Sustaining legacy is no simple task, especially when considering the arts.  How do you preserve continuity of spirit while simultaneously establishing artistic harmony with the past, present and future?  Knowledge, skill and vision at the top are always critical.  But there are other intangibles that ultimately determine long term success.

When Robert Battle unexpectedly announced he could no longer act as artistic director for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in 2023 for health reasons, one of the most accomplished and revered dance companies in the United States began a search to fill a pair of epic shoes. Since its inception in 1958, nearly 70 years ago, the company has only had three artistic directors, Mr. Ailey himself, his designated successor and former principal Ailey dancer, Judith Jamison, and Mr. Battle whose initial association with the Ailey company was that of a guest choreographer. He’d go on to distinguish himself as a master in his field.

Late in 2024, Alvin Ailey Dance Theater chose Alicia Graf Mack, at the time director of the dance division at Juilliard, to become its fourth artistic director.  She began her tenure as Ailey’s new artistic director in July last year. 

Mack’s background and credentials are all exemplary and on their own portend a fruitful stewardship.  Born in California and raised in Columbia Maryland, her parents, one Jewish the other African-American, were socially engaged academics who encouraged their children’s creative interests.  Mack trained in ballet and by 17 was accepted into Dance Theater of Harlem where, at nearly 6’ tall and willowy, her height and grace contributed to building her celebrity.  Consequential injuries necessitated that she quit dance, leading her to acquire a History degree at Columbia University. 

After finishing Columbia, Mack returned to the Dance Theater of Harlem where the company’s financial difficulties made her homecoming brief. Applying to the American Ballet Theater and being rejected because of her height, she approached the Ailey company where she was not only accepted into the company, but she was also “embraced” in her totality. 

Artistic Director Alicia Graf Mack. Photo by Andrew Eccles.

Her initial time with Ailey, from 2005 and 2008, allowed Mack to explore and hone other dance styles more deeply and to intellectually mature as a dancer.  After leaving the company to obtain a degree in non-profit management at Washington University in St. Louis, she returned to Ailey in 2011 where she enjoyed notable success as one of its premier dancers until 2014.   Mack then redirected her career and devoted it to education.

At a luncheon held in her honor at Chicago’s Auditorium Theater earlier this year, Mack talked about the people and experiences that led her from being an aspiring teenage dance professional to heading one of the world’s leading dance organizations. As she recounted her past, the emotional intelligence and natural humility she’s noted for were readily apparent.  In her remarks, the new artistic director recognized the wealth of experience, knowledge and talent resident in the Ailey staff and stated she would be relying on those resources to help her fulfill her mission.  She also credited the mentorship she received from dance titans, including Ms. Jamison, pioneering Black ballerina Lorraine Graves and the legendary Carmen de Lavallade.  The advice and counsel they all shared will prove valuable assets for the future.

Just as she balanced the need to adapt to tomorrow while respecting heritage at Juilliard, Mack addressed doing much the same in her new role with Ailey.  Not only is she mindful in honoring the “Ailey aesthetic”, but she also shared her interest in bringing in new choreographic voices to complement, expand and enhance the principles and values Mr. Ailey displayed in his work and that of the choreographers he admired.

Providing avenues for dancers to achieve fulfillment in their craft is also central to Mack’s mission.  One she’s shown to advance through an ethos of affirmation. 

As the climax to the Auditorium’s 2025-2026 Celebrating Women in Dance season later this month, the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater engagement at the theater is a welcome to Ms. Mack.  The three-day run will see two programs performed.  In addition to Alvin Ailey’s classic Revelations and an excerpt from Judith Jamison’s 2005 Reminiscin’, the remaining five dances are contemporary creations of pioneering luminaries in choreography.  All five works saw their world premieres in 2025.

It’s no secret every new dance season is filled with its own undercurrent of anticipation. Regardless of the company, audiences who follow them silently wonder what will be the prevailing theme that will dominate a troupe’s next major performance. What attributes will signal growth and maturity.  What kind of insights are going to be shared through a gifted choreographer’s storytelling skills.  What unexpected feat of technical or physical prowess is going to once again prove dance’s unmatched ability to translate the full scope our humanity.

Some companies can always be relied on to provide brilliant responses to those kinds of musings.  Giordano Dance Chicago (GDC) is one of them and their Ignite the Soul program at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance Friday night demonstrated that even with more than 60 years’ experience dancing at the top, the growing process never ceases.  The will and desire to keep striving, learning and absorbing does much more than simply avert atrophy.  It fuels the kind of energy that invigorates everyone on the stage and in the seats.  And it enables some of the galvanizing moments found in Ignite the Soul.

A broad ranging show that spanned genres of dance and artistic temperaments, half of the program’s six dance roster consisted of works that have never previously been performed publicly.  Two of the three world premieres were made possible by donors who, not so uncommonly, prefer to remain anonymous.

The show opened with resident choreographer Al Blackstone’s Latin inspired, Sana.  Receiving its own world premier last year, the dance lives as comfortably in the realm of contemporary dance as it does jazz.  Meant to evoke notions of healing, Sana highlights the beneficence of community and the power of the collective.  Thrillingly dynamic and often probing, Stahv Danker’s original score makes for a potent force that enhances Sana’s appeal.

Over the years, GDC has fine-tuned the way it incorporates film shorts to provide supporting information about the company, its history, its dancers, the choreographers it partners with and the wealth of community initiatives it conducts.  Each season these interludes become more polished and prove more indispensable.  One preceded each of the evening’s new dance segments; providing priceless insights into what fuels a talented choreographer’s creative process.  By the time tap dancer, choreographer and arts executive Mike Minery finished his explanation on how My Kind of Girl came about, you couldn’t wait to see the world premier he collaborated with GDC’s Artistic Director, Nan Giordano, to produce for the company. 

Adam Houston and Sasha Lazarus - photo by Zach Kemper.

Through his lead in, we learn how crucial tap is to much of modern dance and how instructive it can be to a dancer’s technical foundation.  Then we were reintroduced to how therapeutic and beautiful the dance form can be when Minery himself took to the stage with GDC’s splendid Erina Ueda to enrapture the hall with a gorgeous tap duet.  In this hyper-digitized, infamously disconnected world, My Kind of Girl is as analog as a warm hug and twice as pleasing.  Loaded with dance prowess of the highest level and bathed in Frank Sinatra’s silky voice backed by Count Basie’s band, the audience couldn’t help but cheer heartily after My Kind of Girl came to its swoon worthy close. 

