The Artistic Home chose a sure-fire winner for its return to in-person productions, with a creative staging and knock-out cast in Eurydice by celebrated playwright Sarah Ruhl. The "press night" show October 28 at the Den Theatre found a well-oiled machine delivering flawless performances. The joy of sitting in a sold-out room was soon surpassed by the show itself.

Distilled from a range of Greek and Roman myths, Eurydice recounts the story of Orpheus, the renowned demigod musician—his playing could draw tears from the stones—who descends into hell to lead his young bride Eurydice back to life. She was killed prematurely, and so the lord of hell permits her to leave—but Orpheus must not look back before they reach the surface, or she will be lost to him. When he reaches the surface, Orpheus does look back, losing Eurydice, who hasn't fully emerged. Most retellings focus on his tragic loss.

Ruhl’s 2003 play resets the story, taking the perspective of Eurydice. Played by Karla Corona, this Eurydice is a captivating character, a reader and thinker, a modern young woman immersed in self-discovery. Corona gives us an endearing innocent but strong Eurydice, magnetic. She has fallen in love with Orpheus, but he is even more in love with her. Bored at her own wedding reception, Eurydice strays and meets her early end, triggering Orpheus quest to bring her back. 

But in the underworld, Eurydice has an enveloping experience vastly more intriguing than Orpheus efforts, and she eventually meets her father (Javier Carmona). The play centers largely on the immense and unshakable love between Eurydice's father and his daughter. (Ruhl dedicated the play to her own father.)

Carmona gives us a surpassingly good performance. Before his daugher arrives, he is following her wedding from below, and by a simple shift in his expression goes from joy to sorrow, and back again, as he suffers the lost opportunity to give the bride away. When they are later brought together, he nurtures Eurydice and comforts her in his new home.

"Rock-star" performances are given by the incredibly entertaining and mean-spirited Chorus of Stones: Will Casey as Big Stone, Alexander McRae as Loud Stone, and Ariana Lopez as Little Stone. And as real standout is Todd Wojcik (above), arguably the best performance of the night, as “Nasty Interesting Man.” Wojicik gives us an almost indescribable package of self-infatuation, malice and brattiness, that alone is worth the price of admission. 

The production team includes Kevin Hagan (Scenic and Lighting Design), Zachery Wagner (Costume Design), Petter Wahlback (Sound Design), Randy Rozler (Properties Design), Julian Hester (Assistant Director), and Jac Pytlik (Stage Manager).

Eurydice had its world premiere at Madison Repertory Theatre, Madison, WI in 2003, and following high profile productions at Berkeley Repertory Theatre and Yale Repertory Theatre, it opened off Broadway at the Second Stage Theatre in 2007 and at the Young Vic in London in 2010. Artistic Home's production will be performed at The Den Theatre, 1331 N. Milwaukee Ave. in Chicago, Thursdays through Sundays, November 4 through November 21, 2021. 

Theater Wit has mounted an unexpectedly spellbinding show for its return to live productions: Anne Washburn’s “Mr. Burns, a post-electric play.”

What an amazing fever-dream has flowed from Washburn’s imaginative pen, brought to life at Theater Wit. Originally mounted in 2015, it is clear why this was one of the troupe’s most popular productions. It is a joy-filled moment to be back in the audience before a live show. 

Ostensibly, it is a portrait of a post-apocalyptic society in which people huddle around campfires on a darkened landscape, recalling favorite lines from television shows. Act 1 focuses on this means of diversion. Quickly the fragility of cultural memory becomes apparent, when there are no Google or YouTube to reference.

Seven years later, Act 2 opens with rehearsal for a semi-professional performance company, many of which have arisen, working against scripts gathered from memory (some recalled lines and scenes are even purchased from freelance contributors). Sets and costumes are cobbled together from the detritus of the decaying society.

Here “Mr. Burns” is revealed to be a true backstage play, with the players jousting over who will be featured and which bits shall be included in the show. There are humor and charm in these scenes, which feature live performances of clips of the Simpsons and other popular shows, as well as contemporary ads and music videos.

It is in Act 3 that the show reaches its apotheosis, we are transported to Elysium, and the performance becomes the food of the gods. Set 70 years later, the collective memory of the Simpsons has certainly faded, and those who saw the show on television are very few in number.

