`Everybody ought to have a maid,” sing four dirty-minded old Romans in “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” — the first Broadway musical for which Stephen Sondheim wrote a full score, back in 1962. “Everybody ought to have a working girl … Wriggling in the anteroom / Jiggling in the dining room / Giggling in the living room.”
“Puttering,” in short, “all around the house.”
But Sondheim’s Latinate lechers in the musical don’t get the, uh, house cleaning they crave. Not a single room of it.
But if they were to find their way to downtown Chicago next weekend, they could participate in the musical equivalent of a full-on, whole-house orgy. Thanks to Sondheim in the Park, there will be singing in the pavilion, swinging on the balcony–rhapsodizing all around Millennium Park.
The event July 14-16 will be a collaboration between the city’s Department of Cultural Affairs and the Grant Park Music Festival (and based on a suggestion from John Bryan, the Sondheim pal and former Sara Lee chief who raised millions to help build Millennium Park).
Lurie Garden will see the 76-year-old composer’s five-decade oeuvre evoked with dance, strings and jazz singers; Chase Promenade, with woodwinds and brass; Wrigley Square, with young choral voices; and the North Balcony, in cabaret and operatic styles. Forty-one performances in all at five sites.
The centerpiece of this outsize celebration will be an outsize concert featuring six Broadway stars, most of whom can claim a connection both to Chicago and Sondheim. They include John Callaway’s Tony-nominated daughter, Liz; Northwestern alum Brian d’Arcy James; George Hearn, the lion of American musical theater who spent months playing Sweeney Todd at the Arie Crown; and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio–a graduate of Oak Park/River Forest High School whose movie success has obscured the fact that she started out singing for the stage. Veteran Judy Kaye and relative newcomer Danny Gurwin fill out the sextet, to be backed by the Grant Park Symphony Orchestra and Grant Park Chorus.
Oddly enough, the goal for concert conductor Kevin Stites was to keep things simple.
Coming off an even bigger tribute he helped mount last year in New York for Sondheim’s 75th birthday (“It was absolutely obscene”), Stites declares that he and director Gary Griffin were determined to hold themselves to 90 minutes of material they “knew people would know and enjoy.”
“His motto for this show is “keep it short, make it varied, and give the audience a chance to breathe.”
Why devote so much talent and energy to a single writer of stage shows?
“I don’t think that there has been–in this or the previous generation–anybody who’s had as good a marriage of a lyric to music,” Stites says of Sondheim. “That’s the obvious thing. The thing a lot of people overlook is the raw and human emotion that his material has.
“We’re doing `Getting Married,’ that piece from `Company’ where the bride is panicked and she’s singing so fast you can barely understand it. It’s packaged in this incredibly sophisticated, complex, put-together-like-a-puzzle group of inner rhymes, outer rhymes, complex harmonies, simple harmonies–but the true emotion of it: I can’t think of a single bride on this earth who hasn’t felt that way. That’s what, at the core, makes it really brilliant.”
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WHEN: 4 to 10 p.m. July 14; 1 to 8 p.m. July 15; and 1 to 5 p.m. July 16.
WHERE: Millennium Park’s Jay Pritzker Pavilion, Lurie Garden, Chase Promenades and Wrigley Square. PRICE: Admission is free.
FOR INFORMATION: Contact 312-742-1168 or www.millenniumpark.org.
Schedule
The sounds of Sondheim can be heard all over Millennium Park from 4 to 10 p.m. July 14; 1 to 8 p.m. July 15; and 1 to 5 p.m. July 16. Here are our picks for the weekend’s highlights.
JULY 14
4 and 5 p.m. — Cabarah comedy cabaret does Sondheim’s “livelier large-group numbers” (Lurie Garden South Stage).
6:30 p.m. — Broadway stars Liz Callaway, Danny Gurwin, George Hearn, Brian d’Arcy James, Judy Kaye and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio perform with the Grant Park Orchestra and Chorus (Jay Pritzker Pavilion).
8:15 and 9:15 p.m. — Dancers from Lucky Plush Productions interpret songs from “Into the Woods,” “Follies” and “A Little Night Music” (Lurie Garden South Stage).
JULY 15
1 and 2 p.m.– Cabarah comedy cabaret (Lurie Garden South Stage).
3:30 and 4:30 p.m. — Eighth Blackbird post-classical chamber music group and guest vocalists perform original arrangements of music from six Sondheim musicals (Great Lawn/Lurie Garden Stage).
5:30 and 6:30 p.m. — Stars of “Wicked” and “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” join jazz pianist Jeremy Kahn (Great Lawn/Lurie Garden Stage).
7:30 p.m. — Broadway stars perform with the Grant Park Orchestra (Jay Pritzker Pavilion).
JULY 16
1:30 and 2:30 p.m. — The Chicago Cello Society interprets works from “A Little Night Music” and “Sweeney Todd,” aided by Chicago vocalists (Lurie South).
2:30 and 3:30 p.m. — The Chicago Children’s Choir does Sondheim (Wrigley Square).
3 and 4 p.m. — Selections from “Into the Woods” and “Follies” performed by opera singers including Michelle Areyzaga, Levi Hernandez, Bill McMurray, Scott Ramsay and Jessye Wright (North Balcony Stage).
3:15 and 4:15 p.m. — Marilynn Bogetich (a veteran of Sondheim’s ill-fated “Bounce”) sings selections from “Follies,” “Sweeney Todd,” “Sunday in the Park with George,” “Company,” “Bounce” and “Anyone Can Whistle” (Lurie South).
4:30 p.m. — The Chicago Gay Men’s Chorus closes the weekend, including a rendition of “Sunday” joined by many of the artists of the weekend.
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GETTING THERE
BY CAR: Exit east from I-94 on Congress, then north on Michigan Avenue or Columbus Drive to the underground public garages. Best is the East Monroe Street and Millennium Park garage (enter at Columbus and Monroe), call 312-745-2862 for rates and more information. Alternatively, use the Grant Park North underground garage (Michigan at Randolph).
BY CTA: Take any CTA train to the Loop and exit at Millennium Park. By bus, principle routes are No. 3 King Drive, No. 4 Cottage Grove, No. 7 Harrison, No. 26 South Shore Express, No. 126 Jackson, No. 145 Wilson/Michigan, No. 147 Outer Drive and No. 151 Sheridan.
BY BIKE: The newly-renamed McDonald’s Cycle Center is located at Randolph Street and Columbus Drive, with 300 indoor parking spaces. Contact 888-245-3929 or www.mcdonaldscyclecenter.com for rates and hours.
DINING OPTIONS
Park Grill at McCormick Tribune Plaza in the park (Michigan at Washington); indoor and outdoor sit-down dining, call 312-521-7275. Or there’s no shortage of restaurants across the street from the park on Michigan Avenue, including Bennigan’s Grill (150 S. Michigan Ave.); Corner Bakery Cafe (224 S. Michigan Ave.); and fast food from Au Bon Pain, Subway, Quiznos and Chipotle.
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