Following that welcome touch of sweetness, the company brought out the flame throwers with Sabroso, a 2011 torcher crafted by Del Dominguez and Laura Flores.  Quintessential Giordano in its presentation, dancers shimmied and strutted their way through a sassy half dozen Latin dance styles that came packed with plenty of sensual heat.  Flaunting knock-out sequined costumes designed Nina G., the women in the company made sultry soar while their male counterparts wrapped machismo in a thick layer of sophistication.  Adam Houston and Analysse Vance picture perfect Bolero highlighted the exceptional individual artistry dancers bring to a performance.  The kind that always guarantees delight.

Something of the transformational arrived with Jon Rua’s namuH, a dance signifying the power and importance of love at its most basic and pure.  Rua’s video explanation of his personal background and the trajectory of his career from street dancer to choreographer ideally framed the dance that followed.  The word “Human” spelled backward, namuH feels as if it has one foot in the present day and one in the future.  Bjork and Stateless’s music draw an intense landscape.  Rugged and difficult.  Coupled with neutral, utilitarian costumes worn by the dancers and you sense a sterile almost bleak world.  The energy and magnetism come from the dance and the dancers who, despite any obstacle or hardship, invariably end up leaning on each other to keep on keeping on. 

The music, the way the dance unfolds, the unorthodox movements whose origins clearly derive from the grit of urban streets, all draw you in and leave you captivated.  As rewarding as the choreography itself is, the company’s dancers give it life by fully internalizing its precepts and projecting its message so beautifully.   

This is about as far away from jazz dance as you can get, but namuH’s central theme of cohesion and co-dependence; as well as the way it helps us see the latent generosity in all of us, make it an ideal match for this venerable dance company that can shape shift so elegantly.

Excerpts of Ronen Koresh’s 2015 Crossing/Lines preceded the night’s finale and final world premiere, Dumb Luck!, choreographed by Mr. Blackstone.   A salute to the country’s upcoming 250 anniversary and an intentional lighthearted salve to our erratic times, Dumb Luck!, with its nautical pastiche and post-war verve, is a happy escape to nostalgia.  Nina G.’s period sailor outfits take you right back to the grand old days of splashy Hollywood musicals.  Coasting on jazz gold via the sounds of The Nate King Cole trio, the Manhattan Transfer, and Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, dancers cavort while maintaining tight but jaunty dance formations.

A very fine effort, strengthening the dance’s core character would make it more even more distinctive.  

Whetting the appetite for more is what Dumb Luck! and the rest of the dances making up Ignite the Soul’s program do all too well.  Placing those expectation reveries about their next stage outing on high boil once again.

Ignite the Soul

Giordano Dance Chicago

April 10-11, 2026

Venue: The Harris Theater for Music and Dance

205 E. Randolph Street

Chicago, IL  60601

For more information about Giordano Dance Chicago:  https://www.giordanodance.org

This review is proudly shared with our friends at www.TheatreInChicago.com. 

There are thousands of stories you’d love to see brought to the stage. Stories that slip into the lives of people who walk through the world either unseen or are barely considered by those possessing more standard existences.  People who, because of the way they look or talk or are intrinsically wired to move through life find themselves on the periphery.  Or who mask their true selves by pretending to be something they’re not.  With all the same desires, hopes and dreams of a common human being, something about them hinders them from freely striving for type of self-actualization we all crave.

How they see themselves, relate to others and fulfill their aspirations can produce illuminating and often engrossing stories about who and what we, as a species, inherently are.  They’re in the family of stories queer focused About Face Theatre has been telling boldly and honestly since 1995.  And it’s current production by playwright Preston May Allen, Modern Gentleman, fits snugly in the theater company’s oeuvre of truth.  

By stepping into and exploring the life of Adam, a trans man living in present day New York, About Face again provides a platform to enlighten through alternative storytelling.  Uniquely structured, and under Landree Fleming’s novel direction, Modern Gentleman presents ideas, beliefs and circumstances that provoke serious and stimulating contemplation.  Despite all the things it either suggests or leaves a mystery, it’s the common threads of life that stand out most distinctly.

Passion, drama and rewardingly precocious humor are the trinity that pervade this profile of a person trying to live their most complete life in the gender they feel most comfortable. 

Its passion that opens the play as Adam (Alec Phan) and his girlfriend Lily (Kaylah Marie Crosby) tumble through the front door of Adam’s apartment tearing at each other’s clothes in their rush to get busy between the sheets.  A young articulate couple, they’ve been together for five years and have that satisfyingly acclimated aura of a happily nested pair.  The only odd note is that after a certain point, they seem to be a little awkward about undressing in front of one another.

It isn’t long before the barely visible specter of foreboding that steals over them gets pulled from the shadows.  Sometime since they’ve been together, Adam’s found the courage to confess his desire to transition from being a woman and become male.  When they originally met, they were two women, lesbians whose relationship led to love.  It may have been a startling revelation for Lilly. But that depends on the amount of candor that defined their union.  Others in her position would have left immediately.  Lilly stayed, but two years into a regimen of testosterone treatments and the transformation of her once girlfriend’s physical appearance, and Lilly is experiencing a change of heart.  She eventually tells Adam she can’t go do it and leaves. 

Her departure though doesn’t prove final.  She keeps resurfacing, coming back to the apartment to house sit and care for Adam’s diabetic cat when he needs to travel for work.  Stopping by repeatedly to clarify her position and probe his.  Through their back and forth, we get an enlightening, indeed an enlivened picture of the complexity and far-reaching ripple effects a single very personal decision can produce.

Because they’re both so expressive, so fluent in disclosing their innermost feelings, we learn the rupture isn’t at heart due to superficialities.  It seems to center on personal perception of self and how they both want to experience intimacy beyond sex.  

Because he has allies, Adam enjoys the benefit of other insights.  His friend Samuel (Omer Abbas Salem), whose “gayese” is superb and whose piquant wit is lined with razors, has tons of excellent advice.  Adam’s sister Natalie (Ashlyn Lozano) is equally supportive and just savvy as Sam.  We never know why neither Samuel or Natalie seem to care for Lily who, despite the amount of time she has on stage and the good sense she consistently demonstrates, seems bereft of boosters in her corner. 