Washburn now gives us a heavenly reverie on how theater might be recreated from the dust of the cataclysm. As with cultures of old, an oral tradition was handed down before writing took hold. “Mr. Burns” seems to posit just such a scenario, with a beatifically staged battle between the forces of good - the Simpsons - and evil: Mr. Burns and his henchmen, Itchy and Scratchy. Fans of The Simpsons, who are legion, will recall that Mr. Burns owned the nuclear power plant at which Homer Simpson was employed, until sometime befoe this story picks up.  

A mashup of Greek drama, kabuki, and 18th century operetta, this final act defies description, except to say it is transportative. Aside from its intimate scale, “Mr. Burns - A post-electric play” is fully Broadway caliber, and the performances by every cast member are superlative. Daniel Desmarais, Andrew Jessop, and Leslie Ann Sheppard return from the 2015 production, with Eileen Doan, Tina Muñoz Pandya, Ana Silva, Jonah D. Winston and Will Wilhelm are making their Theater Wit debut. 

Everyone (including audience members) at Theater Wit is required to be vaccinated to enter the building. (Negative results from a PCR test for COVID-19 administered in the last 48 hours is an alternative.) All patrons must remain masked for the duration of their visit. Find more details and ticket information at www.TheaterWit.org.

Live, in-person theater performances have returned! And on Saturday, July 17, the Oak Park Festival Theater players took to the stage at their Austin Gardens home, mounting an inventive and engaging production of William Shakespeare’s The Tempest - the Equity company’s first post-pandemic production, and among the first live professional stage performances in Chicagoland.

The Oak Park Festival Theater company has a great reputation and this production of The Tempest tells why. Director Barbara Zahora brings something exceedingly fresh to perhaps Shakespeare’s final work: incorporating the affects of supernatural heroes from what is arguably our dominant creative vernacular: the worlds of Star Wars, Marvel and DC Comics.

The trappings of magical realism drawn from those fantasy worlds, with force fields, mind control, telekinetic powers and the like, fit perfectly in The Tempest. It is fundamentally a fantasy play, in which Alonsa (Noelle Klyce), the Queen of Naples, and Antonia (Jeannie Affelder), the usurping Duchess of Milan, are shipwrecked along with their royal entourage on an island inhabited by (a bit of Shakespearean coincidence here) Antonia’s brother Prospero, and Prospero’s daughter Miranda. Antonia had deposed Prospero 12 years before, and set him adrift.

During this time, Prospero apparently honed his skills as a sorcerer, and formed an alliance with two indigenous supernatural forces on the island - the demigod Ariel (Bernell Lassai is captivating) and the monstrous Caliban (you will be spellbound by Matt Gall’s changes in stature). The action of the play revolves around Prospero’s machinations to reclaim his throne, and dispel the internecine squabble that had two brothers at odds over the crown. Noteworthy in their Shakespearean delivery are Austyn Williamson as Ferdinand and Kevin Theis as Prospero.

The Tempest had always seemed to me to be trapped in amber with its 16th century magical conventions reliant on the thin broth of a distant memory of ancient gods and goddesses. This transfer using the tropes of contemporary culture has reset audience members’ expectations. So when the gold-caped Ariel stands on the platform above the stage to suspend the actions of characters, or move them like puppets, accompanied by synthetic sounds familiar from movies and miniseries, it all makes perfect sense.

“Even though we chose this play long before coronavirus and the murder of George Floyd changed our world so significantly, its themes of exile, injustice, the struggle for power, self-discovery and healing are all particularly resonant after the last year,” says Zahora, who is also Artistic Director for the group. “As people start to come out of their homes and find a new normal post-pandemic, we hope this will be particularly meaningful for those seeing it for the first time.”

The Tempest is also laced with lyrics and even dance, for which added music rarely works - but they really do work here. Credits to George Zahora for original music and sound design; original vocal music and musical direction is by Jennifer Harlee Mitchell; movement and dance choreography is by Erica Bittner; and movement, combat and intimacy direction is by Mark Lancaster.

The stage is set under a centuries old live oak tree, and the opening half hour is accompanied by the cacophony of thousands of locusts who eventually fall silent. Actors are miked and the sound is pretty good overall. But it almost doesn’t matter what you hear or understand; it’s what you see that counts in The Tempest.

Performances of The Tempest run through Aug. 21. Show times on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays begin at 8 p.m.; Sunday performances start at 7 p.m. Tickets are on sale at oakparkfestival.com.

