Items filtered by date: November 2007

In celebration of Roosevelt University’s 70^th anniversary, the Auditorium Theatre brings in two iconic stage and television veterans for its one night performance of “An Evening with the Roosevelts”. Ed Asner, known mostly for his portrayal of “Lou Grant” on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and much more recently as “Santa Claus” in the holiday hit Elf, takes on the role of Franklin Roosevelt while Loretta Swit, identified mostly as “Margaret ‘Hot Lips’ Houlihan” in the 1970’s breakout hit M.A.S.H. plays Eleanor Roosevelt. 

The one evening performance is broken down into two plays – the first has Asner portraying the former President in “FDR” followed by Swit as the famous First Lady in “Eleanor”. As Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Asner touches on his battle with polio, his running for governor then president and the attack on Pearl Harbor that forced America into the second World War. Wondering beforehand if Asner would be a good fit as FDR, I left with mixed feelings. Asner’s gruff and forward delivery along with a very visible dedication to the role seemed to work well enough to make one eventually get past the obvious disparity in appearance. Still as spunky as ever, the eighty-five years young Asner can be a fireball when called upon and he also generates a fair share of laughs from the crowd. His intensity is admirable, his emotional capacity impressive and his timing still impeccable. Hobbling around the set with a pair of canes, Asner also adds a physical dynamic that is as believable as the lines he delivers. Unfortunately, as good as Asner is, the material and formatting come off a bit lackluster. Slow-paced and a lack of redeeming values and poignant realizations leave this show less than memorable outside of Asner’s passionate performance.

Loretta Swit can also be a pleasure to watch as she portrays Eleanor Roosevelt in her compliment to Asner’s “FDR”, but the same holds true as far as her show’s lack of engaging material and its tendency to drift back and forth. The Emmy-Winning actress’ one-woman show starts after the death of Franklin Roosevelt. “Eleanor” begins when President Truman asks her to head the American delegation to the newly created United Nations. Eleanor ponders the offer for some time before accepting the offer, realizing the massive potential such a position could have on women’s rights. We also learn about FDR’s affair and the conflict within herself on whether to leave him or not. Swit is charming and graceful as the First Lady but she is also no nonsense when need be.

To see two such famously polished actors perform such important roles from our great American History is still novelty enough despite the not so engrossing scripts. Plus, each show contains plenty of factual tidbits that may be unknown to some, making this special event a great history lesson – or refresher, as well. 

The Auditorium Theatre has plenty lined up right around the corner with scheduled performances by Damien Rice, Lila Downs, Chicago Rhythm Fest and The Eifman Ballet of St. Petersburg. THE NFL Draft will also be taking place at the Auditorium Theatre beginning April 30th, making its first appearance in Chicago in just over fifty years. For more Auditorium event information visit http://www.auditoriumtheatre.org/.  

If RENT made a baby with an episode of Dateline, the result might be something like Murder Ballad, the musical. This rock opera tells the story of a love triangle gone out of control, and there is much in the way of drama, energetic pop/rock anthems, suspense, and -- you guessed it -- murder.

In New York City, Sara is an Upper West sider who seemingly has it all: money, a good husband, a beautiful daughter, but she also harbors a dark, destructive past that was never fully left behind. When she reconnects with her unpredictable ex, Tom, her life takes a turn towards the chaotic and explosive.

The audience is launched head-first into the story as the four-person cast of Murder Ballad belts and wails their way through 75 minutes of frenzied rock numbers, strung together by a crooning fly-on-the-wall narrator. A unique element of this show is the voyeuristic set-up and theme. Essentially, you are sitting in Sara's kitchen, and Tom's bedroom, and the King's Club, the divey downtown joint that serves as the homebase for this tale. You're not onstage or offstage, you're sharing the space with these folks. You can even order a complimentary drink at the bar before showtime, then take a seat with your friends to hungrily watch the plot unfold. Because after all, to paraphrase from the show's finale, drama is delicious entertainment, "until it happens to you."

