (which might also be a flaw of the script.)

Technically, there are some lovely elements. Megham Raham’s costumes (particularly Elizabeth’s) are great, and Jared Moore’s lighting is spot on. Though the sound design IS murky and large chunks of dialouge are eaten up if you’re not on the side the actors are facing, there’s a super effective train passing by that is a credit to Mikhail Fiksel’s sound design, as are the musical pieces played in the show.

Also on the bright side, it’s 75 minutes long.

I’m not the only one with qualms about this production.

Below is a brief sampling of some reviews this production has recieved:

“Because of their commitment to risky, provocative work, both Graney’s Hypocrites and the MCA’s performance series are essential to Chicago theater. In this case, however, their luck seems to have abandoned them: Frankenstein is almost unwatchable…James Whale’s 1931 film version plays on projection throughout; until the monster starts futzing with it toward the end, the film provides a welcome escape from the dismal onstage proceedings.” – TimeOut Chicago

“And for the first 25 minutes or so, it’s brilliant. But the play never follows through on its best parts. It goes in too many directions without follow-through, and there are a few too many sections of speechifying that don’t satisfyingly tie in to the play.” – Centerstage Chicago

“First, the concept virtually guarantees you will miss a good chunk of the show because you won’t be able to see it. As soon as you find yourself a decent perch, the show moves away and you’re staring at the back of someone’s head. This can be aesthetically interesting if used two or three times a night, but it gets tiresome when constantly applied. Second, it pulls theatergoers from their mates, making this a strangely lonely and isolating experience and killing much of the inherent community of live theater. Third, the issue of space pulls focus from everything else. Audience members spend their time worrying about where to go. Actors are preoccupied with making sure they’re not going to run someone over when they should be making connections with their fellow performer. Emotional truths tend to get lost…These limitations are especially acute here because the MCA stage is so unsuited to this approach, the acting is flat and one-level, and Graney’s “Frankenstein” is such a conceptual blur.” – Chicago Tribune

20 theatre horror stories ….

(Just in time for Halloween, right?)

My previous post about my time in Chicago theatre generated a lot of attention. 

This blog, while semi-popular among a mid-size circle of folks I know in my day to day life, doesn’t pull in hundreds of hits a day, but that post resonated fast and furious thanks to it’s having been twittered by a half-dozen folks. (Thanks, I think?)

I intended it just as a rant, in my personal blog, to get things off my chest. I know many theatre people, and they read this blog, and I thought we’d share stories, thoughts, and opinions for a day and then get back to chattering about weddings, perfumes, the biggest loser, our pets, and the other topics that make up a day in my little life.

Clearly, though, my post struck a nerve.

While I don’t know how I feel about a specific “Code of Ethics” for Chicago theatre (there’s a lot of issues surrounding that idea, though I think it’s maybe a good place to start?) I don’t necessarily think theatre people need to sign a document saying they’ll behave (because it won’t make them behave).. but a good chunk of them could use a slap of reality across the face. A slap of reality, and also a slap of decency.

It’s like this – I don’t think that because people are “artistic” or “talented,” they should get away with shitty behavior. You know what? Roman Polanski raped an underage girl, which has nothing to do with his immense directorial talents. Russell Crowe threw a phone at a dude? He’s an asshole, regardless of acting awards and acclaim. R. Kelly had sex with an underage girl, and his musical talents should never count as a defense.

Creative people behave badly, too.

I did a production of “Caligula” once, and it was the production that woke me up to the fact that artistic people can suck just as much as everyone else. Our Caligula took his role too far. He would make impulsive decisions like say, deciding to try and choke an actress onstage without giving her any advance notice.

Also around this time a married director used his “power” to put the moves on an 18 year old actress in the same show, who was mortified and wrecked for a little while by the whole thing.  She was a good friend of mine. She doesn’t act anymore, though she says it wasn’t because of that. (It was.)

The shine started to fade right around then….

Some examples —

#1. While I was serving as Artistic Director of POC, we did a show where the set designer not only stopped showing up for production meetings, but also failed to deliver set drawings and specs to our tech director in time for tech.  He didn’t answer phone calls or any communication.  He used our funds to buy furniture that he then refused to deliver, so we had to go get it (which meant renting a van, mind you) and he had left it out in the front yard of his apartment building. When we got back to the theatre (super late in the evening during tech week, mind you, when it should have been completed days earlier) we discovered that this genius had not bothered to notice that this giant coffeetable he had purchased for our set with our funds was far too big to fit on the stage.

