Chicago is a great musical- it's got juicy roles for women, avante-garde choreography, memorable songs, three great roles for men , and everything seems to fit together perfectly, like a well-designed puzzle.
It's also been properly acknowledged. It's the #1 Longest Running American Musical and the winner of six 1997 Tony Awards® including Best Musical Revival and won the Grammy award for Best Musical Cast Recording.
The current Broadway tour, which is in Chicago now through May 12, is a fun production that puts the music center stage- literally. There's a 13 piece orchestra featuring trumpets, trombones, and a tuba right in the center of the stage and visible for almost the entire show.
The performers are all great, especially Lana Gordon as Velma and Dylis Croman as Roxie, who both managed to sell their sexiness as actors without seeming cheap or insulting.
Sexy is definitely part of the allure of the musical. I took my 10 year old to the show, and was a little glad that he fell asleep during a couple of the scenes that were a little more risque than I remembered. There's nothing X-rated or even R-rated, but PG-15 is more like it. There's a lot of sexual talk.
I also really appreciated former NFL standout Eddie George as razzle dazzle lawyer Billy Flynn. He exceeded all expectations (which, to be fair, were not particularly high) I assumed he was a celebrity casting, put in as a concession to men who might not want to go to a musical.. He was really good, with a great voice, good comedy instincts, and hit every mark.
The song "We Both Reached For The Gun" in which he puts Roxie Hart on his knee and operates her like a ventriloquist doll, was particularly well done. I was hoping for a little more, well, Razzle Dazzle in the song Razzle Dazzle, and while it wasn't quite there, overall he did a great job.
I left the place humming the songs and feeling great, which is EXACTLY how you should leave a Broadway Musical.
Performances continue today through May 12. Individual tickets are currently on sale and range in price from $30-$100 with a select number of premium tickets available. For more information, visit www.BroadwayInChicago.com.
Hamilton the Exhibition is now open at Northerly Island
on a peninsula near the Adler Planetarium. It's not Weehawken
NJ, but it will have to do!\.
I had a great time attending the opening day of Hamilton the Exhibition, even though by the time I left the exhibit it was snowing in April. Welcome to Chicago, Hamilton the Exhibition!
As you all know, I have been a big supporter of Hamilton since I first heard the soundtrack three years ago, and have chronicled on this page and on Facebook my obsession with Hamilton (I've seen it three times, and was so thrilled to meet the director Tommy Kail (and later Lin-Manuel Miranda) the creator at various events. So I was excited to attend a press conference with Lin-Manuel and Exhibiton Creative director David Korins (who also did the scenic design for Hamilton) And I surprised my son by picking him up at school to take him to the press conference!
A model of New York during Hamilton's time.
I thought he would be thrilled, and maybe secretly he was, but he was also upset, because we were cutting into his valuable screen time. He had a couple of near crying experiences at the press conference, and I felt like an idiot for bringing him and expecting more from him. Really, that's the problem with ten year olds-- they seem like they've got it together, but they are really hanging on by a very tenuous thread. I also made the mistake of not having sweets for him, (I ran out of time) and that didn't help the situation.
We muddled through, and I got to hear Lin-Manuel and David Korins talk about the exhibition.
Here's just a sample of what they talked about.
Later, we walked around the gift shop and they've really plussed-up some of the merch. They had a beach towel that said "Run Away With Us For the Summer" and shot glasses that said "Do Not Throw Away Your Shot." They also have glasses to raise to freedom, and a lot more.
The next day we drove back to the exhibition, well-rested, relatively well fed, and amply supplied with snacks (although I think my son would disagree with that last point, as he ate his snacks and mine about 2/3 the way through. Ah, 10 year old metabolism!) My son was better behaved then, and suitably impressed. I think he even liked having been in the same room as Lin. (although we didn't get to trip a little light fantastic!)
The exhibition was fantastic, and may be one of the most dramatic and well-designed exhibitions I've ever seen. Part of it is my affinity to the subject matter to be sure, but a lot must be attributed to David Korins, whose design and thinking this exhibit reflects.
My feelings about Hamilton The Exhibition in a nutshell!