How is it possible that a 19th Century play by George Bernard Shaw could be so on trend for today? Promethean Theatre Ensemble’s production of Mrs. Warren’s Profession is just that, examining the limitations women faced in careers - steeply limited in those days - and hurdles they faced in establishing an independent life, outside of marriage or household servant.

But just as importantly, Mrs. Warren’s Profession brings us a breakthrough performance by Elaine Carlson in the role of Mrs. Kitty Warren, the wealthy proprietress of a collection of boutique brothel hotels in England and abroad. Carlson brings us a fully developed character, and has plumbed every nook and cranny of Kitty Warren’s emotional make-up. The result is a powerful performance, one that knocked me off my feet. Carlson so fully inhabits the role that we no longer see the actress, we see Kitty Warren.

Shaw can be challenging - his plays are talky, and serious, full of big thoughts and intellectual jousting. In this production, the script has been adapted by Melanie Spewock, who “streamlines Shaw’s text and makes it more woman-centric.” Directed by Michael D. Graham, Shaw is given an effective expression here. Purists may not like it, but I did. 

The story revolves around a visit by Mrs. Warren’s daughter, Vivie Warren (Corrie Riedl) to see her mother while on break from school. But the two don’t really know each other - Vivie was raised at boarding schools - and Kitty, in late middle age, is hoping to build a relationship with her daughter. Vivie takes umbrage once she discovers the nature of her mother’s enterprise, and is shamed by the fact it has funded her upbringing and schooling.

But then Shaw, through Kitty, makes a passionate defense of her position as a madame, describing her poverty, limited options to make a living, and providing Vivie for the first time a window into her mother’s back story. “It can’t be right that there is no other opportunity for a girl,” Kitty Warren says. 

Written so well by Shaw in Spewock’s version, and delivered so forcefully by Elaine Carlson as Kitty Warren, Vivie embraces her mother’s choices - and so does the audience. Kitty Warren notes that young women are encouraged to work in dangerous factories or in shops for starvation wages by clergymen, who condemn prostitution. But the economics argue in favor of it. 

“Where would we be if we minded the clergyman’s foolishness,” Kitty says. An appreciation guide for this production, which estimates there were 8,000 to 80,000 English sex workers, provides a backgrounder on the censorship of the play by English authorities. Written in 1893, Mrs. Warren's Profession wasn't fully produced in England until 1925.

There is much more to this story - suitors for Vivie, lots of dirty laundry aired, including uncertainty about who Vivie’s father is. You must watch the rest of the story unfold on stage. As always Promethean delivers the goods. And it is all about the performances. Mrs. Warren's Profession runs through March 29 at Otherworld Theatre, 3914 N. Clark St. in Chicago.

Set in 1830, Lifeline Theatre’s Middle Passage, beautifully directed by Ilesa Duncan, is an exciting show: absolutely entertaining, well-produced and well-acted.

And yet, entertaining as it is, Middle Passage also recounts the horrific enslavement and transport of Africa’s Allmuseri people, their inhumane treatment by a cruel ship’s captain, and the desecration of their sacred possessions. How do these opposites co-exist in one play? Look to the source.

Based on the bestseller by Charles Johnson (adapted by David Barr III and the director), Middle Passage the book is a fictional first-person narrative by a 20-year-old freed slave, Rutherford Calhoun (Michael Morrow), who makes his way from Southern Illinois to New Orleans to sow his wild oats.

“She’s a town with almost religious pursuit of sin,” Calhoun says of New Orleans, in an aside to the audience.

Johnson gives us a picaresque novel, with a wandering young man, like other 19th century literary characters (think Thackeray’s Barry Lyndon). Both the book and the play recount from the first-person point of view, Calhoun’s experiences – good and bad passing before his eyes - during his adventures. So, as in life, the good and the bad, the lighthearted moments and the tragic, co-exist.

Like Barry Lyndon, Rutherford Calhoun is on the make in New Orleans, and without means – courting young ladies, but also running up debts. This comes to the notice of Papa Zeringue (Bryan Carter), a Creole mob boss holding all Calhoun’s promissory notes. Papa Zeringue tells Calhoun he must pay, or he will be thrown into the deeps of the Mississippi.

Thankfully for Calhoun, he has flirted (chastely) with Isadora (Shelby Lynn Bias), a young black schoolteacher from Boston, whose family has been free for generations. Isadora has some savings, and unbeknownst to Calhoun, negotiates to pay his debts to Papa Zeringue, on one condition – Calhoun will be forced to marry her.

