By the first weekend of January, all of the holiday shows have closed. There’s a brief lull in the dramatic action before the creative onslaught of openings as much a part of the Chicago midwinter as a subhuman windchill factor. So what are the hottest advance bets for the coming cold weeks?
If you’re a closet fan of Debbie Allen or once cringed along with her weekly televised declaration that “Fame Hurts!” (such nonsense), you may be fodder for the touring version of the widely acclaimed film and perpetually syndicated series set at the High School for the Performing Arts. Possibly on its way to New York (possibly not), this post-Toronto tour features many hummable ditties from the film and television series and a cast barely alive when some of us first watched the agonies of show-biz wannabes. “Fame: The Musical” plays the Chicago Theatre Jan. 26 through 31. The producers learned from “Rent”: The first two rows each night are reserved for students with $20 to spare (you can buy in advance this time, but only in person at the theater). Tickets to the reprise touring engagement of “Riverdance: The Show” (Jan. 28-Feb. 21) are as low as $15.50 (but at that price, you’d be so far back at the Auditorium Theatre, those Irish bodies a-twirling and a-tapping might look like marionettes).
If you crave the Bard (and a few choruses of “I’m Going to Live Forever” are enough to make anyone hungry for poetry), the next couple of months are a veritable mini-Shakespeare Festival. StreetSigns kicks off the year this week with “Hamlet” at the Bailiwick Repertory Theatre, directed by Derek Goldman, an invariably intriguing artist. Goldman says that he’s become interested in the connections between the rotten state of old Denmark and our current political and moral travails. Even as President Clinton et al dissect the notion of a lie on Capitol Hill, Joseph Wycoff will be musing the consequences of slings and arrows on Belmont Avenue.
If you can wait until the end of March, there’s a suburban “Hamlet” (directed by Craig Berger and starring David Engel) being readied by the Buffalo Theatre Ensemble in Glen Ellyn. With a Feb. 14 opening on the docket, the brand name of Chicago Shakespeare, Shakespeare Repertory Theatre, presents both parts of “Henry IV.” Classical comedy can be found at the Court Theatre, for whom the typically insouciant Laszlo Marton directs “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” opening on Jan. 25. And if you like your Shakespeare either free or interactive, wait until the Sears Theatre Fever event during the first week of March. You’ll be able to “Do Your Own Balcony Scene” at the Inclusive Theatre’s production of “Romeo and Juliet.”
Sometimes shows ride curious waves of popularity. On Jan. 18, the Goodman Theatre opens this season’s second “Waiting for Godot.” The latest Samuel Beckett revival is a Michael Maggio production with Andre De Shields and Ross Lehman as dramatic literature’s most verbose tramps. You will also be able to enjoy two winter productions of Christopher Marlowe’s fascinating “Edward II,” courtesy of Red Hen Productions (a new Equity company) and The Journeymen (which ran away with many of last season’s Jeff Awards).
We’re also excited about the overdue return to action of both greasy joan & co. and the Seanachai Theatre Company, the belated arrival in Chicago of Paula Vogel’s monster hit, “How I Learned to Drive” (opening Feb. 10 at the Northlight Theatre), and new, intriguing works from both Shattered Globe Theatre and Famous Door Theatre Company. In the theater-about-theater category, The Free Associates has developed “Big TV,” a scripted show (rare for them)that purports to be about the ruthless ambition of a Chicago comedy troupe looking to leave this toddlin’ town in the dust.
Hey, plenty of folk toddle back, even in the cold. There’s already considerable national interest in Rick Cleveland’s new play, “Danny Bouncing,” not least because Cleveland has been making a name in Hollywood and has snagged ex-Chicagoan Eric Simonsen (remember him?) to direct his latest effort, which bounds into town at the Victory Gardens Theater on Feb. 1.
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The new year also brings less cheery news. City Lit Theater has announced that it will be putting its 1998-99 season “on hold.” The basic problem is cash — or the lack thereof. Last spring’s poorly received production of “The Horn” lost money at the Steppenwolf Studio, and City Lit’s recent version of “Right Ho, Jeeves” (which closes at the Theatre Building on Sunday) did not meet its ambitious box-office projections. For its first five years, the annual dramatic adaptation of a P.G. Wodehouse story drew large crowds at various venues around town, but the momentum has slowed. Changing venues and dates have not helped, but it seems that Chicago audiences have tired of Bertie and his long-suffering but sharp-witted valet.
Aside from paying its constituent artists more than most competitors, the debt-laden City Lit has another, more serious problem: its niche in the local theatrical marketplace has become increasingly crowded over the past couple of years. In most cities, a troupe that specialized in theatrical adaptations of non-dramatic sources would have that field mainly to itself. City Lit used to enjoy that happy state of affairs. But thanks to the recent success of troupes like Lookingglass Theatre Company, Roadworks Productions, StreetSigns, About Face Theatre, Lifeline Theatre and any number of others, that’s now a modus operandi of almost every hip troupe in Chicago; an artistic city where just doing regular plays is sometimes perceived as creative mundanity. So despite a long reputation for quality, flashier troupes with hotter material and better self-promotional skills have made the recent environment very tough.
“It’s not like any one iceberg sunk our ship,” says Mark Richard, City Lit’s artistic director; “there were a lot of factors. And we don’t have anyone who can just whip out a checkbook and pave over the bumps in our road.”
Richard says he does not enjoy pulling the plug on Kelly Nespor’s adaptation of “Alice in Wonderland,” which was to have been City Lit’s second show of the season. The decision is also bad news for the Theatre Building, as the venue had expected to host City Lit for the entire year. A good chunk of City Lit’s $300,000 annual budget was earmarked for the Theatre Building’s rent.
Richard says that City Lit’s self-sustaining educational outreach program will continue while the troupe develops a “strategic plan” for the (possible) resurrection of its mainstage season. But after a remarkable 18 consecutive seasons of high-quality theater in Chicago, this is not the happiest of new years for City Lit.