One of the things that makes this interesting is that it is an exhibit about Hamilton the person, but it is seen through the lens of Hamilton the Musical.
Throughout the exhibition, there are little places where they tell how the musical changed facts or combined people for dramatic effect (for example, it wasn't Jefferson, Madison and Burr that confronted Hamilton about his payments to Mr. Reynolds-- it was three members of Congress. But in the musical, it didn't make sense to introduce three new characters to disappear.
Or the fact that Burr didn't actually attend Hamilton's wedding. Or that Angelica was actually married BEFORE she met Hamilton, and therefore was never available.
It's fascinating to see all those things in reference to the musical that wouldn't make any sense in a typical exhibit.
Here are some of my favorite parts of the exhibit.
GEO-LOCATED SOUNDTRACK Every guest gets a headset that has a geolocator, so as you walk into each room of the gallery, that triggers an introduction, or explanation. My son's didn't quite fit, but he was able to make it work.
So now you have Lin-Manual Miranda and Phillipa Soo (who played Eliza) guiding you through each room. Commentaries by other people, including Yale Historian Joanne B. Freeman and Christopher Jackson, who played George Washington, are also included. There are also various exhibits where you can point your headset at something and hear a more thorough explanation. This does two things-- it gives people a natural certain amount of time to take in the exhibition, and keeps people moving along through the exhibition. There are a few rooms that are stops along the way-- little experiences that only a few people can do at a time.
More importantly, it now gives us the opportunity to really personalize the experience at the hands of two fantastic actors, and that makes the experience come to life even further.
DESIGNED GALLERIES
Each room that you enter in the gallery tells a story of the musical and thus of Hamilton's life. Many of them are beautifully designed, and have a theme that is relevant to the musical, but are not handled very dryly.
For example, there is a hurricane room, in which they talk about the hurricane that devastated the Caribbean island that Hamilton was born on, and which you wrote so eloquently about that the island people took up a collection to get him educated in the United States. This is a slow stairway up into the next set of galleries, that features two turntables slowly turning debris. Creating a hurricane of sorts. The turntables also echo the turntables in the production.
Another room that was pretty amazing was the tent/war room for the battle of Cornwallis This is a tent that you walk into and there is a giant map in the center. You sit or stand around it, while Christopher Jackson as Washington tells you his plan. Meanwhile, as they explain what happens, mysteriously, 3 dimensional sculptures of ships, and figures representing Cornwallis, or Rochambeau, or Lafayette all move as if my magic across the map. It's pretty remarkable. (I wanted to videotape it, but the proctor said no videotaping, and she was standing right next to me. You'll have to see it for yourself!
The map, with the figures
One of the last rooms is the most dramatic. You enter into it and see two lifesize sculptures of Burr and Hamilton about to duel.
The details are great, down to the pistols used and the glasses on Hamilton (which are mentioned in the musical)
In this room, there is also a dual timeline (see what I did there?) which shows Hamilton's last 32 hours on the top and Burr's last 32 years on the bottom. One of the fascinating ironies is that Alexander Hamilton Jr. presided over Burr's divorce as he was dying. These guys were intertwined!
Timeline: Hamilton's last 32 hours vs. Burr's last 32 years.
The last couple of rooms are dedicated to the legacy of Hamilton and to Eliza.
Replica of Hamilton's desk
Hamilton family tree
One of my favorite parts was seeing what people over history had said about Hamilton. He was a divisive figure for sure. (And Balloon of Malice has to be one of the best insults ever! Thank you William Carlos Williams!)
And at the very end, you the viewer got to have your say.
The very last room was both intriguing and circular. It featured the first song about Hamilton (What's Your Name), as performed by the current(?) cast of Hamilton.
It was great, and I think promises that the inevitable movie of Hamilton the Musical will also be great, but it's a little weird that we didn't start with that song.
I love how it made the circle complete- we are talking about Hamilton, and here's a reminder of the musical. But I think that if you were going to really make it circular, you should start the whole shebang with this video, which is the video of Lin-Manuel Miranda performing a new song that might be part of a concept album he was making called Hamilton The MixTape.