Murder Ballad, created by Julia Jordan and Juliana Nash, and directed by James Beaudry, is playing at the Flat Iron Arts Building (1579 N Milwaukee Ave) until May 9th. Tickets available at bailiwickchicago.com.

From the moment actor Anthony Crivello as Jazz great, Louis Prima, is wheeled onto the stage on a hospital bed speaking to us from a coma, and snaps his fingers to begin the story of his life, the audience is absolutely enthralled by his manic yet superbly commanding presence until the last moment of the show 90 minutes later.

“Live at the Sahara” looks like another hit for very talented producer, Hershey Felder. Academy Award Winning director and writer Taylor Hackford and writers Jake Broder, and Vanessa Stewart have written a fast moving, compelling 90 minute version of Prima’s life beginning when his big band goes out of style and Prima reinvents his act by taking on a seventeen-year-old songbird he renames Keely Smith.

Vanessa Claire Stewart not only helped write this dynamite and very entertaining and touching true love story, she also stars beautifully and believably as the modernly talented Keely Smith.

The show is packed with Prima and Keely hit songs from their once very successful Vegas cabaret act performed with his over the top enthusiasm and her cool cat like deadpan nonchalance like, “What is This Thing Called Love”, “I Can’t Believe Your In Love With Me”, “Hey Boy, Hey Girl”, “Night Train”, “Ai,Ai,Ai” and of course their most famous “That Ol’ Black Magic”.

Prima helped Keely become a star then deeply resented and even hated her for it.  Keely gave him two daughters and helped him completely revive his sagging career with her wonderful voice and youthful, ahead of her time hipster energy, but in the final analysis Prima cheated on her and drove her into the arms of friend and producer Frank Sinatra (played with swagger by Paul Perroni). Erin Mathews was a delight in her many ensemble roles as Keely’s mom and later as the many women who came between Keely and Prima.

I loved the seven-piece band that played the entire show onstage and became part of the play many times. The staging and costumes were true to period but I got the feeling this is just a build up for what should be a very nice, large Broadway show in the future. I wanted to see more of the duo in their complete stage act, about ten minutes more and more of the supporting characters.  Also, I felt the show and script were so interesting, detailed and well written that there could have been a nice twenty-minute intermission without disturbing the flow at all. It actually makes Crivello’s performance even more impressive that he maintained his energy at such a high level almost nonstop.

Anthony Crivellos’ performance really has Tony Award written all over it (he previously won a Tony Award for best featured actor as Valentin in Kiss of the Spider Woman). Crivello is so full of Prima’s hard to copy musical manic energy and rhythms it was mind blowing to watch. In the final scene where Prima has lost Keely, and his second family of daughters and suffered a heart attack leaving him comatose for three years before his death, Crivello sings another version of “Just a Gigolo” with a heart breaking and teeth grinding pathos that just shakes the audience to its core, making you realize his own tragic fatal flaw was written by him in this song years earlier.

“Just a gigolo, everywhere I go
People know the part I'm playing
Paid for every dance
Selling each romance
Every night some heart betraying
There will come a day
Youth will pass away
Then what will they say about me
When the end comes I know
They'll say just a gigolo
As life goes on without me”

Throughout Prima’s life, his friends and the women who loved him tried to convince him to settle down into the gift of family life but his ego and desire to be the sole STAR, even at the expense of his own wife’s devoted love and friendship, ruin every opportunity for healthy continuity.

Prima tried and failed to be a Svengali to one more young songstress after driving Keely way for good but never realized that Keely was his once in a lifetime, irreplaceable, creative soul mate.

I highly recommend seeing “Louis and Keely, Live at the Sahara”, it is a solidly written, dynamically played production that is filled with great classic music and a true life story of genius and showbiz both victorious and tragic.

