In the midst of compiling New Year’s resolutions that I’ll most likely not be able to follow through on (do thirty sit-ups a day, eat more fruits, stop flirting with straight boys even if they offer to buy me a sidecar, finally break my vow never to see a Renee Zellweger movie again), I’ve been browsing the action-packed January calendars of the various arts and culture institutions in Chicago. After the cultural wasteland that is the month of December (really, how many Ghosts of Christmas Pasts and Snow Queens can you stomach outside of the Boystown Halloween parade?), the beginning of the year is offering quite frankly, and wonderfully, an embarrassment of artistic riches.
Throughout the year, my standard response to friends, acquaintances, and random cocktail chit-chatters alike when they told me they were going to New York City to see a play was: “Save your airfare. Spend it on Chicago theater instead.” 2008 was, undeniably, a phenomenal year for Chicago theater. Local boy Tracy Letts won the Pulitzer Prize and the Tony Award for Best Play for the stupendously successful August: Osage County, which was conceptualized, incubated, fleshed out, and first performed by Chicago’s leading theater company, Steppenwolf Theater. Legendary director Peter Brook came to Chicago this year (Fragments at Chicago Shakespeare), but so did acclaimed contemporary playwright Lynn Nottage, who premiered her latest work, the shattering Ruined, at the Goodman Theater. Horton Foote, still spry and vibrant at 92, was also at the Goodman, gracing activities for it’s Horton Foote Festival. Elevator Repair Company, Tim Supple, the Shaw Festival, Marta Carrasco, Mike Daisey, William L. Petersen (more of a comeback than a visit), the best and the brightest of the world’s stage were all in Chicago, interacting with a live theater audience that was as sophisticated, critical, open-minded, educated, and enthusiastic as any in the world. But the great thing about our Chicago theater community is that our local heroes continued to thrive, expand, inspire, and astound this year too. Directors David Cromer and Sean Graney staged some of the most brilliant, world-class theater in any time zone. Steppenwolf Artistic Director Martha Lavey continued to demonstrate that she has the keenest, bravest, most uncompromising artistic sense among arts leaders in the city by opening a season that followed the August high with a highly-impressionistic, dense, intellectually provocative original adaptation of a Haruki Murakami novel. Great performances abounded, showcasing the almost limitless talent pool in the city: E. Faye Butler in Caroline, or Change, Hollis Resnick in Grey Gardens, John Judd in Shining City, Steve Pickering and Jen Engstrom in Fatboy, the list goes on and on. The storefront theater scene was energetic and impressively original, with inventive work coming from groups as diverse as the Hypocrites (every single play they staged this year), Collaboraction (Jon), Strange Tree Group (Mysterious Elephant), and TUTA (a haunting Uncle Vanya), introducing new theatergoers to the magic of live performance. It was a great year to be an arts lover in Chicago.
There’s been very little going on, arts and culture-wise, the past two weeks, other than film, film, and more film, since I basically parked myself at the Chicago International Film Festival almost every night (and most of the day on weekends). So this past weekend was playing catch-up time. Since I don’t typically celebrate Halloween, I decided on Friday night to finally cave in and see the Goodman’s Turn of the Century on its last performance weekend. Well, it was indeed Fright Night at the Goodman, since Turn of the Century was scarier and more heinous than Saw V (or a drunken Lincoln Park Trixie’s version of a sexy French maid costume). On Saturday, I stopped by the American Theater Company for a matinee of their production of Itamar Moses’ Celebrity Row, first written and staged in 2005 but which had been re-written and re-edited for this Chicago premiere by the hot young playwright, who was in town working with the play’s director, my idol David Cromer, the actors, and ATC Artistic Director PJ Paparelli. In the evening, I hopped on over to the Lyric Opera (thanks for the tickets Tom!) for the majestically overwrought production of Georges Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers, full of gargantuan Buddha statues, operatic overacting, lighting and thunder effects, and endless views of American opera’s hunk-o-rama‘s, Nathan Gunn’s, magnificently defined torso. I loved it!
Yes, my avid blog readers, I have not posted in a week. That’s what happens when you’re thrown into the crazy business travel circuit - I was in Park City, Utah late last week and over the weekend, staying at a faux Alpine lodge resort (incredibly, the resort staff were wearing lederhosen and trilling “Guten tag” during wake-up calls…I thought I was in a really cheesy dinner theater production of The Producers, uhmm, is that you Franz?), then in Cleveland this week, and Phoenix next week. It’s not ideal to be away from Chicago at this time, since there are boatloads of plays opening every week to launch theaters’ fall seasons, but thankfully I was able to see two of the highly-anticipated ones before I got on the first plane out. The People’s Temple is written and directed by Leigh Fondakowski, a co-creator of The Laramie Project, and is the inaugural production in PJ Papparelli’s first full term as Artistic Director of the re-vitalized American Theater Company. Amadeus, Gary Griffin’s production of the acclaimed Peter Shaffer play, opens Chicago Shakespeare Theater‘ s first season after winning the coveted Tony Award for Best Regional Theater last June. Both are strong, notable productions with some really exceptional acting, but with also significant gaps in conceptualization or staging; regardless, both prove that Chicago continues to be the most exciting theater town in America.
Francis’s Fall Picks: Top 10 Must-See Productions in Chicago
Culture, Dance, Music, Theater Add comments
For anyone outside of Boystown and Andersonville, there is so much more going on this fall in Chicago than the Madonna concert (which, for those of you who have just come back to the city from the island of Tuvalu, is scheduled for October 26-27 at the United Center). Everyone (well, the Chicago Tribune and TimeOut Chicago that is) have made up their lists of the top fall live performances (theater, opera, dance) that they recommend you attend, which is a good thing - it’s both the blessing and the bane of living in a great, lively, cultural center like Chicago, that you can go to see a show every night, and still not see it all, so guidance is imperative (plus the fact that no one really has an unlimited art consumption spending budget) . Here then, in no particular order, are From the Ledge’s picks for the must-see performing arts events of the fall - they’re an eclectic lot, showcasing both the best efforts of local Chicago talent as well as top international artists making pitstops in our wonderful town, confirming our stature in the global artistic community. Varied in discipline, theme, and artistic approach, they all, nevertheless, promise exciting, memorable, uniquely impactful nights at the theater. I’ll be at all of them, so if you see me, say hi!
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