A woman Adam meets at a family social event and eventually hooks up with, Alycia, played with wonderfully brash assurance by Emma Fulmer, helps paint a bracing image of what dating looks like 2 ½ decades into the 21^st century.  Through her frankness, she lets Adam get a clearer picture of how a trans man who hasn’t had any below the belt alterations can fit into today’s sexual cosmos.

Milo Bue’s subdued polished set offers an unobtrusive and pleasing backdrop to this edifying drama of the heart.  Ethan Korvne’s sound design and original music bring unexpected texture to Adam’s story and shows how well composed sound elements can complement dramatic theater.  And thanks to Catherine Miller’s cosmopolitan approach to casting, we gain a promising view into the possible. 

Language that sometimes strays toward the ponderous, and occasionally less than fluid scene transitions, prove only mildly distracting.  They don’t lessen the suspense of how Adam will come to fully accept himself as the man he now is rather than some fantasized ideal.  Nor do they leave us less curious of about how that kind of epiphany will impact his relationship with Lily.  

What Modern Gentleman does most gratifyingly is shed thoughtful and intelligently humane light on one of the unseen and unheralded in our midst to give us a fuller understanding of ourselves.

Modern Gentleman

Through April 18, 2026

About Face Theatre

Venue:  Raven Theater

6157 N. Clark Street

Chicago, IL  60660

For more information and tickets:   https://aboutfacetheatre.com

This review is proudly shared with our friends at www.TheatreInChicago.com. 

Created in 1904, Giacomo Puccini’s Madama Butterfly has become one of the world’s greatest and most popular operas.  New York’s Metropolitan Opera alone had performed it 902 times prior to the beginning of its 2023-24 season.  Renowned for his gifts for melody, Puccini’s musical component is ravishingly beautiful.  His manner of intermixing cultural references into his orchestration also makes it exquisitely complex.  Enhanced with a gripping story about the power of trust and the fragility of love, Madama Butterfly qualifies as an irrefutable masterpiece. Throughout its existence though, the opera has also been an artistic triumph with issues.

An adaptation of a one-act play written in 1900, which itself was based on a short story by an American author, John Luther Long two years earlier, it’s been criticized as being a flawed fantasy.  One created by white men about the essence of another culture.  In this case, Japan.  In Madama Butterfly, an American, Lt. B. F. Pinkerton, arrives in the island country and soon begins a quest for love.  A love that he never plans to be lasting.  Once he returns state side, he’ll re-enter the mainstream and marry traditionally.

Since its origin, issues of perception and portrayal have always haunted Puccini’s Madama Butterfly.  He composed it in partnership with Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica who wrote the text or libretto.  For most of the opera’s existence, the way Japanese culture and its people were projected robbed them of dimension and ultimately diminished their humanity.  In both early productions of the opera and in virtually all that followed, Japanese men saw their virility erased while Japanese women watched their deference be reduced to an exaggerated docility.  As intrinsically lovely Madama Butterfly is as a creative jewel, for the Japanese people and many others of color, it has also been deeply problematic.

For Matthew Ozawa, Director and Chief Artistic Officer of the Lyric Opera of Chicago, it was as well.  As a Japanese-American director of operatic works, his relationship with Puccini’s masterpiece has been fraught.   He knew intrinsically as a director he could never present it in a conventional way.  If he were ever to take on the challenge of staging the piece, he would do it through more enlightened eyes.  The current production of Madama Butterfly he directs at the Lyric, running through April 12^th, shows how spectacular a 122-year-old classic can look and feel with a total makeover by a gifted artisan.

Ozawa’s Madama Butterfly, co-produced by the Cincinnati Opera, Pittsburg Opera, Detroit Opera and the Utah Opera, dismantles the old format and completely rebuilds it in a contemporary context.  The overhaul was so comprehensive, keeping the original orchestration and libretto unaltered and intact was a condition for greenlighting his vision.   

The Company of Madama Butterfly.

Like many men of his generation, Ozawa loved playing video games growing up.  It wasn’t a leap for him to envision Madama Butterfly taking on the features of a machine generated video game offering a portal to an alternate reality.  Pinkerton (tenor Evan LeRoy Johnson) would travel to Japan through his headset and begin a journey that would lead to the devastating consequences we all know will follow.

But first, like any talented leader, Ozawa needed to assemble a team to bring his concept to fruition.  Based on opening night’s performance at the Lyric, a better dream team probably doesn’t exist.  Recruiting all females as his key collaborators, who were either Japanese or Japanese-American, cultural accuracy and agency would no longer be a concern.  Each of them a heavy hitter in her respective craft, the composite experience they created was so remarkable it could easily be considered revelatory.  The superb impact of Kimie Nishikawa’s set designs and Yuki Nakase Link’s lighting talents made on the production’s visual potency and dynamism can’t be overstated. 

A muted background would suddenly blaze in dramatic color and fill with subtly ornate splendor when Pinkerton donned the goggles that would transport him to Japan. There, Maiko Matsushima’s costume designs bowled you away with their texture, imagination, sophistication and beauty.

Even when we first finally meet Cio-Cio-San, Butterfly, played by Karah Son, we’re visited with the unexpected.  She’s as small and delicate as butterflies are, but in her words and carriage you sense the steel in her spine.  At 15, she may have become a geisha to support herself, but she’s clearly proud of the fact that she’s also “well-bred”.   That inner dignity is an ever-present element of her character. 

Son has played this crucial character in houses around the globe; in her native Korea, Warsaw, Berlin, Bologna, Los Angeles and San Francisco just to list a few.  This production marks her Lyric debut.  She knows this part.  From the excellence of her soprano Saturday night, and the flawlessness of her acting abilities, she is this part.   

Johnson, a wonderful tenor who’s also making his debut at the Lyric, makes a compelling Pinkerton.  He doesn’t quite comprehend the import of his words when Sharpless (Zachary Nelson) tells him to “Be Careful, she trusts you”, until it’s too late.  Finally realizing what that trust has cost releases his humanity.  But it can’t stop the payment deception exacts.