“Louis and Keely, Live at the Sahara is playing at Royal George Theatre on an open ended run. For tickets and show info visit http://www.theroyalgeorgetheatre.com/.  

Lyric Opera of Chicago is proud to present the all-new exhibition “Creating Carousel” at the Civic Opera House. It opens on Friday, April 10, coinciding with the preview matinee performance of Lyric’s new production of Carousel. The exhibition, on the lower level of the Civic Opera House, will be open for all performances of Carousel through May 3. It is free to performance ticketholders.

“Creating Carousel”features the work of Italian visual artist and set designer Paolo Ventura. When Carousel director/choreographer Rob Ashford saw Ventura’s Winter Stories exhibition about six years ago, he “just fell in love with it,” Ashford recalled. “Part of it was set around a circus, a carnival. It was so moving and so beautiful and I was so captivated by it. I said, ‘If I ever do Carousel, that is the person who must design it.’ Then when Anthony [Freud, Lyric’s general director] approached me about it I said, ‘Can you get this guy?’ We made an all-out effort and we succeeded. We’re very excited to work together, to have Paolo make his theater and opera debut with Carousel in Chicago.”

Ventura accepted the invitation enthusiastically. “My work was already theatrical,” noted the artist. “I was just making theater on my table, so to have the chance to work on a much bigger scale really excited me. I immediately built the caravan, which became the key for the entire show.” That piece will be part of the Opera Club exhibition at Lyric.

“Creating Carousel” features eight set-design paintings, several mid-scale scenic elements that were part of the original design presentation, and a video interview with Ventura. The video element explores Ventura’s photo series Winter Stories, scenes he created as de facto set models and then photographed.

Additionally, the exhibition includes 28 costume-design drawings from the production by Catherine Zuber. Also on view will be vintage objéts on loan from Architectural Artifacts: an illuminated rounding board (the top of a carousel) and three antique carousel horses. Eight 40 x 60” rehearsal photos will be on display in the bar area of the Opera Club.

Carousel ticket holders can visit the “Creating Carousel” exhibition before curtain and during intermission of all performances.  It is co-curated by Michael Schoenig, Lyric’s technical finance manager, and Scott Marr, Lyric’s production design director PAOLO VENTURA is an internationally acclaimed artist who makes his theatrical debut with Carousel. A native of Milan, his work has been exhibited at the Forma International Center for Photography (Milan), Rencontres de la Photographie (Arles), and Maison Européenne de la Photographie (Paris). In 2012 he created a series of works for the Italian national pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennale. His works have been acquired by prominent public collections, including Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, the Library of Congress, and Miami’s Martin Margulies Collection. Four monographs of his work have been published: War Souvenir (Contrasto, 2006), Winter Stories (Aperture and Contrasto, 2009), The Automaton (Peliti Asociati, 2011), and Lo Zuavo Scomparso (Punctum Press, 2012). Ventura was raised by a celebrated Italian children’s book illustrator, and a sense of childlike wonder pervades all of his work, which often features images of street performers, theaters, and cinemas, evoking the fanciful compositions of Toulouse-Lautrec. But Ventura’s work is also imbued with a disquiet that is all the more jarring for the superficially playful nature of his subjects, perhaps reflecting his unease about our changing, increasingly technological world.

CATHERINE ZUBER debuted at Lyric Opera in 2013-14 with costume designs for The Barber of Seville. Her successes in opera include six Metropolitan Opera productions (all seen in HD transmissions), as well as La forza del destino (Washington), Faust (Baden-Baden),Carmen and Nico Muhly’s Two Boys (English National Opera), Roméo et Juliette (Salzburg), and the Ring cycle (Washington, San Francisco). Zuber has been equally acclaimed on Broadway in musical theater (The King and I, Gigi, The Bridges of Madison County, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Cry-Baby, Dracula, Little Women, Triumph of Love, The Sound of Music, The Red Shoes), comedy (Born Yesterday, The Royal Family, Dinner at Eight, Twelfth Night), and drama (Golden Boy, Seascape, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, Oleanna, A Man for All Seasons, Mauritius, Doubt, Little Women, Dracula, Frozen, Ivanov). The eleven- time Tony Award nominee has won for South Pacific, The Coast of Utopia, Awake and Sing!, The Light in the Piazza, and The Royal Family. Her costumes were seen by a vast television audience in NBC/Universal’s broadcasts of The Sound of Music and Peter Pan.

