Last weekend was one of those red-letter marathons for Chicago theater, an explosive set of events that undoubtedly awed even the most jaded followers of our busy dramatic scene.
On Saturday, Steppenwolf Theatre launched its technically magnificent, 28-actor spectacular, “A Clockwork Orange”-the most audacious use yet of that relatively new theater space from a scenic and lighting standpoint.
Sunday welcomed the first installment in Tony Kushner’s eagerly awaited “Angels in America,” and on Friday, at the Chicago Theatre downtown, Donny Osmond and “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” marked one year with a sold-out house and a special performance that included a mountain of balloons and streamers descending on cast and audience after the show’s already extensive, trademark “megamix” encores.
They also sang a special version of “Chicago” in a town that only a few years ago was said to be commercially risky.
Call Friday’s “Joseph” a mega-megamix. More significant, Friday’s audience hooted, hollered and cheered with the kind of thunderous enthusiasm rare in staid theater and more common at a rock concert. Sunday’s ovation at the Royal George Theatre for “Angels”-although with an audience altogether different from Osmond family fans-roared just as ecstatically. “The great work begins,” to borrow from the play, the pent-up audience seemed to be proclaiming.
In live theater, there are ovations and there are ovations. Sometimes audiences stand up out of obligation, and often with merely an intense appreciation. Friday and Sunday, they leaped to their feet with love and gratitude, each audience in its own way passionately, palpably happy. Both rooms felt on fire.
A lot of observers are nervously awaiting the results of the fall’s inordinately crowded theater calendar. Can Chicago audiences support this much big-time entertainment? Preliminary indications are positive. The extension of “Joseph” is sailing along, and there’s talk of even another brief extension after New Year’s. The advance for “Angels,” which had been reported as $600,000 to $800,000, actually hovered near the $1 million mark by Sunday’s official opening-an astonishing record for an off-Loop serious drama.
Competition? Absolutely. But theater pros also talk about the infectiousness of their art. More theater only helps to get audiences into the habit, and good theater is good for everybody’s business. One night in one of those rooms on fire only makes you hungry for more.
As if to impishly underscore the point, Steppenwolf slyly unfurled a giant, graffiti-like orange banner boasting “A Clockwork Orange” on its bare south side wall over the weekend. You can’t enter or leave “Angels” without seeing it.
And what about “Joseph” and the banner Donny Osmond unfurls with his “Peter Pan”-like flight across the audience for a bow? (He has spent some seven hours in the air all-told thanks to the long run, even though the flight lasts only a few minutes). The box-office take now stands at $35 million.
Let the great work keep coming.
– Enthusiasts of “Angels” might enjoy a reminder that Tony Kushner’s only public appearance here this fall will be in “An Evening of Tony Kushner” Oct. 18 at the University of Chicago’s Mandel Hall, 5706 S. University Ave.
Court Theatre is hosting the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright for the speaking engagement. For tickets: 312-753-4472.
– David Petrarca has cast his premiere production of Wendy MacLeod’s “Sin” Oct. 21-Nov. 20 at the Goodman Studio Theatre.
Amy Morton will play Avery Bly, a helicopter traffic reporter for a San Francisco radio station. Also in the cast are sensational Second City regular Steve Carell, Kyle Colerider-Krugh, Jeffrey Hutchinson, David Pasquesi, Steve Pickering, Tim Rhoze and Karen Vaccaro.
For tickets: 312-443-3800.
– Live Bait Theatre is hosting a series of panels this fall on the creative process. The idea is to focus not on the methodology but on the actual lives of individuals who are artists and creative thinkers.
The program was launched this week. The next installment Wednesday will include director Eric Simonson, composer Winston Damon, photographer Suzanne Plunkett, scientist Fred Cohen and writer and performance artist Jenny Magnus.
The Oct. 5 program will include pathologist-essayist F. Gonzalez-Crussi, painter Ann Worthing, choreographer Bob Eisen, director Sheldon Patinkin, the Tribune’s associate design editor David Syrek, novelist Anne LeCLaire and management consultant Kelly Blake Morgan.
The sessions are held at the theater at 3914 N. Clark St. For information: 312-871-1212.