When he learns of the plan, Calhoun stows aboard the ship Republic. When it puts out to sea, he discovers it is a slaver, on its way to Africa to pick up human cargo.
And with that, the story opens to an exciting, rollicking seafaring tale with all the trappings- storms, cannon fire, mutiny, betrayals, slave rebellions. Calhoun is there for selfish reasons - “Of all the things that drive men to sea, the most common disaster, I've come to learn, is women” – as one character puts it.

As an “everyman” character, we watch Calhoun avoid dirtying his hands in the fray, but eventually, he moves from aloof observer to responsible man, developing his moral compass through the trials.

The cast is uniformly good - really good - and most play multiple ensemble roles, as well as their principle character. Particularly notable performances were delivered by Patrick Blashill as Captain Falcon and Andres Enriquez as navigator Peter Cringle. Shelby Lynn Bias’s Isadora is both nicely written, and very well delivered – she is very 1830s Bostonian. Hunter Bryant (Calhoun’s brother Jackson), also, notably plays the role of a young slave learning English who bonds with Calhoun. Bryant launches convincingly into a somewhat lengthy delivery in an Allmuseri language.

Michael Morrow as Rutherford Calhoun carries the weight of the play on his shoulders, also making asides to the audience about the action or his feelings. Opening night, Morrow seemed a little uncertain in the beginning moments – but eventually warmed and really did command the role.

The set (Alan Donohue) is a lovingly crafted sailing vessel with multiple decks, stowage, working winche, mast and beam – all integrated to the projection design (Paul Deziel and Alex J. Gendal) and sound design (Barry Bennett). With this we feel for all the world we are at sea, particularly during storms and battles. A puppet parrot was less compelling.

The play originated at Pegasus Players in 2016 under the title, Rutherford’s Travels. But this version seems very strongly rooted in African storytelling culture, which taps a type of magical realism, to my mind (like Colson Whitehead’s Underground Railroad). Its title is far more resonant today: Middle Passage, the slave shipping route that represents the crucible of emotional and spiritual transformation from free, cultured Africans to impoverished American slaves.

Lifeline Theatre is also making Middle Passage very accessible: Tickets are $20 for military, veterans, and students, and for rush tickets sold 30 minutes before curtain. Middle Passage runs through April 5 at Lifeline Theatre,6912 N Glenwood, Chicago 60626. www.lifelinetheatre.com

Though I loved her music and her voice, I knew little about the celebrated Queen of Disco, Donna Summer - before seeing the Broadway in Chicago show about her. Summer: The Donna Summer Musical tells it all, an engaging narrative spiced with the diva’s great music, beautifully performed.

Musically, Donna Summer was distinctive from other techno-driven disco singers when she burst on the scene in the late 1970s. Her music had a spirit to it, an emotional depth, a poignancy suggesting a trapped soul yearning to escape and express itself.

In Summer the stage musical at the Nederlander in Chicago, her songs are set against the arc of her life. Three singers play her at various points: Alex Hairston is the younger Disco Donna; Dan’yelle Williamson is the older Diva Donna; and Olivia Elease Hardy, “Duckling Donna,” plays scenes earlier in her life. 

Donna Summer wrote or co-authored many of her hits. Not every song is sung in total (though many are) - but we hear enough of each one to be satisfying, and to advance the action. Of course not all her hits would fit in the show - which is one hour and forty minutes with no intermission.

We hear the incomparable "McArthur Park" cover - the first release that fulfilled her ambition to be more than a just disco queen. We hear “She Works Hard for the Money” and learn it was the completion of a contract obligation as she left her old studio for a better agreement.

Reared in Boston, third of seven children in a close-knit, nurturant family, she was the irrepressible performer, the ham, always putting together shows with her sisters performing and her family as audience.

As a teenager, she cut school to audition for a new musical, Hair - and was cast in the Munich production. (Her first single was "Aquarius," was recorded in German.) She found her way into another German recording studio on the strength of a demo track - where she was later discovered by another recording studio on the strength of a demo song, “Love to Love You.” From there she entered the wild ride of the pop star career - but Summer kept a level head. 

As the show recounts it,  "Love to Love You" got her branded as a “Disco Queen,” a label she resisted at first. She always wanted to be a full-range vocalist. But the gates to fame and fortune beckoned, and she walked through them. 