We saw the opening show of the Broadway in Chicago import Choir of Man last night. It's a likable import from Great Britain with some amazing singing, a few well executed comedy bits, some very good tap-dancing, and a fair amount of free beer. So what could go wrong?
The show is a "Slice of Life" love letter to the Irish pub. The fictionalized pub on display, the Jungle, serves as an actual bar in the pre-show, where some audience members are selected to go up on stage and get a free beer. The guys are all personable and friendly, and any show that starts off with free beer has a leg up. Really, it changes the relationship of the audience from onlooker to participant. On a side note, my beer was dark and okay, and it made me wonder if it was alcoholic beer or non-alcoholic. (The actors drink throughout the night, and my guess is that they are drinking non-alcoholic beer.)
There's not much of a plot to the show. It's more of a quasi-fictional concert, with characters. Dennis (the narrator, seen in the video above) introduces us to all of the denizens of the bar, including a number of stock types-- the Lothario, the big lug with a heart of gold, the prankster, the bartender, etc. Dennis speaks in rhyming couplets about the pub, and waxes eloquently about this place. In between Dennis' monologues the guys take turns singing rock and pop songs, including hits from Queen, Guns'n'Roses (The appropriate Welcome To the Jungle), Paul Simon , Adele, Katy Perry, and others. The show runs approximately 90 minutes with no intermission.
The Choir Of Man: Photo by Chris Cann
Everybody's got a fine voice, the blokes are all ruggedly handsome, the dancing and choreography are well executed and well thought out, and there are some comedy bits, including a love song sung to a grandma-ish lady that takes on new meaning when you consider the age disparity, a series of bad dad jokes, and a peeing extravaganza that could come straight out of a 1950's comedy act (and I mean that in a good way). I'm a big believer in virtuosity in the theatre, and it is certainly on display. As musicians these guys are superb.
The Choir Of Man: Photo by Chris Cann
We left the theatre feeling good, and although there wasn't much story, we were very entertained. I do have a couple of criticisms of the show, but they are more about what the show wasn't versus what it was.
It wasn't very representative (all 9 men in the show were white and had roots in Ireland. Of course that's what the show is about, this "Friends in the pub" culture that you can have with your mates, but like it or not, they are celebrating a white boys club culture of "Boys will be boys" that excludes a lot of people. There was even a bit of towel-snapping in the show.
And I couldn't help think what a pub looks like where not every person in it is handsome, white, and of Irish descent. (one of the guys was vaguely Chinese, and he was teased about it once) I am usually one of the last people on the "non-inclusion" bandwagon, but it really stuck out to me when I saw the show.
The Choir Of Man: Photo by Brian Wright
For me, the harder thing about this show is that it is sentimental for this pub life, and I am not a big lover of sentimentality in the theatre. It paints the pub life as mostly idyllic, and full of nice guys whose arguments are temporary blips in the bonhommie of their life. It's not quite a play, and more of a concert, but I can easily imagine the amazing play that this COULD HAVE BEEN.
The Choir Of Man: Photo by Brian Wright
I would have liked to seen the non-rose colored version of the pub, complete with arguments, drunkenness, unnecessary drama, bad ideas, enemies, and crossed messages. I know it wasn't the purpose of this show, but I felt like it could have been GREAT if they had gotten downer and dirtier to find the real essence of the pub. Instead, they skimmed the polished surface, and it was entertaining, but it could have been a lot deeper as well. (And still have been as entertaining!)
The Choir Of Man: Photo by Brian Wright
Don't get me wrong-- the show was great and fun and entertaining. But I felt like it could have been all that and also deeper. I feel like they just touched the surface. If you want to be entertained, I can highly recommend this show. (And it would be a great way to celebrate St. Paddy's day.)
It runs through March 17 (one week only at the Broadway Playhouse at Water Tower Place (175 E. Chestnut) Showtimes are at 7:30 pm Tuesday-Friday with shows on Saturday at 2 and 8 pm and Sunday at 2 and 7:30 pm Individual tickets range in price from $39-$79 with a select number of premium tickets available.