#2. We had an actress in the same show who, despite the stage manager telling her every single performance that she was late, would show up – for example – at 1:45 for a 2pm matinee show. Call was at 1pm. The actress knew this. It didn’t stop her from being late for every single call. (This same actress cannot even show up to SEE a show on time, as we wound up holding the house two seperate occassions when she came to see our shows. I’ve since been on several casting panels where she has auditioned, and her tardiness seems to be common knowledge.)

#3. I directed a show, and during strike (which unfortunately due to the contract with the venue had to happen after our Sunday night performance) our entire cast was exhausted. Most of them (including myself) had day jobs the next morning. Our production manager walked around with a clipboard delegating, not lifting a finger to help, and making statements like “Man! I can’t imagine what it’d be like to have to go to work tomorrow!”…. really?

#4. I directed a piece for a festival, and the Artistic Director of the company was on my ass every second, not liking this, thinking I should stage it that way (clearly he wanted to direct it himself) and – most importantly – that the piece I was doing NEEDED to have a rug on the stage. NEEDED. Like, without the rug it was a pointless play. (FYI – It was a living room scene, with never any mention of the rug.) I didn’t change a stitch of blocking, but allowed him to bring in a rug. Suddenly, it was the best damn piece ever. Who knows? (This same dude was also all over the ass of another director for not including pigeon noises in the background of a piece that mentioned pigeons….. sigh.)

#5. I had a “set designer” on a show I was hired to direct who showed up for tech, dropped off pieces, and went to a softball game.  She came back hours later, about 15 minutes before we were contractually obligated to get out of the space, and get upset because she didn’t have time to paint.  She knew our schedule. She was on the same email I was.

#6. We did a show in a theatre where people also lived – and on one of our off-nights they threw a party on our set.

#7. I worked on a play that was so littered with errors, typos, logistic mistakes, and dropped plot lines that my cast and I worked our butts off in table work to make sense of it ourselves, in addition to having something worthy to put on a stage. On opening night, the playwright took all the credit for the changes we made.

#8. During our last kids show, we shared the space with another group. One Saturday, we showed up for our performance to find one of our set pieces (a great big greek column, mind you) missing and our robot costume damaged. There was no note or anything, just pieces tossed back into a pile.

#9. I’ve had a producer chew me out in an email to all crew members for inviting the lighting designer to attend the first read of a show, even though all the other designers were invited? Really?

#10. We rented rehearsal space for a show, and got there to discover that not only were the toilets not functional, but the group before us obviously hadn’t bothered to let the folks we were renting from know that. (I’ll spare you details, but I’m sure you can imagine.)

#11. I’ve worked in a theatre in February that was heat-less. Though the group we rented from promised to fix it, after three days of tech where our actors had to wear winter coats over their costumes, one of our company members friends had to call in someone who knew a guy who worked on heating and air conditioning.

#12. I worked for a company with an AD widely known for hitting on every cute young girl that was involved in any of their productions. So much so that myself and two of our actresses, not to mention one producer, had to give our cute young stage manager the heads-up when it began for her. I also know two other young women who have previously been connected to the group who told me similar stories.

#13. Once again, I have to address the few Chicago actors/directors who think they’re already famous. I know several people in Chicago who are graduates of a certain instituion in town, and part of their training program must be a course that tells them they’re famous, because the minute they hit the streets they act like they’re big shots. These people are lovely beings, but this whole idea that a) you can be an actual celebrity if you work in Chicago storefront theatre, and b) that graduating from a certain college makes you an insta-star, is dumb.

#13b. I won’t name names, but I dislike name-droppers. Someone I know has worked for the Goodman, and into a conversation dropped the name “Bob.”  My dear friend Lindsey said “Bob who?” and the person lost their mind that Lindsey didn’t know who BOB FALLS, the AD of the GOODMAN was. Lindsey isn’t a theatre person, and even if she was… really? Back to my point that like 10% of America gives a shit about theatre at all…

(It’s like my friend who likes to date musicians and refer to them as “rock stars.” I maintain that you’re not a rock star unless my Mom has heard of you. Bono? Rockstar. Some dude in a band that maybe plays a club gig once in a while? Not a rock star.)

#14. I worked on a musical where the leading lady (who was a disaster and lost two jobs during the run of the show as well as moved at least twice) got a slight cold and threw a tantrum and therefore decided not to show up for some performances, after the director and producers had given her money to pay her rent so she could stay in the city and continue in the already-running, well-recieved show.

#15. On this same show, the original musical director – who liked to SCREAM at actors who missed notes in the early days of rehearsal – was an alcoholic whose behavior grew worse and worse until he was barely playing reconizable tunes during performances and would leave at intermission to get an eggroll from the place next door and not return for 40 minutes. Things finally came to a head when he decided to, post-show, SCREAM at our sixteen year old stage manager who wasn’t taking his crap. (She was a rockstar, and still one of the best stage managers I’ve ever worked with.) It led to a giant altercation, and the show had to be closed for a week while we got a new accompanist.

