Author: Kevin Curran
Flatfooted
Aces and Eights – BYOT Productions
Aces and Eights, a film noir farce, started its life in 2015 as a ten minute scene for one of Bring Your Own Theater’s 24-hour theater festivals and over the years, it has been worked into a full length show. Focusing on Francine Noir, Frank to most people, she must find a missing will and a stolen painting, all while trying to stay above the corruption that pervades her city and her nascent alcoholism. It’s a fun set-up. Unfortunately, I don’t think it quite sticks the landing.
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A Midsummer Dream
Midsummer – Greenhouse Theater Center and Proxy Theatre
Helena is sitting at a bar in Edinburgh, Scotland, making her way through a bottle of wine, having just been stood up by her boyfriend. Bob is sitting in the same bar, reading Dostoevsky to cheer himself up. Both have just or are just about to celebrate their 35th birthday, and it’s left them in a foul mood. So they do what any rational pair would do when forced to contemplate difficult questions about their lives – they get very drunk and go to bed together.
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Lone(ly) Wolf
Wolf Play – The Gift Theatre
Wolf Play is being given its Chicago premiere this month at Gift Theater. It is the story of a young Korean boy who was adopted by American parents, but who, now that they have unexpectedly had a baby they thought they couldn’t, have ‘unadopted’ him. His new parents try build a bond with him, but it proves more complicated than they could have imagined.
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The Scottish Play
Macbeth – Saltbox Theatre Collective
Macbeth is probably the most accessible of Shakespeare’s tragedies. The action and motivations are straight forward, and once the action gets going, it really doesn’t break until the end of the show. This week, Saltbox Theatre Collective mounts a production of this dark tale of ambition and betrayal, and the results show why this play is still produced so long after it first premiered.
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Losing the Forest for the Trees
Bury Me – Dandelion Theatre
Bury Me, a new play by Brynne Frauenhoffer, premiers this week produced by Dandelion Theatre and performed at Rivendell Theatre in Edgewater. It focuses on the story of Josh and Michelle, a young couple living in Chicago who recently (and unexpectedly) found out Michelle was pregnant and are visiting the small town in Missouri where Josh grew up.
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Redtwist Closes an Excellent Season with a Classic
King Lear – Redtwist Theatre
Redtwist Theatre is closing out its 2018-19 season with a production of Shakespeare’s King Lear, the tragic tale of the king whose ego leads him to divide his kingdom between two of this three daughters because the third will not engage in the fawning and flattery her sisters do. Meanwhile, the illegitimate son of the Earl of Gloucester is plotting to get rid of his father and elder brother and take his father’s title, if not more, for himself.
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Ones and Zeroes
Ada and the Engine – The Artistic Home
Ada Lovelace has one of those life stories that, if it were fiction, would not sound credible. She is the daughter of the famous Romantic poet, Lord Byron, and she became as close to a professional mathematician as her era would allow, making vital contributions to the work of Charles Babbage and the first computing machines. She is credited with writing one of the earliest versions of a computer program, more than a century before computers would become commonplace. The Artistic Home’s new production, Ada and the Engine, centers on this remarkable woman.
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The Rat Race
Human Resource(s) – Theatre Evolve
Theatre Evolve’s second season premieres with a new play, Human Resource(s) by Sara Means. The focus of the show is on a team of sales reps who are told by their boss that whichever members brings in the most sales at the end of the quarter will get a promotion and whoever gets the least will be fired. Human nature being what it is, the three quickly devolve first into increased bickering and jealousy, and finally outright attacking each other, each hoping to win, or least be saved from the chopping block.
Read MoreIt IS an Honor Just to Be Nominated…
2019 Non-Equity Jeff Awards – Anthaneum Theatre
I’ve always liked the Tony Awards more than the Oscars, and it’s because of the speeches. They are just more fun. I think that is due, in no small part, to the fact that stage actors have more experience speaking in front of a live audience. But largely, I just always feel the passion more directly. Acting is not an easy life, and there’s something about seeing someone succeed at something they truly love that is compelling. That lesson was reinforced last night at the Jeff Non-Equity Awards, the regional theater awards for non-Equity shows.
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All Hail the Queens
Six – Chicago Shakespeare Theater
Divorced. Beheaded. Died. Divorced. Beheaded. Survived. So goes the rhyme to help history students through the ages remember the order and fates of the six wives of Henry VIII. But in this recent import from London, the six queens get to tell their side of story. And it was an absolute blast.
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