We follow her home life - two husbands, both German, the second one Bruce Sudano, a bass player who fathered two of her three daughters. Played by Steven Grant Douglas, his duet with Alex Hairston as Disco Donna dancing within his guitar strap to "Heaven Knows" is a delight. 

This show is not a typical jukebox musical. Unlike Carole King, Tina Turner or Cher, the inspiration for Summer on stage passed away (from cancer, at age 44, in 2012.) Instead of a living legend, she is now legendary. And Summer the Donna Summer Musical at Broadway in Chicago will give you an appreciation of her life, well lived, through her songs, well sung. It runs through Feb. 23 at the Nederlander

Sophisticated Ladies is a musical confection, a 1981 Broadway hit celebrating the big band music of Duke Ellington.
In the hands of Porchlight Music Theatre, it is a production of brilliant technical skill in dance, music, costumes, set. And the singing is sensational (largely overcoming constraints on sound amplification quality).

With only the thinnest of storylines, Sophisticated Ladies is an early example of a jukebox show, and relentlessly musical, with 34 numbers (trimmed a bit from the original). The Ellington songs are dramatized by recurring characters, who create what plot there may be – really just enough to support the singing and dancing. Choreography, by Brenda Didier and Florence Walker Harris, is surpassingly good and may be the best part of the show. 

This cavalcade of Ellington music is performed in a two-story deco nightclub. The beautiful set by Angela Weber Miller ensconces the seven-piece band (led by incomparable pianist Jermaine Hill) in mezzanine loft, with dancers and singers performing on the main floor, the mezzanine, and two swooping grand staircases joining them.

Scene after scene finds a fresh vision of another Ellington work, as torch songs with ballet accompaniment, emotional duets, dance and tap performances, full-blown song and dance numbers, with continuous costume changes that were mind-blowing (credit Theresa Ham).
Ellington died in 1974, yet his timeless numbers still resonate just by name:

• I’m Beginning to See the Light”
• Satin Doll
• Don’t get Around Much Anymore
• It Don’t Mean a Thing If It Ain’t Got That Swing
• Take the A Train
• Mood Indigo

Sophisticated Ladies spans jazz, big band, swing, jitterbug, and even a 1966 rock and roll song (“Imagine My Frustration”). Ellington wrote alone, and with others, including Billy Strayhorn, a key figure in his works. 

So many performers cross the line into greatness during Sophisticated Ladies, but standouts are singers Lydia Burke, Molly Kral, and Donica Lynn (playing Chanteus she is the lead scat singer), with Lorenzo Rush, Jr.’s rich baritone a continuous delight. Dancer and singer John Marshall turned in a most charming performance, especially in the 1941 novelty song “Bli Blip,” with Molly Kral. (It’s a mid-century modern gem.) And there are dancers who just jump out from the chorus line – Joey Stone, Tristan Bruns, Terri Woodall and Shantell Cribbs. Guess I should just name the whole cast.

But without question Donterrio Johnson as The Jazzbo gives an unparalleled performance, winning plaudits for silently exceptional dancing, then stunning us a third of the way in with his spectacular singing. Johnson created the most fully formed character in his role, and was in character throughout - truly admirable performance.

Sophisticated Ladies is amazing, especially with the old-fashioned demands Ellington music places on these young performers. With just over two hours (one intermission) you will feel a special affection for your favorites in the intimate space of the Ruth Page Auditorium. Highly recommended, Sophisticated Ladies runs through March 6.

Encounter, running tonight through January 25, is the product of Collaboraction Theater’s role as Theater in Residence at Kennedy-King College. It takes place in the lovely and modern wood-paneled theater space at Kennedy-King’s campus at 63rd and Halsted Street.

It is sometimes said that theater is a community having a conversation with itself, and for many of us folks outside the Southside Englewood community, Encounter: Being, Becoming provides a golden moment to hear and to see that conversation.

The cast features both high profile stars and rising actors from across Chicago stages, films and television. First up opening night was Leida “Lady Sol” Garcia, who is the choreographer that brought Chicago’s hip-hop dance steps and performers to global stars like Madonna and Missy Elliot.

Her compelling and lively autobiographic performance, Lady Sol’s Dance Diary, Vol. 1., is directed by Sandra written and performed by Leida "Lady Sol" Garcia and directed by Sandra Delgado. Tracing her time from protege of Lauryn Hill whom she met while promoting the Fugees for Columbia Records. series of vignettes from Garcia’s life, with supporting dancers Cari Bermudez and Sydney Jackson, traces her brushes with fame, and her encounter with mental illness.