#16. I’ve been a part of a company and worked alongside people who wanted fancy titles but wanted to do none of the work that goes along with titles. If you’re an executive member of a theatre company and can’t bother to show up on time to a single meeting in a year span, just quit. (And by “On time” I mean at least 20-40 minutes late each and every time.) You’re clogging up the works and making it harder for the work-horses to carry you. Get out of the way.

#17. I worked on a one-night festival which took place on the set of a running show. Backstage, one of the actresses was supposed to re-enter soaking wet, as if she’d fallen into some water. Her solution to this was not a spray bottle.. No, no, she stood backstage and poured water on herself, drenching the backstage area and getting water on electric cables. I never heard how it came out, but I can’t imagine the renting group was too pleased to see their stuff soaked. And, you know, water and electricity isn’t the safest thing ever either.

#18. I was involved on a casting panel for a short festival, and after all the auditions were over the 7 or so directors gathered to choose who they wanted. One actress, who had auditioned and been..fine, but not spectacular.. was held up by the AD of the company, and we were told that someone had to cast her, because she threw fits if she didn’t get cast. So, since none of us would cast her after that, the one director who wasn’t present and who the AD was casting for stuck her in that pile.

#19. I worked on a show once where a company member had suggested the play because she desperately wanted to play the lead. The show was selected, and the company member was told there was no pre-casting and she had to audition for the role like everyone else. To the poor directors chagrin, said company member was involved on the production side of things and sent an email to the company and the director that said flat-out that she was IN the show – and even emailed the playwright and told her she was cast. The director felt torn between the company’s telling her that she could cast whoever she wanted and this performers insistance that she be cast.  When said performer was NOT cast in the role, she attended rehearsals and would walk around conspicuously crying.

#20. One of my dearest friends is a big fan of a certain musical. He auditioned for, and went through callbacks for, and was cast in a production of this show and was over the moon about it. The show was cast months before rehearsals started, so my friend was excited and turned down other projects. A few weeks before the show was to start rehearsals, the company emailed the cast and told them the production had been cancelled due to the fact that the company had suddenly run out of funds. That was all there was to it. My friend was horridly disappointed.

I could keep going, but that’d be hammering an already-hammered nail, yes?

I used to kill myself for theatre.

I would work my crappy 8 to 5 job (where, if nothing else, I get paid to deal with people behaving like 5 year olds) and then go bust my ass every night and all day on weekends to bring theatre to life and make things happen, as an actor, a director, and an Artistic Director.  It turned me into an unhappy person, and my friends started calling me out on it. The magic was gone, and the endless hard work was no longer worth it. It wasn’t worth it anymore to not see people I love due to rehearsals every single night. It wasn’t worth the hours of commuting.

It’s a strange feeling. I’ve defined myself as a theatre-person for so long, and now.. I don’t want to be that anymore.

So yeah. I just wanted to add some more perspective, since it seems I started something.

Share your own horror stories here, please.

I know I’m not alone.

The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity (Teatro Vista @ Victory Gardens)

The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity

by Kristoffer Diaz

Directed by Edward Torres

Featuring: Usman Ally, Kamal Angelo Bolden, Desmin Borges, James Krag, Christian Litke.

*****

I don’t usually give things star ratings, but if there was ever a smart, well-written, and exceptionally well produced production to allot five stars to, it’s “..Chad Deity.” Bob was reviewing, so I went along last night, knowing nothing of this new piece that is generating a ton of buzz.

I was completely enthralled and totally enraptured. I didn’t want it to be over.

Kristoffer Diaz’s play is about wrestling.

Yep, it’s a wrestling play, but it’s so much more than that.

It’s a commentary on capitalism, media, and racism in modern America, and it’s a damn good one.

Through the eyes of Macedonia Guerra, aka “Mace,” we see inside T.H.E. Wrestling Organization. Mace is a vital part of this organization. It’s his job to step into the ring with superstar champions like Chad Deity and make them look like they’re actually good at wrestling -  which they’re not. Mace has been in love with wrestling since he was a little kid growing up in the Bronx.  He understands it, he respects it, and yet he’s stuck playing the bad guys who always lose and doing all the heavy lifting. Most often, his skills are employed to fight the icon that is Chad Deity, and to lose. When Mace discovers a confident young Indian man names Vigneshwar Paduar (or “V.P.”)and introduces him to T.H.E. Wrestling, satirical hell breaks loose. Seeing an opportunity to make bank, the smarmy owner of T.H.E. casts V.P. as “The Fundamentalist” and Mace as a sombreo wearing Latino stereotype villain, and puts them into the ring with the aim of a pay-per-view match between them and Chad Deity.