There is a new musical in town, kicking off its North American tour. It's based on the best-selling book series by author Rick Riordan: Percy Jackson and The Olympians. (which sort of sounds like a rock band, and this is a rock musical) The musical has some very exciting bits, and has some moments that are well done, and is worth seeing (with a couple of caveats) Read on to find out more.
I had read all five of the books a few years ago, and enjoyed them a lot. There were two movie adaptations made, but they did not get good reviews, and I never got around to seeing them. I entered the musical hopeful that they would pay fealty to the great story and character arcs that Riordan had developed. And they did!
Although you don't need to know very much about the story to see the musical, it does help. The story features a teenager who is not sure what's going on because weird things always happen to him, His dad is MIA, and kind of mysterious, and he suddenly gets thrust into a large situation when he realizes that the Greek gods are real, and that he is the half-son of one of them, and that he's been accused of stealing Zeus's lightning bolt. He goes to a camp on Long Island Sound, discovers he has powers, and meets other kids in the same situation (half-bloods) ,and he and his friends go on a series of adventures as they drive across the country to find Hades (who naturally lives in Los Angeles), manage to defeat the odds and survive against all kinds of adversity.
Here's a television spot they created for the show.
The Minotaur on stage. Photo by Jeremy Daniel
The story is followed pretty faithfully in the musical, which was produced in part by TheatreWorks USA, which has a long and storied reputation for adapting kids stories into high quality touring productions. This one is no different. The cast of six do pretty amazing work as they tell the story, creating monsters, (A Minotaur, a Furie, and Medusa all feature prominently), and of course the Gods. The puppetry and stagecraft are very well realized, and the characterizations are right on. (SLIGHT SPOILER ALERT: I nearly fell out of my seat when Hades appears, the actor doing a pitch-perfect imitation of actor Paul Lynde. Perfect Voice Casting!)
I really liked the energy of the production-- the actors all do physical characterizations, and except for Percy, play multiple characters. They all have good voices and use them well. They are young and energetic, and the pace of the show is brisk. There is a fair amount of humor in the show, and I think that it tells the story very well. (My son hadn't read the books, and could tell what was going on all through)
The play ends with the clear possibility of a PART TWO-- just like the book. I am wondering if they are considering giving the second book the same treatment?
Percy and his friends try to escape the Gods. Photo by Jeremy Daniel
I did mention I had two caveats above: I wasn't clear exactly why they made this as a musical I think an adventure show with music would have served the story and the production better, with one or two songs perhaps. The music was all serviceable, but a little pro forma (following the structure of the musical). I couldn't identify a single song afterward-- they were all songs that moved the plot forward, but not one was a song that felt like an emotional breakthrough that wasn't connected to the plot, and it's hard to imagine any of the songs outside of the musical itself.
Here's a video of one of the songs (and the process of making it), I like it a little better now that I've heard it three times, but during the show I didn't really groove onto it. Your mileage may definitely vary on this-- maybe it will resonate with you and your kid.
There's lots of exciting fight scenes in the show. Photo by Jeremy Daniel
The other thing about this show is the quality of the set design/costumes. While they got the job done, and were in someways inventive, they felt a little low rent. They seemed out of place in the lush environs of the Oriental Theatre. I don't think I'd have felt this way if the show had come to a more modern theatre like the Harris Theatre. But as part of the Broadway series, it was harder to overlook.
Still, the Percy Jackson musical is an exciting and well-told story, mostly inventively staged and with some great comic bits. Well worth seeing if you are a fan of Percy or a fan of young adult musicals.
Some toilet paper some blue lighting, and some handheld blowers make the stage erupt in an inventive manner.
Photo by Jeremy Daniel
The show plays in Chicago through Sunday, January 13, and then moves on for a full North American tour, with stops in Charlotte, Philadelphia, Worcester, Toronto, New York, Sacramento, Detroit, Cheyenne, Ft. Lauderdale, and tons of other places. For the full schedule visit http://www.lightningthiefmusical.com/#tickets
In Chicago, individual tickets are currently on sale and range in price from $25-$80 with a select number of premium seats available. For more information, visit www.BroadwayInChicago.com.