In the final scene, where only pathos is expected, this presentation all but blinds you with the complex beauty of real life through the fiction of a story.  Ozawa’s brilliant directing, Son’s gifts as a marvelous actress/vocalist and Puccini’s stunning score converge to cause the soul to quake.  

Puccini’s Madama Butterfly now truly soars.

Madama Butterfly

Through April 12, 2026

Lyric Opera of Chicago

20 N. Wacker Drive

Chicago, IL  60606

For more information and tickets:   https://www.lyricopera.org

Highly Recommended

This review is proudly shared with our friends at www.TheatreInChicago.com. 

What do you do when something in life, an unforeseen occurrence, challenges what you thought was one of your most deeply held beliefs?  What direction do you take if adhering to your convictions could mean sacrificing something exceedingly dear to you?  Do you follow your moral compass or choose the personally expedient? These are the kinds of questions that drive Admissions, Joshua Harmon’s brilliant and piercing 2018 play fresh in its run at Citadel Theatre Company in Lake Forest.  Teasing out the answers to this dilemma makes for some of the best theater you’ll likely find anywhere in the metropolitan area right now.

It takes shape in a place where most of us have little knowledge, an elite private high school on the east coast. This one is named Hillcrest.  Sherri Rosen-Mason (Susie Steinmeyer) has been the Admissions director there for years and throughout her tenure; promoting diversity in the student body has been as much a passion for her as it is a mission.  Every incremental percentage increase in minority enrollment is met with euphoric elation.

Sherri’s husband, Bill (Tim Walsh) leads the school as its headmaster. They have a son, Charlie (Justin Jarzombek), who’s finishing his senior year there.  Highly successful and proudly liberal, Sherri and her husband are more than aware of their privilege in society and are anxious for others with fewer advantages to share in the bounty they enjoy.

The timeframe is just a mere ten years ago when, despite its many vocal detractors, diversity was increasingly the law of the land and becoming enshrined in our institutions.  Because it doesn’t impact them directly or personally, many Americans still respond ambivalently toward the change and view it simply as a manifestation of cultural evolution.  Much like Roberta (Elaine Carlson), Sherri’s Development officer who designs the school’s promotional materials.  She tolerates it or may even support diversity as a principle; but it has no real bearing on her own life.

Aptly directed by Beth Wolf, that perceptual imbalance between Sherri and Roberta provide the foundation for frequent incisive and wonderfully humorous scenes that take place whenever the two women sit down to review the promotional catalogs being sent to prospective students. Roberta doesn’t really understand why she must include more pictures of Black students in the recruitment material.   When Sherri asks her why a Black student would want to come to a school if they didn’t see anybody who looks like them in that school’s brochures, Roberta invariably gives a dismayed pout before moving into defensive dismissiveness.  Echoing the kind of language you’d expect of a person who never felt the drag of race as a weight, her outlook on the subject could easily be thought cavalier.   Full of genteel spunk, and propelled by the boldness of Joshua Harmon’s writing, Carlson in her role of Roberta is as illuminating as a powerful lighthouse.  Exposing this rarely viewed profile of a recessed but likely prevalent national mindset makes her character boundlessly fascinating.  And Carlson fills it with laudatory panache.

Something very similar happens when we learn more about Sherri’s son, Charlie.  Elite private high schools, wherever they’re located, know their purpose.  To help pave the way to assured success.  Excelling in academics, sports and his sundry other interests, Charlie appears destined for a life very similar to his parents.   Both he and his best friend, Perry, the bi-racial son of a professor at the school who’s also a super-achiever, have their eyes on Yale.

Although very close in their achievements, Charlie edges out Perry ever so slightly overall.  But it’s Perry, a person we never see on stage, who’ll get to claim the bulldog, Handsome Dan, as his school mascot next Fall.  Charlie receives a beautifully crafted rejection letter. That’s when the stuff of the nightly news becomes real for the Mason family.  

It’s not unusual for disappointment to induce rage. In a Homeric monologue, one that’s as eloquent as it is tremendously edifying, Charlie unleashes the hurt and angst of a generation who feel as if they’ve been placed on an altar of sacrifice.  A generation of white boys and young men who believe their futures are being used to pay for the past misdeeds of a nation.  Jarzombek delivers it splendidly, pushing it deftly down into the souls of a rapt audience and receiving an immediate and enthusiastic ovation for his efforts.

Just as compelling is its counterpoint, embodied in Ginnie, Perry’s white mom.  Hers is another voice seldom heard on the dramatic stage, that of white woman raising a black child.  Played with lovely craftsmanship by Tina Shelly, she’s angered as well as hurt when she gleans people she considers her friends, people who know her son’s abilities, believe the primary reason Perry was accepted into Yale is his color.   

One of the wonderful things about exceptional writing is that you know not to expect conventional, easily anticipated endings. And there certainly isn’t anything like that here.  It’s the way things resolve that you luxuriate in.  Like the way Charlie rises and demands an equal voice in shaping his future.  And then see where that takes him. Or how Ginnie rejects equanimity to embrace passion and stands her ground; never vacillating in her defense and championing the primacy of her family.  Shedding giddy to proudly wrap herself in armor. 

As delightful as the rest of the cast, Steinmeyer as Sherri and Walsh as her stalwart other half gleamed like fine gems as played a married couple who knew how to push and challenge each other with both true force and real respect.  What they don’t do is also very telling.  Which makes Admissions the kind of story your mind might return to when you find yourself, someone you know or even a country, thrashing through a moral conundrum.

Admissions

Through March 15, 2026

Citadel Theatre Company

300 S. Waukegan Road

Lake Forest, IL   60045

For more information and tickets:  https://www.citadeltheatre.org/admissions

Highly Recommended

This review is proudly shared with our friends at www.TheatreInChicago.com.

Sometimes we can’t fully appreciate the giants who walk among us until we have the chance to view them and their achievements through hindsight. In the case of tennis great Billie Jean King, that process is being bolstered through the arts. Now playing at Chicago Shakespeare Theater (CST), a powerful and unabashedly joyful retrospective of King’s life portrays a woman initially driven simply by a thirst for winning. As the story about her grows and her life begins to take shape, winning remains a driving force, but fairness and equality soon join it to ultimately define the full scope of her destiny.