Diaz creates a perfect narrator in the character of Mace, who from his first monologue has the audience in the palm of his hand. Director Edward Torres also did a brilliant job in casting Desmin Borges as Mace. Without a Mace the audience loves, the show wouldn’t work – but Borges is charismatic and on fire as he narrates the show, leaving the stage only a few brief times, and popping in and out of scenes to fire asides and keep the show rolling. It’s one of the best performances I’ve ever seen, straight up.

The casting of this show is completely perfect, in fact. As V.P., Usman Ally is all swagger and sass, then comes unglued for a late first-act monologue that had the audience glued to their seats. As Edward K. Olsen, the head of T.H.E., James Krag gets to play an evil douchebag, and is clearly relishing the opportunity. His job isn’t easy, to play a douchebag while remaining engaging, but he does it.

Christian Litke does triple duty as three other wrestlers in various matches, and also served as the fight coach for this production. Looking at his bio, he’s actually part of WWE, which isn’t surprising, as the fighting that happens onstage is incredibly realistic (or as realistic as any wrestling ever is, which is the point.) He got a BA in acting from Columbia, and is a blast to watch - especially as redneck wrestler Billy Hardcastle.

God bless Kamal Angelo Bolden, who gets the giant task of playing T.H.E. champion and worldwide superstar Chad Deity. From his first entrance (which, yes, is elaborate – There’s a “Chad Deity Dollar” tucked in my playbill, in fact) you know you are looking at a powerhouse performer. It takes a lot of gumption to play a role like Chad Deity, and Bolden knocks it out of the park.

The script is super smart, the direction is tight, and the cast owns.

You must see this show.

I want to go again. Seriously.

Cats @ Cadillac Palace

CATS

(National tour, presented by Broadway in Chicago)

October 13th through October 18th @ The Cadillac Palace

It’s a blink-and-miss-it engagement of a non-equity tour of a musical that seems determined to dig it’s claws in and hang on to it’s “Now and Forever” moniker, so what was I really expecting?

Slightly dated choreography and an energetic cast? Heck yes. 

For years now, one of Bob and my favorite theatrical rumors/whispers was that the tour of Cats had inflatable sets.  We thought we’d solved the mystery when an Off-Broadway piece involving real live cats utilized inflatables, so iamgine our delight when we sat down in the Cadillac Palace last night and took a good look at the stage – and the junkyard was inflatable.

I enjoyed the show quite a lot, actually. The score has a soft place in my heart from the days when I was just discovering musical theatre, and the cast is dancing and singing their hearts out on that stage.  Anastacia Lange plays the pivotal role of Grizabella, the Glamour Cat, aka “The one who sings Memory” and recalls Elaine Paige with her small stature and powerful rendition. Tug Watson, as Munkustrap, is a charming performer witha  good voice as he essentially serves as the narrator for the evening. Brian Bailey and Kristen Quartarone steal their moment as Mungojerrie and Rumpleteaser, and Philip Peterson as Old Deuteronomy wails on the final number, “The Addressing of Cats.”

Special props should be given to Ryan William Bailey and Lindsay O’Neil as Gus and Griddlebone, who make “Growltiger’s Last Stand” a truly fun moment.  Bailey also milks every ounce of comedy he can out of the lame “Bustopher Jones,” which is perhaps my least favorite song in a musical … ever?

Seriously, it’s Cats. It’s a big crowd-pleasing show that you can bring your kids to. It’s essentially a dance show, and not a traditional musical – there’s really no plot, just a series of songs based on T.S. Eliot poems. The costumes are a little eighties-tastic, but you know what? The audience enjoyed themselves, and hey… as the lady in front of me said to her friend (both of whom were carrying press packs and making snide comments about the show from the moment they entered our range) – “Don’t you sometimes just want an inane night at the theatre?”

When my Mom and I went to NYC a few years back, we hit up the TKTS booth and got seats for the musical Brooklyn.  After the show, I asked my Mom what she thought. Mom, who had previously swooned and wept all over The Phantom of the Opera the previous night, said “You know.. those actors earned their paychecks.”

I have to give it up to the touring cast of Cats for earning their paychecks.

I’m glad I saw it. I had a good time.

some thoughts on chicago’s theatre scene…

There’s a debate a’brewin’ in the Chicago theatre scene. 