Lyric’s new production of Carousel stars Steven Pasquale as carousel barker Billy Bigelow; Laura Osnes as his true love, millworker Julie Jordan; Jenn Gambatese as Carrie Pipperidge; Matthew Hydzik as Enoch Snow; Denyce Graves as Nettie Fowler; Jarrod Emickas Jigger Craigin; Charlotte d’Amboise as Mrs. Mullin; and Tony Roberts as the Starkeeper. 

Carouselis the third Rodgers and Hammerstein musical to be presented as part of Lyric’s American Musical Theater Initiative. The King and I and South Pacific follow in the 2015-16 and 2016-17 seasons, respectively. Past productions were Oklahoma! in the 2012-13 season and The Sound of Music in the 2013-14 season.

Lyric’s new production of Carousel and the exhibition “Creating Carousel”honor the 70th anniversary of this iconic American musical, which premiered on April 19,1945.

Carousel runs Friday, April 10 through Sunday, May 3, 2015 (26 performances, including one preview matinee and one student matinee) at the Civic Opera House, 20 N. Wacker Dr., Chicago. Tickets start at $29, and are available at lyricopera.org/carousel or at 312-827-5600.  The official press opening for Carousel is Saturday, April 11 at 7pm.

The opening-night performance of Carousel will be broadcast on 98.7WFMT and streamed on wfmt.com on Sunday, April 12 at 7:15pm.

Badfic Love, the new play directed by Aaron Henrickson and written by Adam Pasen, proudly delves into the nerdy world of fan fiction – its readers, its creators and its auditors. What is fan fiction some might ask? For those of you who are not familiar with this somewhat underground phenomena, fan fiction is the act of fans taking characters or settings from an original work (in this case Harry Potter) and creating their own storylines, steering the story into whatever direction they want, despite the fact that the work they create is hardly ever authorized.

In Badfic Love, Kyle works by day at Staples, but his nights are consumed as he is part of an organization (FIC) that monitors fan fiction writing, making sure to keep readers safe from the bad. The group particularly targets Michelle whose self-made continuation of Harry Potter is the epitome of what the organization stands against with its ridiculous storyline and poor grammar. Kyle, thoroughly condemning Michelle’s writing plans on spoofing (“sporking”) her work in his highly-followed blog to the delight of the other FIC members. However, the story takes a turn when Kyle instead falls for Michelle. What would happen to the characters should Michelle stop writing?

A good portion of Strange Bedfellows Theatre’s Badfic Love has Michelle’s fanfic of Harry Potter acted out as her story progresses. Utterly hilarious are Conor Konz and Jake Szczepaniak as Harry and Draco in this twisted adventure where the two former enemies become gay partners and Michelle writes herself in as the hero in every battle. Konz not only strikes an uncanny resemblance to Harry Potter but nails the campy dialogue going far over the top with reckless abandon while Szczepaniak is simply hysterical in his line delivery and physical comedy. But together, they are simply dynamite.

Also funny are the many references to the iconic fantasy epics such as Lord of the Rings, Star Wars and of course Harry Potter. Kyle and other likeminded individuals spend their time at a coffee shop called Middle Earth. Kyle’s favorite table is in the back just under a large picture of Legolas. Benny, a member of FIC, tries in vain to create force fields over doors or pick things up with telekinesis. Proudly donned Marvel t-shirts are worn and insults are thrown around that only have meaning if familiar with the fantasy from which they are spawned.