The first female athlete to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian award, and with enough Grand Slam tennis titles and Wimbledon victories to keep her emblazoned in the record books for centuries, she’s now an icon in the truest sense of the word. She’s also at that stage of life when one considers how they will be remembered. When approached about a project focusing on her life, King was open to a play. What surprised playwright Lauren Gunderson is that she was recruited to write Billie Jean, the theatrical sensation currently premiering at CST.

Although Gunderson may have been startled by her selection, the choice couldn’t have been more ideal. Not only is she the one most produced contemporary playwrights in the country, but her work is also very often women centered with the express intent of highlighting the contributions of the less seen and unseen. Most commonly too, her vantage point is usually historical. In this effort, she would be working with a living national treasure to present a truthful and moving account of the valleys as well as the mountains of a highly notable life. Her prodigious writing prowess along with Marc Bruni’s masterfully perceptive direction turn Billie Jean into a celebration of being who you are and staying true to one’s core convictions.

You see King at her most pure shortly after the play’s splashy adrenaline-stirring intro and a little firecracker lights up the stage in the form of Julia Antonelli as a young Billie Jean. As precocious intellectually as she soon proves to be athletically, the pre-pubescent tennis wonder is an observant keg of energy with plenty of questions and more than capable of making her own keen deductions about the world she lives in. Once she dips her toe into the sport of tennis, she’s hooked and hungers to get better so that she can win. Her drive to become the best at what she does makes her ceaselessly inquisitive. When she crosses paths with Althea Gibson, one of the first black women to push aside the color barrier in international tennis and the first to win a Grand Slam, the trailblazer shares nuggets of truth that will stay with the youngster for the rest of her life. Pearls like trusting yourself first and that despite hardships, obstacles and hurdles, “winners find a way”.

That phrase becomes a mantra, in addition to nuggets like “one ball at a time” and “pressure is a privilege”. They keep bubbling up whenever a setback threatens or doubt begins to loom in this very fast paced production that makes a NASCAR race look like a sad jalopy crawl around a beat-up track. Wilson Chin’s scenic design bubbles over with the green of a lush grass tennis court. Joined by David Bengali’s splendid projections and videos to enhance both intimacy and excitement, the show’s production components are nothing less than stunning.

Despite being a world celebrity and cultural exemplary for over half a century, there’s probably only a small percentage of the public who’re familiar with the fact Billie Jean King was once Billie Jean Moffitt. Married to Larry King in her early 20s, well before she achieved the fame she enjoys today, aspects of her private life are as fascinating as her career in tennis. Gunderson’s honest penetrating writing, coupled with Chilina Kennedy’s superb performance as King, exposes the heroic internal growth the tennis star experienced outside the limelight as well as in. It’s an aspect of her story that proves every relationship is supremely unique.  The two decades she spent with her former husband testify to how poignantly inscrutable so many marriages can be.  Through his portrayal, Dan Amboyer as Larry King brought a level of compassionate regard to his role that one rarely has a chance to witness on stage or screen. Those scenes depicting Billie Jean King the person give expression to the play’s heart. The ones that recall King’s advocacy unleash its fire.  

Outrage doesn’t always spur action.  It did for King. Incensed that as the top performing player in her sport, she was not being justly compensated because of her sex, initially drew her ire. That pique then turned her into a tireless proponent for pay equity in sports. The legitimacy of her cause took time to take root and withstood considerable opposition before it gained traction. It was the prelude to the historic battle of the sexes in 1973 when King defeated Bobby Riggs in three straight sets. The victory was enormous and brilliantly brought back to thrilling life in Billie Jean.

When King fell in love her wife, Ilana Kloss, she had to make a choice. She’d already defended the right of transgender athlete, Rene Richards, to play in professional women’s tennis. Realizing it was necessary to show up with the same kind of bravery for herself, she set a standard for how to achieve true self-actualization. That model continues to inspire legions today.  

In Billie Jean, a lot more aspiring winners are handed the blueprint for finding their way through the transformative power of the arts.

Billie Jean

Through August 10, 2025

Chicago Shakespeare Theater

Navy Pier

800 E. Grand

Chicago, IL  60611

https://www.chicagoshakes.com/

Highly Recommended

*This review is also featured on https://www.theatreinchicago.com/! 

Taking part of its title from a defining song that drew attention to the AIDS crisis in the mid 80s, That’s What Friends Are For: Gladys, Dionne and Patti combines thoughtful storytelling and fantastic music to honor the cultural contributions of three outstanding artists.  Currently playing at Black Ensemble Theater (BE) through late July, it also highlights how the three women referenced, now each in their eighth decade, have been able to sustain a close and abiding friendship for over fifty years.  That BE fulfilled its mission to offer a fresh look back on the careers and discography of Gladys Knight, Dionne Warwick and Patti LaBelle so brilliantly is more refreshing than it is surprising.   Proving that even when you’ve honed your craft expertly for nearly half a century, you can still innovate and discover new approaches to offer the theater going public something novel and tremendously exciting. 

Written and directed by Daryl D. Brooks, the theater’s Producing Managing Director, the musical’s more dramatic elements take place in the Green Room of a leading Vegas nightclub where the three legends will be headlining a performance.  Chic and relaxingly plush, it reads as a fitting setting for a reunion of luminaries.  Acting as their tender who’s indubitably accomplished at what he does and has a history serving at least one of the women in the past, ensemble member Dennis Dent dials up the comedy quotient by compulsively oversharing some of the racier parts of his own love life while accommodating their every desire. It doesn’t take long to become comfortably acquainted with who’s who and embrace the authenticity of the high regard the women hold for one another. 

We’re initially introduced to the three stars in their fully formed and mature personas.   Rose Marie Simmons portrays the contemporary Gladys Knight and Sybyl Walker and Tamara Batiest play the mature versions of Dionne Warwick and Patti LaBelle respectively. Later, as the play progresses, different actors will represent the younger fledgling versions of each of them.

What appears to be a chance comment by one of the trio early in the show launches Gladys, Ms. Simmons, into a rendition of Oh Happy Day that’s so rousing it makes you sit up straight and causes your eyes to widen.  Captivating your attention with its power, conviction, ingenious arrangement and artistic mastery, a classic is transformed into something splendidly new.   You soon learn singing and blue-chip musicality on that level would be the standard for the entire performance. 