Said debate is actually a bunch of debates all rolled into one – triggered by the presence of Broadway in Chicago (the big scary corporate giant that imports Broadway national tours to Chicago’s large downtown theatres), as well as blogs like http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/off-broadway-in-chicago/

Chicago is a theatre city that can stand on its own two feet when compared to New York or Los Angeles. We’ve got impressive nationally known theatres (The holy trinity of Goodman, Steppenwolf, and Chicago Shakespeare are the first to come to mind) and a strong storefront theatre scene, made up of groups that are constantly striving to produce new works and take on old classics. There’s a ton of talent in this town, that’s not in question.

Chicago’s vibrant storefront scene does not want to be seen as merely “Off-Broadway.”

They want to be seen as “Chicago, an important theatre city.”

And, Chicago should be known that way.

BUT, to paint B.I.C. as completely evil purely because it’s a corporation and the free-wheeling Storefront scene as theatrical heaven on earth is incorrect, also.

I have to be honest:

I’m considering myself retired from theatre (and getting ever so slightly more and more annoyed with those who doubt my belief that I am done with creating theatre, but that’s a different post….)

As a former Artistic Director, I left my company because I felt overwhelmed. I felt like all the work was falling on my shoulders and no one cared. It created an enormous amount of pressure on me, and I’m not alone – I can name you three other young people in high positions in small Chicago companies who have expressed the same feelings to me (Two of whom wound up leaving said companies for the same reasons as me.  The third hangs on.) I won’t name them here, but it’s a sign of something.

Though I have great respect for many of Chicago’s storefront champions (GreyZelda Theatre Group, The Strange Tree Group, The House Theatre, and New Leaf Theatre among others) I have also been disappointed many, many times by shows I’ve seen in the Chicago storefront scene, even by groups that are widely held up as ground-breaking and impressive.

Oftentimes, I find myself going in to these smaller shows expecting pretension. I’m aware that in any art form, there are going to be people who create pretentious or weird things purely for the sake of seeming pretentious and weird, but it’s made me ever so cautious about what I go see. (Sometimes – like in the case of Hubris Productions fantastic staging of “Bent” earlier this summer, I am proven to be dead wrong.) 

Sometimes – and I won’t name names here – I leave shows feeling like I’ve wasted my audience-member dollars, which aren’t that plentiful. I’m a receptionist, it’s a recession in case you hadn’t heard, and at $20 a pop on average for storefront shows, I have to say I’m starting to value feeling like I’m getting my moneys worth.

Maybe I’m not “cool” enough for Chicago theatre, but I fell in love with theatre because of a production of Annie I saw when I was in 4th grade. It was magical and inspiring. It has been a long time since I’ve seen a show I would consider magical and inspiring. (While Marriott’s “Hairspray” is a gem, it’s essentially a smaller copy of the utterly inspiring and magical original Broadway production.)

I like musicals, and like to be entertained, and feel like that very trait is one that makes many members of Chicago’s theatre scene look down. While I value the writings of Pinter, Albee, and the like, seeing pieces by them doesn’t inspire much excitement in me. And the fact that everyone seems to reviving Arthur Miller for this upcoming season only makes me want to roll my eyes a little.

You know what? I’m going to see the National tour of CATS tonight. And I’m excited.

And if you look down on me for that, you are a snob.

Get over yourself.

One of the things apparently discussed at the recently held Chicago Storefront Summit was the idea of a code of ethics.  I’ve worked in and around Chicago’s scene enough to know that a code of ethics IS needed, as many groups are lacking in basic skills.  For example, someone should teach courses in how to make sure all people who get to claim the title of a company member pitch in and help on projects so one poor soul doesn’t wind up carrying enormous burdens (financial and otherwise).  Perhaps also, how to NOT produce pieces merely because a company member (or, dare I say, checkbook-wielding person) wrote it.  Also, things like how to treat people with decency, and how to not be creepy would be helpful to many groups. How many times have two groups been sharing a performance space and one group discovers the other group has damaged a costume piece, prop, or set piece of theirs?

Dear Theatre-People in General: I know this is going to be hard concept to grasp, but maybe like 10% of the “real world” gives a shit about theatre. I’m from Northern Michigan, and even “Wicked” (gasp! I invoked the very name!) is largely unheard of around there. They know “Phantom of the Opera” and maybe “Les Mis” and “Rent,” but on the whole, they don’t care. So, the fact that you starred in some fringe production of a piece your best friend wrote on an off-night at the Viaduct doesn’t make you a celebrity, so don’t act like you’re famous.

Dear Theatre-Companies in General: There are over 250 producing theatre companies in the Chicago area. Think about that for a second. Now, think about your target audience, which is essentially… me. I have some disposable income and I love theatre. You are competing with 249 other groups for my audience dollar. Daunting, isn’t it? So maybe you should look outside yourself and your small little world before selecting to do a piece one of your company members has always wanted to play the lead in, even though it’s been done four times in recent years and is being done by another group at this exact moment. (There were how many productions of Macbeth last year around town?)