For the most part, the show is nonstop funny. It would be hard not to be with such an entertaining cast. Badfic Love does slow down a tad towards the end - character and plot resolution, etc, etc, but not enough to take anything away from this very amusing tale of nerdy creativity, being an outsider and finding love.

Besides the show’s fun costumes, projections and sound effects are also used to help in creating the alternative reality of our newly fashioned Harry Potter and Draco, not to mention a handful of well-choreographed fight scenes where blows are met with the trumpeting sounds reminiscent of the 1960’s Batman series. With C2E2 a couple weeks away, Badfic Love is the perfect show to take in to help in preparing your inner geek.   

Badfic Love is at the Den Theatre (1333 N Milwaukee) through May 2^nd. I should also mention that doors open a half hour before each performance for the Badfic Love Wizard Rock Concert Series (free with Badfic Love ticket) where bands including Diagon Alley, Tonks and the Aurors and Hawthorne and Holly will be performing Harry Potter-inspired rock music. A graphic novel of Badfic Love is also available for purchase. For tickets and/or more information visit www.strangebedfellowstheatre.com or call 773-697-3830.  

Continuing its 125^th Anniversary celebration, the Auditorium Theatre of Roosevelt University adds two, one-night-only performances to its momentous season. On Friday, April 10, 2015, “An Evening with the Roosevelts” celebrates Roosevelt University’s 70^th Anniversary. The star-studded evening features Ed Asner performing his one-man show, “FDR” as Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Loretta Swit performing her one-woman show, “Eleanor” as Eleanor Roosevelt. The excitement continues on Sunday, May 31 when Grammy and Academy Award®-winning musician A.R. Rahman makes his Auditorium debut as part of a multi-city North American Tour. “JBL PresentsA.R Rahman: The Intimate Concert Tour” features a range of material from his illustrious career spanning two decades.

“The momentum of our spectacular 125^th Anniversary Season is not slowing down as we bring new and diverse performances to our historic landmark stage,” said Auditorium Theatre Executive Director Brett Batterson. “We are delighted to help celebrate Roosevelt University’s 70^th Anniversary with the special performance of “An Evening with the Roosevelts” starring the incomparable Ed Asner and Loretta Swit. We are equally excited to welcome the internationally renowned talent of A.R. Rahman to our stage. His list of musical accomplishments is unmatched in modern music and his live shows always leave his fans breathless.”

“An Evening with the Roosevelts”

Founded in 1945, Roosevelt University will celebrate its 70^th Anniversary with a special performance and gala dinner on April 10. “An Evening with the Roosevelts” features two, one-act performances by stars Ed Asner, who portrays Franklin Roosevelt and Loretta Swit taking on the persona of Eleanor Roosevelt. Asner, recognized for many roles, including “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” “Lou Grant,” “Elf” and “The Good Wife,” depicts the former president’s achievements that propelled the country through difficult times in World War II and The Great Depression. Asner’s emotional performance also touches upon Roosevelt’s struggles with his declining health and polio. Swit, who starred as Major Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan on the TV show “M*A*S*H,” spotlights the difficulties that Eleanor Roosevelt experienced in her marriage, as well as her accomplishments as a human rights advocate and First Lady. 

Helping to raise funds for student scholarships, the star-studded evening will also feature a special dinner prior to the performance where Roosevelt President Chuck Middleton and FDR’s granddaughters, Anna Eleanor Roosevelt and Nina Roosevelt Gibson (Honorary Chairs of the evening) will be in attendance. Gala dinner Co-Chairs include Roosevelt Trustee Marsha Goldstein (My Kind of Town) and Michael Goldstein; Roosevelt Trustee George Lofton (Lofton & Associate, LLC) and Felecia Lofton; Roosevelt Trustee Alvin Dinwiddie (Loop Capital Markets) and Helen Ashford; and Roosevelt Trustee and Alum Al Golin (Golin Communications) and Alumna June Golin.