As the women reminisce about their early years, how they all started out as backup singers whose distinctiveness eventually took them to the standalone mic at the center of the stage, the music and sound that led to their discovery and fame was brought back to the fore.  This was done most effectively when focused on Dionne Warwick’s career.   

Anyone faintly familiar with Warwick’s rise knows how pivotal her association with Burt Bacharach was in fueling her fame and it’s the scene with the young Dionne (Brianna Buckley) and Mr. Bacharach, played by Michael Santos, that riveted for its realism and resonance.  When the mature Dionne states she’s always been a “no-nonsense black woman who knows her worth”, it’s Buckley who brings the depth of that conviction to blazing life.  Unyielding in her indignation when she learns her mentor and partner has given a song written expressly for her to another artist, her fury, its intensity made more potent because it was so contained and focused, reverberated like shock waves through the theater.  With the steely ardor Buckley brought to it, the power of that scene could have been used to inspire and spawn an entirely new companion play. Its real-life outcome was to provide the seed for one the biggest hits Bacharach would write for Warwick, Don’t Make Me Over.

Similar insights about pivotal moments and crucial intersections that would go on to define the trajectory of each of their lives swirled through the production; giving each of their lives fuller dimension and engendering greater respect for what they all eventually accomplished.  Fame and fortune have no impact on how well Cupid shoots his arrow and all three women knows, as the play recounts, the sting that comes when it strikes badly.

Reflecting on how their careers overlapped and remembering the friendships they shared with others in the industry, unexpected delicacies were woven into Brooks’ tight illuminating script.  When some of “ReeRee’s” (Aretha Franklin’s) idiosyncrasies were playfully and lovingly recalled, her music was also resurrected with a sensational rattle-the-rafters medley of a few of her signature masterworks, Respect, Think and Ain’t No Way. 

Similar delights lay in wait when Luther’s name entered the conversation.  Characteristically suave, another ensemble regular, Dwight Neal, can always be counted on to nudge the bar to impressive new heights; but his vocal interpretations of Mr. Vandross, in tandem with the outstanding musicianship of BE’s rock-solid band, were remarkable.  Adding another layer of excellence to an already break-out show.  And as wonderful as it was, his performance was not its highlight.  That distinction goes unequivocally to Tamara Batiest in her role as Patti LaBelle. When you consider Ms. LaBelle’s vocal range, outsized charisma and the signature theatrics she’s been known to exhibit on stage, filling her shoes would seem like an intimidating task.  Batiest’s take on Patti makes the challenge look trivial, becoming an avatar who’s as realistic and enthralling, if not more so, than the original.  Garnering her a standing ovation every time she sang.   Seeing Batiest commanding a Chicago stage more often, in addition to Ms. Simmons and Ms. Walker, would be a boon to the cultural vitality of the city.

Also adding to the production’s luster, Tanji Harper’s choreography included a dash of smooth sophisticated elegance to the steps she devised for the Spinners and Ms. Knight’s faithful Pips.  Complemented by Keith Ryan’s polished costume designs, That’s What Friends Are For’s visual pleasures ideally framed a night of marvelous music.  

That’s What Friends Are For: Gladys, Dionne and Patti

Through July 27, 2025

Black Ensemble Theater

4450 N. Clark Street

Chicago, IL   60640

https://blackensembletheater.org

Highly Recommended

*Extended through August 10th

*This review is also featured on https://www.theatreinchicago.com/! 

Dance performances can often be moving events but rarely do they hold the density, breadth and depth of emotions Giordano Dance Chicago’s (GDC) Spring engagement encompassed Friday night at the Harris Theater.  Part tribute, part commemoration of a milestone, and a total celebration of life, Soaring: Life, Light and Legacy spanned the gamut of all the things that can be interpreted more eloquently through the beauty of the arts.

Nan Giordano, celebrating her 40^th year at the helm of the dance company her father, Gus, created 62 years ago, lost her son and only child Keenan Giordano Casey suddenly and unexpectedly last year.  Each of the six dances performed in the Spring lineup touched on, either directly or tangentially, an aspect relating to these two events.  The skill in which GDC accomplished this feat makes the title given to the program a quiet touch of genius.

Opening with the first public performance of Sana, a work created from the verdant and sometimes ground shifting imagination of Al Blackstone, the dance centers on the notion of healing by striking notes reverberating with lightness and possibility.  Strains of calypso could be detected in percussionist’s Stahv Danker’s animated original score.  That same airiness and sense of optimism could also be found in the expectancy shining through the dancers’ movements and in the understated vibrancy of Devert Monet Hickman’s costume designs. They all coalesced to telegraph a message of hope.  It’s not unusual for a work’s newness to expose areas that could benefit from a bit more honing.  And it’s clear that once that sharpening occurs with Sana, its palliative message will ring with even greater resonance.

Some brand-new works though arrive in the world perfectly and 333 certainly counts as one of them.  A solo piece designed specifically for GDC principal dancer Erina Ueda by Ms. Giordano and GDC Associate Artistic Director, Cesar G. Salinas, it is quite simply a mesmerizing tour de force.  Dance can often be summed up as a combination of three parts.  Music, choreographic design, and execution. Here they are in a ravishingly flawless balance.

The rawness of life is something we often prefer to deny, despite its centrality to our very being and existence. Representing angel numbers that connect Ms. Giordano, her son Keenan and her father together, 333 embraces it, glorifies it and opens itself to its power.  Danced to the timeless and near magical appeal of Otis Redding’s signature rendition of Try a Little Tenderness, 333 simmers, explodes and stews in the vicissitudes of life.  I can’t imagine anyone being a better vessel for translating the impact of its mysteries than Ueda, whose expressive range seems boundless and appears to expand with the arrival of each new season.

It also proved the ideal prelude to Soaring, the dance tribute created for her son by Giordano, Salinas and the GDC dancers themselves.

A film introducing the audience to who and the type of person Keenan Casey was, and exposing the respect and love mother and son shared, preceded the dance itself, creating an atmosphere of compassionate awe.  Dancers in Nina G.’s costumes of wispy white then swept from both wings of the stage; ethereal and yet still grounded in the gravity of earthly cares.  Solemnity and exaltation danced in harmony as the entire company was later joined by 25 Keebirds, friends of Giordano’s son, Keenan.  Keebird was the sobriquet they used when referring to their fallen comrade.  Also dressed in white, feet bare and carrying lighted symbols of renewal they walked through the aisles and up to the stage in stoic silence while Antonio Pinto’s music filled the hall.  Striking, poignant and deeply touching, it symbolizes how wrenching great loss can be and how it can be willed into the spiritually restorative.