I’m bitter, yes. Whatever.

But I’m not devoid of hope.

There are some seriously good people working in the scene that are gathering forces to turn things around. Rebecca Zellar, Betsy Morgan, Jessica Hutchinson, Dan Granata, and Nick Keenan are a few people I’m sending mad amounts of positive energy too, as I think they’re the type of people who actually care about theatre as an art form rather than a way to stroke their egos and feel special. I truly think they can clean up some of the messiness thats around and revive a spirit of collaboration amongst the theatre groups in Chicago who are actually going to hang around.

That leaves me hopeful.

Hairspray @ Marriott Lincolnshire

HAIRSPRAY is a perfect piece of theatre, really. I’ve always been a big fan of the score, which is among the most tuneful, uplifting scores I’ve ever heard (and I’m a giant musical theatre nerd, so that says a lot) and the show is completely funny and has the power to put you in a good mood, even after a rough day.

Last night, I attended opening night of HAIRSPRAY at the Marriott Lincolnshire, and it dawned on me what a remarkable show it really is. Here’s a big, fluffy musical about serious issues – namely, racism. Marc Shaiman and Scott Whitman did a brilliant thing in taking John Waters brilliant cult classic and turning it into a perhaps even better piece than it originally was (which is often NOT the case in stage adaptations of movies.)

HAIRSPRAY is also a dream show for character actors. This is not a fairy tale typical musical world in which the pretty blonde soprano gets the dream boy and chubby people are for comic relief only. Our heroine, Tracy Turnblad (played by the direct-from-Broadway Marissa Perry) is an overweight teen who loves nothing more than her favorite dance show, The Corny Collins Show. Tracy has big dreams and, despite her mothers protests, auditions for the show. She doesn’t make it, due to small-mindedness on the part of the former beauty queen producer, but she makes friends with Seaweed J. Stubbs, the smooth-dancing son of one of the Corny Collins Show’s favorite guest DJs, and wiggles her way onto the show, falling in love, and causing a sensation and a riot along the way.

Marissa Perry is adorable. She started her big opening number – “Good Morning Baltimore” – super nasally last night, and I feared the worst, but I guess I can blame opening night jitters because by the end of the song she was radiant and delightful to watch, and the perfect leading lady to take us through this adventure. Tracy has often been played cartoony, and a little stupid, but Perry doesn’t fall into those traps. This Tracy is a whip-smart firecracker, and enjoyable to watch.

Playing her mother, Edna Turnblad, Ross Lehman has some big shoes to fill.  Harvey Fierstein’s original Broadway performance was the stuff of icons, and the show was tailor-made for Harvey. Lehman, like Perry, pulls back from caricature and creates a totally believable mother in Edna.  When Edna is joined by Wilbur Turnblad (the clearly-having-a-blast Gene Weygandt) in the second act for their duet “Timeless to me,” they had the crowd in the palm of their collective hand.

Chicago mainstay Heidi Kettenring plays Tracy’s nerdy best friend Penny, and for me was the highlight of the show. I’d previously only seen Kettenring during her 3 year stint as Nessarose in the Chicago company of Wicked, and so I didn’t know how well she’d fare with the physical comedy of the role of Penny, and she knocks it out of the park. Josh Breckenridge plays Seaweed J. Stubs, the African-American boy Penny falls in love with, and the two of them make comedy gold whenever they’re together. (Breckenridge is also gorgeous, and dances like a dream.)

Any review of this show without a paragraph of praise for E. Faye Butler is a fail. This woman can sing, and gets to showcase her showstopping abilities as a performer in two of the evenings highlight numbers, the lively “Big, Blonde, and Beautiful” and the inspirational “I know where I’ve been,” which gave me chills. Her final entrance also had the audience erupting into cheers. (Also, let’s hear it for Jazmine Reynolds, a local area high school senior cast in the fun role of Little Inez. This girl has great potential.)

Also showstopping are Hollis Resnick as Velma Von Tussle, and Scott Calgano in his multiple roles as Male Authority Figures, particularly a high school principal with a spitting problem. Billy Harrigan Tate is appropriately dreamy as Link Larkin, and Catherine Lord milks every moment of her stage time as the Female Authority Figures.

If I had to point out any flaw in the show, it would have to be the miscasting of Johanna Mackenzie Miller as Amber Von Tussle. While Miller is a quality performer in her usual roles around town as a soprano ingenue, she just seems incredibly out of place as bratty teenage Amber. She’s obviously around 30, looking a bit too old for the role, and her voice just sounded off when she attempted to sing the pop style of the musical. Amber, when played right, can be a comedic gold mine of bitchiness and camp (please see Laura Bell Bundy in the original Broadway cast), but all those wonderful lines were lost last night. It’s not a testament to the talent of Ms. Miller, but it’s an example of how even the best performers cannot do everything.