Corporate sponsors of “An Evening with the Roosevelts” are Mesirow Financial and McDonalds. For sponsorship opportunities and dinner information please contact Lauren Chill at (312) 341-3849 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Program Schedule and Ticket Information

“An Evening with the Roosevelts”

Friday, April 10, 2015 | 7:30 p.m.

Performance tickets ($25 – $65) are available online at AuditoriumTheatre.org, by calling (800) 982-ARTS (2787) or in-person at Auditorium Theatre’s Box Office (50 E. Congress Pkwy). Discounted tickets for groups of 10 or more are available at (312) 341-2357 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Tickets are free for Roosevelt University students by visiting the theatre at 50 E Congress Pkwy through March 27. Two per valid RU Student ID.

Dinner and performance tickets ($250 single tickets, $5,000 table of 8) are available by contacting Lauren Chill at (312) 341-3849 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. 

Title and Deed is a one man show, a 65 minute monologue delivered on a bare stage with a few subtle lighting changes and the gentle rolling of the lead actor’s wheelchair to signal movement throughout the play.  Will Eno’s writing is often compared to Beckett but I found Eno’s work to be much more sensitive, compassionate and outright funny than Beckett’s plays. 

Chicago actor, Michael Patrick Thornton, (one of the founders of The Gift Theatre Co.) is brilliantly cast in the role of the “Traveler” from another world who is traveling feeling estranged from his own homeland, hoping that “the change of locale that comes with international air travel will somehow change him”.

Thornton is confined to a wheelchair - although the play does not call for the use of a wheelchair, and once seeing the play with him at the helm, one cannot imagine the play succeeding as well in its message without the lead character being disabled. Thornton has a remarkable sense of humor and a sad voice, rough with heartfelt regret, which lobs Eno’s long poetic sentences at the audience with a casual yet thoughtful pinpoint accuracy that evoked laughter and sometimes tears in a way that a lesser actor could not achieve. I was totally surprised to find out that the play was not written to be played by an actor in a wheelchair because much of the understanding we feel towards the Traveler comes naturally from seeing a young-ish man confined to a wheelchair - not from seeing a poor wanderer describing his mother’s death and his alienation from the world now that he has no real connection to his home and it’s joyful traditions.

 We all know instantly when we see the young man rolling up the small hill to the stage that because he is in a wheelchair he has suffered permanent and irreversible losses regarding his own lifestyle.  It almost doesn’t make sense to me to see this play cast with an actor without the wheelchair because so much of the truth about the character is implied and is true about the alienation from daily life, the shrinking of your whole world and fortune, which occurs when you are permanently disabled.

I absolutely adored Eno’s sparing, yet lyrical use of words.  What rolls off Thornton’s tongue like ear candy, comes off as true poetry, prose poetry, and paints vibrant, multidimensional scenes in your mind without the use of any set pieces, a painted backdrop or even additional characters.

Eno describes life as basically a “series of funerals” and perfectly describes the universality of how human life begins, “We all come from blood and saltwater and a screaming mother begging us to leave." I actually nodded in agreement and sensed a strong group nod from the entire audience - or as the traveler called us “a clump” of humans gathered to hear him speak - when he said we all know that feeling that life begins triumphantly, but as we lose more and more of the people who constitute our memories of what “home” is, we experience"the human cannonball feeling at the beginning; the sickening thump at the end."

Before the play, I had recently flown to attend the funeral of a very close immediate family member and was not in the mood for something that addressed the issue of death in any way - but I was won over and in the end transformed by the self denigrating humor, common sense and hopeful poetic beauty of this piece.

There was a tremendously universal line in the script, just a heartbreaking and truthful line when the traveler describes the last moment of his mother’s life in the hospital room, “her voice made this sound, this horrible raspy sound and … she just wasn’t my mother anymore.”

I literally walked in to this production feeling shaken with grief, trembling inside, feeling all alone while trying to make sense of my sudden and recent loss but  left feeling that everyone in the mostly middle aged or older audience and indeed everyone in the world must be suffering from many of the same deeply depressing feelings and thoughts.