After a brief pause to absorb Soaring’s impact, lightning struck in the form of, what looked like to these eyes, a totally revamped version of Red and Black.  Created last year by Ray Leeper, the sultry jazz-soaked wonder, already sizzling with energy in its original format, seemed even more kinetic, electrified and polished to a blinding gleam. Opening to an extended version of an obscure Eartha Kitt jewel, female dancers in clinging gowns with long slits let it be known it’s a woman’s world.  One misstep and you’re likely to get scorched, bringing a whole new dimension to the term “deliciously provocative”.  In a program that covered a range of dance styles, this was vintage Giordano in peak form.  Confident, irrepressible, dazzling, athletic, brash. Bonji Duma’s musical expertise helped pump up the adrenalin to power it all.  Along with Ms. Kitt’s vocal brilliance, the music of Moloko, Scott Bradlee’s Postmodern Jukebox, Michael Bublé and Club De Belugas kept this rocket zooming.

Respite came with the visually enchanting Taal, an East Indian concept piece choreographed by Ms. Giordano in 2001.  The name derives from the traditional rhythmic pattern found in classical Indian music, brought to life here with works from Anuradha, Suno A.R. Rahman and S. Jhaia.   Asifa Imran’s graceful and culturally reflective costumes did their part to transport us to another place and time.  An important part of classical Indian dance, hand gestures are used to express a wide range of emotions and were incorporated extensively within Taal.  The effect was to fuse the identities of two dance cultures to create a unique artistic hybrid and something refreshingly new.

Following another short film shedding invaluable insight into what it takes to make a successful dance company thrive and the passion, talent and grit required to be a dancer within it; the program closed with Pyrokinesis. Living up to everything its name implies, this little stick of dynamite in the company’s repertoire, developed by Christopher Huggins in 2007, was a delight to see again. Dressed once again in red and black, this time sleekly styled by Branimira Ivanova, dancers showed what it means to be members of the most elite jazz dance company in the country, if not the world.  The dynamism found in Ray Leeper’s earlier piece simply takes a different form here, but the infectiousness of its joy, verve and vitality were just as powerful, energizing and uplifting.  A fitting close to a night commemorating life, light and transformational legacy.

Soaring: Life, Light and Legacy

Giordano Dance Chicago

April 4-5, 2025

Harris Theater for Music and Dance

205 E. Randolph Street

Chicago, IL   60601

*This review can also be found at Theater in Chicago.

Don’t be deceived by the title.  The phrase “lifespan of a fact” sounds about as dry as the Mojave Desert and just a mite confusing.  But, as Glenview’s Oil Lamp Theater’s current stage production proves, those knee jerk perceptions turn out to be completely absurd.  Instead, its The Lifespan of a Fact is about as engrossing and entertaining as anything you’ll find on the big screen, a streaming service or another theatrical stage.

Adapted from a 2012 book of the same title, the play re-enacts the fiery real-life interplay between a writer and his fact checker about a magazine article concerning suicide in Las Vegas. A sixteen-year-old boy, Levi Presley, jumped from the Stratosphere Hotel in 2002. The author writing about his death, John D’Agata, used his piece to talk more broadly about the scourge of suicide and its prevalence in Vegas.  Jim Fingal was the fact checker assigned to him by the magazine publishing his essay.  Together, they would eventually co-author the book, The Lifespan of a Fact, revealing the laborious and harrowing process of ensuring the preservation of truth remains the cornerstone of journalistic practice. Derived from the book, Oil Lamp’s standout presentation of the play, which debuted in 2018, brings that process blazingly to life.

It starts innocently enough, slathered as it is in the hallmarks of high stakes corporate urgency. Magazine editor Emily Penrose (Marianne Embree) needs a fact checker for an article by a highly regarded writer known to take creative liberties with his submissions. She taps a young, eager and very bright recent Harvard grad, Jim Fingal (James Wheeler), for the job.  He’s got three days to make sure every detail is accurate and if they’re not, make sure they are by Monday. Fingal assures her he’s got this.  Not only does he carry the Harvard stamp, he reminds her he also worked on the college’s vaunted newspaper, The Crimson.  After reviewing his strategy with her, he’s flushes whatever plans he had for the weekend and plunges into his task.

Quickly noticing discrepancies in what the author stated and what was fact, he queries her about how best to address the conflict.  High ranking editors in New York’s media empires don’t usually have time for the tedium of minutiae and she recommends he call D’Agata himself for clarifications or corrections.  With that recommendation, she’s unwittingly introducing dynamite to a flame.

So driven is he to meet his commitment, Fingal hops a plane to Vegas, uninvited and uninstructed, to meet with the author. From moment one, Wheeler as Fingal fills his role so completely you have no reservations cheering his conviction, even if he is a bit top heavy in the sanctimonious and ego departments.  The first has a lot to do with who he’s dealing with.  He and D’Agata, splendidly played by Tim Walsh, have opposing views on the pliability of journalistic tenets.  D’Agata doesn’t even want to call the piece he submitted an article.  He prefers to reference it as an essay, something much more amenable to creative license.  As interested in the feel, texture and aesthetic resonance of his writing as he is in its truth, D’Agata believes some facts, or a portion of the core components of truth, can be sacrificed to the art of writing.  Neither the editor or the fact checker questions the beauty or power of the piece D’Agata has written about the young boy’s death, but they don’t want a compromised truth to be its cost. With two colossal egos at war, the clashes between the two men become titanic and, superficially, hugely comical.  Director Elizabeth Mazur Levin’s nimble sense of pacing keeps anticipation on a steady boil and the scrappy, often scintillating dialog, bullet train fast.   Jeremy Kareken, David Murrell and Gordon Farrell adapted the book for the stage and deserve extravagant praise for how effectively they make the would-be arcane so deliciously palatable.  