Director and Choreographer Marc Robin is a smart cookie. Having to put a show as big and fast-moving as this into a theatre in the round space had to be a challenge, but he keeps everyone moving so it never feels like you’re watching people’s backs. This cast must be fed pre-show Mountain Dew, as their energy is through the roof.

HAIRSPRAY at the Marriott is one of the most fun things I’ve ever seen produced.

Do yourself a favor. See it. It’ll make your day.

Theatre tonight: Hairspray @ Marriott Lincolnshire

Tonight, Bob and I are venturing to the Marriott Lincolnshire to see their production of HAIRSPRAY.  I’m incredibly excited, as though Hairspray is one of my favorite pieces of theatre (it’s score and book are nearly perfect) I’ve never actually seen it live. For shame.

(If you haven’t yet, head over to Bob’s blog – formerly robertianish, now renamed to Confessions of a Chicago Theatre Addict – http://chitheatreaddict.com/ Since he’s now the cream of the crop as far as reviewers go, he upgraded!)

The Marvelous Wonderettes @ Northlight Theatre

Northlight Theatre’s notes say they’re kicking off their new season with a party in the form of The Marvelous Wonderettes, and they’re right. The show is fun, and pure fluff, which is fine as long as you know what you’re in for. Essentially, it’s a bunch of hit songs from the 50s and 60s strung together with a flimsy plot about four high school friends performing at their Super Senior Prom. While cliched a good deal of the time (one girl loves a teacher, another loves the Leader of the Pack, girls can’t get along yet claim to be best friends forever and OMG isn’t prom the greatest night of your life?) the show is what it is, and it’s a vehicle to showcase the music.

Northlight’s production works due to the efforts of the four hyper talented ladies playing the Wonderettes, and the design team who has outfitted them in and surrounded them with cotton candy colors and a lovely high school gym replica.

All four actresses – Tempe Thomas, Laura Taylor, Cat Davis, and Dina DiConstanzo – are talented, and do everything they can to create characters where little character is written. As Suzy, Cat Davis channels Kristin Chenoweth like a pro – and shines in her big numbers. Laura Taylor does wonderful work as the nerdy Missy Miller, who finally breaks free of her shyness and proclaims her love. Her rendition of “Secret Love” is a showstopper. DiConstanzo is a vision in pink, and does the best she can with her cheesy 2nd act medley of “Son of a Preacher Man” and “Leader of the Pack.”  But the show belongs to Tempe Thomas as Betty Jean (or BJ) She’s a fireball with a massive voice and steals her moments effortlessly. (Which she did just as well as Little Edie/Act One in Northlight’s Grey Gardens last season.) She’s one to watch.

If you like 50s and 60s songs performed by pretty girls with big voices, see it.

Or you could just stay home and listen to the records.

Same difference.

Video time!

Miss the Mountains

“I miss the Mountains/I miss the dizzy heights/All the manic, magic days and dark, depressing nights.”

In the Tony-Award winning Broadway musical Next to Normal, a bi-polar housewife on meds laments the loss of the ups and downs and craziness of her earlier, unmedicated life in the song “I miss the Mountains.”

I’m taking a serious break from theatre.

In fact, I’m gonna go as far as calling it my retirement.

And, I don’t think – despite all the heights and magic of the past 20-some years of my life – I’m going to miss it.

I started in theatre at the age of 5 on a whim and dove head-first into non-stop theatre when I was in the 6th grade. There really hasn’t been a break since, save for one year where I was immensely discouraged after 3 productions with an asshole director – who was also a drunk, and cast himself in leads, and tried to seduce his leading ladies, and just put a terrible taste in my mouth for the art form. I’ve always worked really super hard at theatre – rehearsals, classes, reading about it, reading news about it, listening to cast albums, seeing shows, etc.. it goes on and on. Theatre was life. Life became theatre. It wasn’t uncommon for me to be working on 2 or 3 shows at a time.

Some of the best times of my life were onstage or backstage. I’ll never forget shows like Into the Woods, Radium Girls, 4.48 Psychosis, The Fantasticks, and The Mikado. Some of the best friends I have come from theatre – Bob, Brent, Dan, Mal, Betsy, heck without theatre I wouldn’t even have Eric.

I’ve seen amazing things and been part of amazing things, and I’m grateful for all that.

Really.