We saw the touring production of Fiddler on the Roof at the Cadillac Palace Theatre (now through January 6, 2019) and it is really great.
When seeing a classic show like this, the quality of the story and the songs are already a known item. It's the execution of it that makes all the difference, and in this case, the music is strong, the actors are great, and the choreography is outstanding. The video below says it's fresh and exciting, and this is truth in advertising. It's well worth seeing.
The opening of the show was particularly exciting for me.
Yehezkel Lazarov as Tevye
photo by Joan Marcus
Israeli actor Yehezkel Lazarov plays Tevye, and he appears on the stage wearing what appears to be a hoodie. He starts by reading a few lines from a book, and as he reads I'm wondering what's going on. This isn't part of the play. He's reading what appears to be the first few lines of the book on which Fiddler is based Tevye the Dairyman by Sholom Aleichem (well worth reading if you haven't).
As he finishes reading, the song Tradition starts up, and he pulls down his hoodie and it turns into a prayer shawl. And we are onto the musical! But the stage is completely blank, and the characters (the mommas, the poppas, the sons, the daughters, etc.) all appear from behind these door panels that are quickly carried on and off via choreography. The dancing is all very physical and kind of quirky, and there's almost no set, and I am entranced! It's a completely non-traditional way to do this song, which is ironic because the song is Tradition. The empty stage and the panels appearing remind of Peter Brook, and the dancing is like Merce Cunningham, and I am super excited. I wonder if the whole production is going to be like this. And how daring that would be!
The song ends, there's rousing applause, and then the sets fly in, and to my slight disappointment they are pretty traditional-- a house and a tree. And they look like a house and a tree. I am not disappointed for long, as the production values are high, and the production itself is great. The dancing throughout is exceptional, and all of the cast members do a fantastic job of making the play memorable.
A traditional bottle dance as part of the Wedding. Photo by Joan Marcus.
Photo via Instagram
The show is full of classic comedy moments and great songs. I particularly loved all of Tevye's asides to God, or asides to the audience. SPOILER ALERT (but really, you don't know the story? It's been since 1964!) In the first act, Tevye convinces his wife that he dreamed a bad omen, and his daughter can't marry the butcher. The dream is fantastic, with weird stilt people dancing around, and with lights, sound and dance they create a very realistic nightmare. His wife is convinced. Later, his second daughter wants to marry a poor student, and Tevye finally agrees, saying that he will convince his wife Goldie somehow. He then turns to the audience and says, "Another dream?" It got a huge response.
In this rendition of If I Were A Rich Man, you can see how well they get the feeling of a daydream which really got the daydream feeling "What would I do if I won the lottery!" (video via Instagram)
There's also a lot of sadness in the show. The Jewish community is eventually forced out of the little town of Anatevka, and the family gets ready to move to America. I realized that this might have very well been my ancestor's story. My great great grandparents came to America in the 1870's fleeing the Russian pogroms. It touched me in a way that I hadn't realized, despite the fact that I have seen different productions of the show three or four times.
The music and acting are great, the dancing is phenomenal, and the story is a classic. You should definitely not miss this production!
Here's another montage of the show through the FiddlerBroadway Instagram. (Which by the way, has a lot of great behind the scenes content.)
The show runs at the Cadillac Palace Theatre (151 W. Randolph) through January 6, 2019.
PERFORMANCE SCHEDULE
Tuesdays at 7:30PM (no performance on Dec. 25)
Wednesdays at 2:00PM & 7:30PM (no matinee performance on Dec. 19)
Thursdays at 7:30PM
Fridays at 7:30PM
Saturdays at 2:00PM & 8:00PM
Sundays at 2:00PM and 7:30PM (no evening performance on Jan. 6)
TICKET INFORMATION
Tickets are currently on-sale to the public and range in price from $25-$98. Discounts for the show ($39-$79) are available on Goldstar. (affiliate link)
a few years ago, and enjoyed them a lot. There were two movie adaptations made, but they did not get good reviews, and I never got around to seeing them. I entered the musical hopeful that they would pay fealty to the great story and character arcs that Riordan had developed. And they did!
by Sholom Aleichem (well worth reading if you haven't).