I highly recommend seeing this extraordinarily written and performed production especially when you are feeling that “life is a series of funerals until the last funeral which is your own” because Eno has created a powerful and profoundly funny monologue about self acceptance, life and compassion which has a very healing effect.

Title and Deed is being performed at Lookingglass Theatre through May 3^rd. For tickets and/or more show information visit http://lookingglasstheatre.org/. 

Northlight Theatre follows up the hard-hitting drama “White Guy on the Bus” with another extra-base hit with the charming comedy "Outside Mullinger". Set in the Midlands of Ireland, Artistic Director BJ Jones directs this humorous love story that, though mostly transparent in its direction, offers a handful of fun surprises. Outside Mullinger is written by Pulitzer, Oscar and Tony Award Winning author John Patrick Shanley (Moonstruck and Doubt). Needless to say, Shanley has done it again.

“Having survived to my 60^th year, I wanted to express joy,” says Shanley on writing Outside Mullinger. “I wanted to laugh, I wanted to name what is possible and beautiful about being alive.”

Set in the Midlands of Ireland we are introduced to two families that own neighboring farms that have been handed down for generations. Though Anthony and Rosemary have been neighbors for years, the two have secretly longed for each other, neither one the wiser. Despite the fact that they are somewhat outwardly gruff with each other, we see an underlying affection that is just dying to bust out. When Rosemary learns that Anthony's father "Tony Reilly" might not leave him the farm, she intercedes, changing paths in the process and ultimately creating new opportunities to express suppressed feelings.

The story is well written but its very talented cast is what truly makes this show a memorable delicacy. Acting and writing great Bill Norris is simply superb as "Tony Reilly", skillfully dishing out his lines with seasoned prowess and a profound candidness. Mark Montgomery is also right on mark and is highly likeable as Anthony and Kate Fry shines brightly with her razor sharp delivery and unbridled conviction as Rosemary. The chemistry and banter between Montgomery and Fry is nothing short of convincing, making the story as believable as it is cute and funny. Also contributing to the story’s sincerity is a rotating set that switches from one realistic farmhouse kitchen to another.   

If you want a love story with just the right amount of laughs, challenges, tenderness and emotional depth, Outside Mullinger is a play with quick-witted and heartfelt dialogue that will certainly be enjoyed.

Outside Mullinger is being performed at Northlight Theatre through April 19th. Northlight Theatre is located at 9501 Skokie Boulevard in Skokie. For tickets and/or more show information, visit www.northlight.org.

Former members of The Band, Levon Helm Band and the Rick Danko Band were playing songs popularized by The Band last Friday night at the Elgin Community College Arts Center. It was very nice seeing such well-seasoned players serving up some fine music. This talented musical outfit is simply called The Weight.

Five piece band like the original, there were only a few differences. For one, there was no change in the drummer seat. In the original lineup Levon Helm would often jump on the mandolin and Richard Manuel would occasionally sit behind the kit. Friday night’s show had two keyboardists were playing the entire time, swapping places behind an electric piano and a Hammond B3. The guitar player was also covering the mandolin parts.

The musicianship was flawless. The vocals were very good, but naturally a slightly different blend than the Helm/Danko/Manuel harmonies of the past. Still, there were moments when you could close your eyes and take a trip back to yesteryear.

The Weight opened up with “Stage Fright”, a classic from the album of the same name. About half of the songs from the self-titled Brown album were covered. But they saved the big hits for the end, beautifully executing “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”, “The Weight” and “Up On Cripple Creek”. Ending on a high note, The Weight jumped into encores “Rag Mama Rag” and the Bob Dylan penned “I Shall Be Released”.

Everyone present in the crowd seemed to thoroughly enjoy the show. However, there were too many empty seats for the caliber of entertainment presented. You should have been there.