I moved to Chicago five years ago and started POC and things grew and grew and then - around a year ago, the joy went away. The joy theatre used to give me no longer outweighed the incredible amounts of hard work that went into it anymore.  I dreaded opening my inbox because something else was going wrong/needed me to deal with it. The endless rehearsal and commuting to rehearsal, not seeing friends who weren’t in shows with me, the fickleness of a great deal of theatre people, the selfishness of a whole different chunk, the flakiness of people and having to pick up their pieces, and the pure, slogging, hard work participating in theatre has become don’t make it that worthwhile anymore.

And, its being consistently proven, each time I think I’m wrong – Something else happens to make me more frustrated. (Just yesterday, in fact, it happened again, in fact.)

It’s even to the point where I don’t really enjoy seeing theatre anymore. Most of the time, since I know someone in the show, it feels like an obligation, and the rest of the time I’m just.. not there. (There have been recent exceptions – I thoroughly enjoyed the national tour of “Spring Awakening” and Hubris Productions “Bent.”)

Simply, it doesn’t make me happy anymore.

Frankly, it makes me unhappy.  And super angry, too.

I hope I’m wrong about all this.

Maybe someday I’ll emerge like Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard, inspired again and ready to make some art. If another “Radium Girls” rolls around, I can’t say I’ll turn it down, but it would need to be something incredibly special to outweigh the huge amounts of work I’m smart enough to know go along with production – as an actor or as a director.

Or maybe I won’t emerge.

Maybe it ends here.

Regardless, it’s been a hell of a ride.

I’ve just reached the end of it.

[In the interest of disclosure, I will be serving as Artistic Director of Rascal Children's Theater for the 2009/2010 season. It's a purely administrative position, and involves only people I enjoy working with, so I think it'll be okay. My experiences with Rascal have only been positive. At the end of the season, next May, I will pass the position along to someone else. Done and Done.]

Spring Awakening (1st Nat’l tour) @ Oriental Theatre

Remember adolescence? That time in every human life when hormones rage, parents and adults are the enemy, and rock and roll will save your soul?

Then Spring Awakening will probably ring true in some respect.

Duncan Sheik and Steven Sater caused a stir when their rock musical adaptation of Franz Wedekind’s 1891 play about teenage sexuality in a provincial German town hit Broadway.  It had a powerful score, a vibrant young cast, and recieved endless acclaim and legions of young fans desperately seeking a show to call their own.

Though the Broadway production has closed, a national tour has begun, and Chicago is fortunate to be among it’s many stops.

The story is simple – Students in a German town experience the onset of adulthood. There’s a piano student with a lusty crush on his teacher, a troubled young man failing out of school, a few young gay boys, an innocent girl falling in love with a free-thinking young man, a girl who’s father abuses her… all the classic elements of youth, as represented onstage so many times before. One of the show’s great strengths is that, though all these stories are by now almost theatrical cliches of youth, the show somehow doesn’t seem cliched – which is largely thanks to Duncan Sheik’s score – which ranges from delicate balladry to energetic pop-rock. Songs like “Totally F$#@#d” (arguably the highlight of the show) and the luscious finale are examples of successful uses of modern music in a musical theatre setting. They tell a story and highlight feelings within the scene, which is exactly what they’re supposed to do.

The tour cast is stellar – in a few cases perhaps even moreso than their Broadway counterparts.

As Wendla, Christy Altomare looks and sounds like an actual fifteen year old girl. On the Original Broadway Cast Recording, Lea Michele (who originated the role) already sounds like a savvy Broadway belter.  Altomare’s vocals give her an added innocence that make Wendla an intensely fascinating and sympathetic character. As the other half of Wendla’s love story, Jake Epstein plays Melchoir very well. (Apparently he’s from Degrassi: The New Generation or something? Which would explain the random whoops when he first appeared – which seemed out of place?) Epstein is a handsome young man who sings well, and works well in the role.

Big props must be given to be entire young cast for their powerful work here. They’re all young, but all very talented and clearly having a great time. Steffi D, as Ilse, possesses a big voice and runs away with her brief scenes. As Martha, Sarah Hunt is also a solid vocalist, and a heartbreaker. Anthony Lee Medina, as Hanschen, is devilishy charismatic.

The real star of Spring Awakening, though, is the character of Moritz – a troubled young man so ravaged by the stirrings of adulthood he’s feeling he finds himself distracted from school and begging for answers to the questions adults won’t answer. As played on tour by Blake Bashoff, he’s a showstealer – crazy hair and angry songs and a heart-breaking climactic scene.

The show DOES contain sexual situations and brief nudity.

But, I think it’s a powerful piece of theatre that should be experienced by a lot of people.

Thank God it’s getting a national tour, so people outside of New York will get a chance.