BLUES IN THE NIGHT is a quintessential Porchlight production that will have audiences feeling the opposite of the blues. 

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Victory Gardens Artistic Director Ken-Matt Martin ushers in a new age for the company with a play that trods familiar territory. travis tate’s QUEEN OF THE NIGHT introduces a father and son duo who find themselves at a crossroads on a camping trip. tate’s script contains several references to incidents in Stephen (André Teamer) and Ty’s (Terry Guest) past, but the conversation often steers around topics rather than right into them. It’s evident that Stephen has struggled with his son’s identity as a Black, queer man in the past, and it’s also evident that Stephen had a falling out with Ty’s older brother, Marshall (who remains unseen). While tate’s dialogue isn’t really grounded in realism, the realism comes through in the sense that the characters talk around their issues and never arrive at the root of their familial tension. 

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Mercury Theater’s WOMEN OF SOUL is a love letter to some of the most iconic female vocalists of the 20th and 21st centuries, both old-school and new-school. Writer and director Daryl D. Brooks’s musical revue incorporates a wide range of icons featuring an ensemble of nine (eight women and one man). Brooks’s book honors the true nature of the revue — WOMEN OF SOUL does not have a plot. Rather, ensemble members take turns introducing the show’s powerhouses with a few biographical facts before one of their counterparts tears into a solo number or medley of greatest hits. 

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While BACHELOR: THE UNAUTHORIZED PARODY MUSICAL has no qualms about poking endless fun at all the tired tropes and well-trod dramatic arcs in ABC’s THE BACHELOR, director Tim Drucker’s cast makes the material fresh and milks the parody for all its worth. 

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A Red Orchid Theatre returns with Jen Silverman’s THE MOORS, which overturns the conventions of a Victorian era-style drama by infusing commentary on gender roles and elements of absurdism. The play’s 100 minutes have a slow build, in which the earlier scenes feel like a traditional drama the likes of which the Brontës might have written. It becomes more absurd as the play moves on, and the material’s subversiveness recalls Jane Austen’s social satire. Silverman makes some bold, surreal, and bizarre choices in the play’s text. It’s an intriguing concept, but the play itself ends up messy. 

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Queen Elsa has arrived in Chicago to “Let It Go” — and that famous song from the original FROZEN film now serves as the act one finale for Disney’s latest musical theater magic. Elsa (Caroline Bowman, belting within an inch of her life) sings the powerhouse number as an ice castle swirls around her in Christopher Oram’s set with lighting awash in Natasha Katz’s cool-tone color scheme and projections from Finn Ross. While the moment is a delight, the most spectacular moment comes from Elsa’s quick costume change — Oram also designed the costumes, and that’s the real moment of magic here. 

Continue reading “Review: FROZEN National Tour Presented by Broadway In Chicago” →

PARADISE SQUARE takes the theme of the proverbial American melting pot deeply to heart. The musical centers on the lower Manhattan neighborhood of Five Points  in the 1860s, where many white Irish immigrants and free Black Americans lived together. Though the show’s narrator, Paradise Square saloon owner Nelly O’Brien, tells audiences that Five Points was notorious for being a slum, she also makes clear that the neighborhood’s inhabitants enjoyed deep friendships and romantic relationships. 

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Mercury Theater Chicago returns with SISTER ACT — and it’s pure musical theater elation. This “Joyful, Joyful” (SISTER ACT II reference intended) production, with direction from Reneisha Jenkins and choreography by Mercury’s new Artistic Director Christopher Chase Carter, meets the goal of delighting audiences. This is musical theater that’s designed to entertain and not make audiences think too deeply, and Mercury’s production capitalizes on the show’s capacity for fun. While the material is not at all serious, the talent in this company is stacked, and the actors take their responsibility to deliver this fun seriously. 

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After the long pandemic hiatus, Porchlight Music Theatre returns to in-person productions with a feel-good staging of PUMP BOYS & DINETTES. It’s clear that Artistic Director Michael Weber knew that audiences would be craving some classic, lighthearted musical theater sentiment after such a long time away. He was wise to program director Daryl Brooks’s production of this 1983 show as a welcome back. 

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E. Faye Butler is one of those performers who makes acting and singing look as natural as breathing. As strong-willed civil rights and voting rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer, Butler knows she has audiences in the palm of her hand. And rightfully so! Butler easily glides between impassioned, sincere monologues and using her powerful belt and riffs to sing such notable songs as “This Little Light of Mine.” 

Continue reading “Review: FANNIE at Goodman Theatre” →