Review: Gypsy/Chicago Shakespeare Theater
RECOMMENDED This production of “Gypsy,” now at Chicago Shakespeare Theater, begins gorgeously before the first note, at the silent sight of the ornate gilded frame of a stage that promises showbiz is...
View ArticleReview: Road Show/Chicago Shakespeare Theater
RECOMMENDED In “Road Show,” now playing at Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman compress the story of minor American legends Wilson and Addison Mizner into a peripatetic...
View ArticleReview: Passion/Theo Ubique Cabaret Theatre
RECOMMENDED Stephen Sondheim has both refined and blurred the sloppy genre that is our current understanding of lyric theater. With patter mimicking actual speech, the blazing speed of variance in...
View ArticleReview: Sweeney Todd/Porchlight Music Theatre
Stephen Sondheim’s long, lauded, and continuing career in the lyric theater has given opportunity for discovery as to his compositional demons, and the fire he uses to bully them into delivering...
View ArticleReview: The King & I/Marriott Theatre
RECOMMENDED There are those who may grouse at the remounting of the Rodgers & Hammerstein musicals that paved the way for J.R. Brown, Guettel and Sondheim. But “South Pacific” won’t go away, no...
View ArticleHow Do You Solve a Problem like “Allegro?” Revisiting Rodgers & Hammerstein’s...
By Aaron Hunt Rodgers & Hammerstein’s third stage production, fall of 1947’s “Allegro,” opened to mixed reviews, creating controversy rather than covenant. After a scrape between the director and...
View ArticleReview: Sondheim on Sondheim/Porchlight Music Theatre
RECOMMENDED It is hard to imagine a theatrical world devoid of Sondheim’s immense talent. Over the past fifty years he has earned eight Tony awards, in large part due to elevating the expectations of...
View ArticleLend Us a Tenor: Brandon Jovanovich Books an Unusual “Passage”
Brandon Jovanovich has played heroic tenor roles here and around the world but this month is revealing two other sides of himself: playing the role of Walter, a German diplomat and husband of a former...
View ArticleReview: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum/ Porchlight Music Theatre
RECOMMENDED Coming on the heels of their insightful production of “Sondheim on Sondheim,” Porchlight Music Theatre provides just enough silly to make “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum”...
View ArticleThe Play Is the Sing: Longtime Stephen Sondheim Collaborator Paul Gemignani...
By Dennis Polkow “You know, you should start thinking about symphonic suites from your shows because you’re going to need them someday,” conductor and longtime Stephen Sondheim collaborator Paul...
View Article
More Pages to Explore .....