Although the play’s beginning transpires in the blank sterility of a New York office building, the bulk of it happens in D’Agata’s Las Vegas home.  There, Ellen Markus’s scenic design gives a sobering view of what life as an acclaimed and respected feature writer might look like.  It’s not an enviable or tempting picture.  Rather it’s quite modest and absent of anything that suggests indulgence or noticeable luxury.  D’Agata informs the fact checker that he lived there with his mother until she passed away and confirmed he also teaches at a local university in Las Vegas.  It’s the type of solitary existence that fosters contemplation.  And it also seems to be an environment where convictions easily harden. 

In a desperate attempt to salvage a written work she hopes will be a part of her legacy at the magazine, the editor, Penrose, eventually ends up in Vegas, too.  As the three pick the article/essay apart, evaluating the import, significance and intrinsic criticality of each factual element, you sense the gravity of what they’re attempting to do.  As much as Fingal the fact checker abhors it, they’re “negotiating” on what and how information will be relayed in D’Agata’s story.  How truth, as they collectively agree to define it, will be expressed.   The process is quiet, reasoned and as gripping as watching the deliberations of a “trial of the century” live and in-person. 

It would be terrific if seeing the play does what the artistic team behind the production would like it to do, generate conversation about the relationship between truth, facts and storytelling.  But if it doesn’t, The Lifespan of a Fact will make you think about all those things more intently, more actively and, in essence, leave you a changed person.  The acting, directing and production value just happen to push the entertainment quotient sky high. 

The Lifespan of a Fact

Through April 13, 2025

Oil Lamp Theater

1723 Glenview Road

Glenview, IL  60025

https://www.oillamptheater.org/mainstage-productions/the-lifespan-of-a-fact

*This review is also featured on https://www.theatreinchicago.com/!

Prolific, and routinely recognized as being one of the most produced playwrights in the country, Lauren Gunderson’s range is as impressive as the quality and popularity of her work.  Inspiration for her plays often springs from things she loves, with history and science at the top of the list.  They can also arise from sheer curiosity or when she notices a subject matter void.  I and You can be said to fall in both latter categories.  Now playing in Lake Forest’s Citadel Theatre, it burrows into the lives of people we don’t see enough on the theatrical stage, the young.  By centering on youth, she gives us an opportunity to better understand ourselves from a rarely observed perspective. 

In I and You, a genetic condition diagnosed at birth has Caroline (Amia Korman), now 17, homebound.  She used to be able to go to school, but the progression of her illness now has her doing remote learning exclusively.  With a wonderful wall of photographs and images covering its back wall, a not too frilly bedroom and her stuffed turtle make up her universe.  The only human contact she has is with her mother; someone we never see.  Understandably, she’s both surprised and alarmed when Anthony (Jay Westbrook) bursts into her room after a perfunctory knock on the door looking for help with a homework assignment.  Directed by Scott Shallenbarger, it’s a tense encounter.  Anthony’s Black, and there’s a tinge of racial fear detectable in the scene.  But through it we get a baseline on the character of these two young people; or at least on how they relate to other people.

Caroline’s prickly, defensive and sharp-tongued.  We soon detect too that she’s angry about not having a normal teenage life and psychologically weary of waking up to the possibility of imminent death every morning of her life.  Anthony’s just a regular pleasant teenager intent on getting an assignment done.  Sports, other interests and procrastination have put him behind the eight ball and, with the assignment due the next day, he’s a little anxious.  When he lets slip that he volunteered to team with Caroline on this project, he’s compelled to admit he did so because she was a topic of curiosity at their school, and he wanted to meet her.  Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass is the assignment and, despite being an avid B-baller, Anthony’s a big fan of Whitman’s poetry.  Beautiful and still groundbreaking 170 years after it was originally published, Whitman’s classic looms large over the entire play.  So much so you might find yourself checking your bookshelves for a copy when you get home to reacquaint yourself with the poet’s seminal genius.

Gunderson’s writing and Shallenbarger’s direction perfectly capture the almost exasperatingly rapid speed and quirky fluidity of teenage-ese.  Well matched in its fluency, Caroline and Anthony also happen to be very intelligent and willing, once trust is gained, to speak candidly to one another.  Something not easily done with someone who’s accustomed to closing herself off from a world that hasn’t given her much to believe in.  What Caroline doesn’t want is pity, especially in the form of reflexive or obligatory niceness.  It’s the reason she initially closes the door to kindness of any type from Anthony. 

Picking up cues from the way Anthony talks about his father, his love of jazz and his interaction with girls, she feels he has it all.  It’s a notion he quickly disabuses her of by revealing personal flaws and confessing to missteps he’s taken that bring balance to her perception of him.  Flashes of vulnerability that they both share lead to frank, thoroughly absorbing dialogues about death.  When she confesses her dream of being a photographer and travelling the world, and then demurs saying she knows it’s all fantasy, it's Anthony’s turn to bristle by demanding she “stare it down and don’t give up”.   Both young actors display a natural and refined intuition for their craft. The deeper their roles take them, the greater their appeal as they invest an uncanny honesty into their characters.  As they disclose more and more about themselves, barriers between them begin to quietly tumble.  Something that they both notice, resist, slowly accept and finally embrace. 

As with so many who share her craft, displaying the universal need for connection between people was a conscious goal of the playwright in I and You.  That the two characters be of different races or ethnic backgrounds was a casting condition for Gunderson in this play as well.  As the playwright has noted, it’s reflective of the real world and doing so created a silent but constant reminder of the arbitrary boundaries we create between ourselves.   As Caroline and Anthony gain deeper insights into each other, and as they explore together the wonders and possibilities Whitman’s words engender, the barriers separating them, including that of race, fade like a mist.  They quite unconsciously begin to focus on what they have in common.  An affection that only deep understanding arouses begins to germinate, preceding an ending that’s so startling it makes some people gasp. A shock that prods us to take stock of ourselves and the world we live in through a more illuminating and expansive light. 

Unobtrusive yet discreetly distinctive, David Solotke’s set design held insinuating touches that added notes of mystery to the play and Jodi Williams’ lighting during pivotal moments amplified its drama in hugely rewarding ways.  Paired with an exemplary story, very fine acting and discerning sure direction, Citadel’s production of I and You is a delight that can be savored long after the lights come up. 

I and You

Through March 23, 2025

Citadel Theatre

300 S. Waukegan Road

Lake Forest, IL  60045

https://www.citadeltheatre.org/

*You can also find this review featured on https://www.theatreinchicago.com/.