Another big name is Sir Taylor, who shares his life story in Inspire: Breath Life, starting from growing up in Cabrini-Green and the struggles he faced and overcame. Taylor became a founding member of the Jesse White Tumblers, which led him to compete as an Olympic gymnast for the U.S., and brought him around the world. A stop in Africa put Sir Taylor in touch with his roots and set him on path to community activist, mentor and leader of The Example Setters. The drumming scenes set in Africa were particularly dynamic, and Sir Taylor is a powerful presence on stage.

The Becoming program includes four original works by Chicago dramatists, which are captivating stories you will want to hear (I’m heading back to see them too):

Englewood: A Love Story, directed by Reginald Edmund, is a love letter to the past, present and future of Englewood, a blend of history and true stories from actual residents in the community.

Lift Every Voice: Written by G. Riley Mills and Willie Round, and directed by Rory Jobst. When a racist Snapchat makes its way around a high school its students are left to grapple with their own history, biases and privilege in order to maintain their relationships.

F.O.P., Written by Miranda Gonzalez and directed by Juan Castenada, after the birth of their child, two Chicago police officers and partners, Josh and Lala, are the victims of racial harassment at the hands of their fellow officers.

SANKOFA, written by Antwon Funches, directed by Tatyana Chante, it is set in the 19th century American South, and follows the climactic escape of an enslaved mother and daughter.

Encounter is curated through a combination of open and invited submissions from emerging and established artists throughout the city. Every performance is followed by a Crucial Conversation where the audience is welcomed to share their thoughts and lived experiences as they connect with the work. While the goal series serves to engage the Chicago community in discussion on issues of equity and inclusion, incite knowledge and grow empathy that leads to action and lasting change – the experience is far more fun, and a wonderful display of performance passion at a place many Chicagoans might overlook. Learn more and buy tickets at Collaboration/Encounter.com https://www.collaboraction.org/encounter

Dance Nation is the story of a school dance team of thirteen-year-olds. The concept may seem to have dubious appeal, but Dance Nation quickly sinks its teeth into our attention with its opening scene.

Director and choreographer Lee Sunday Evans has put the students in sailor suits, and they rigidly perform a very well-rehearsed but uninspired tap dance number, moving just awkwardly enough through its limited steps and gestures to reveal that they are adolescents.

With that admirable bit of stagecraft by director Evans, the script by Clare Barron comes to life, firmly establishing the players (the actors range in age from their 20s to 60-something) as a believable band of pre-pubescent girls, with one like-aged boy, Luke. Kudos to these actors.

The play itself is strong, compelling enough to merit a Drama Desk Ensemble Award and an Obie Awards Special Citation this year. And it was a Pulitzer finalist. 

Anyone who has been involved with competitive middle school regional, state and national  competitions – soccer, Little League, debate team, what have you – will recognize the frenzied energy that students and faculty put toward winning. In the case of Dance Nation, the strangely imagined choreography and dance storylines are developed and directed by the dance team leader, Teacher Pat (Tim Hopper). 

The dynamic emotional lives of these students is the heart of the play. Audrey Francis is Vanessa; Caroline Neff is Zuzu; Karen Rodriguez plays Amina; Ariana Burkes is Sofia; Adithi Chandrashekar is Connie; Ellen Maddow is Maeve; and Shanesia Davis is Ashlee. Torrey Hansen is Luke. It’s a hoot to see these actors of all ages capture the physical style and the angst of these adolescents. And they do it so well!

Barron gives us, in Teacher Pat, something familiar: a bit of a tyrant, who is as at once capricious, manipulative and authoritarian. Teacher Pat is not imaginative perhaps, but he is filled with conviction and certainty in his beliefs.

Teacher Pat comes and goes on stage. Most of the time is focused on the student interactions. But when he is there, sometimes it's quite harmful, as when he tries to dissuade Zuzu from quitting the dance team telling her that she will ruin her chances of ever pursuing dance again.

We also see the appearance of some of the mothers of the students, who Barron captures perfectly in these fleeting scenes. Some mothers are amazingly nurturant, wise, supportive, while one in particular - Zuzu's mother - has an unhealthy and neurotic emotional enmeshment with her daughter. 

Teacher Pat drives the students forward for the upcoming national competition in Tampa, that they will win in dramatic stages through two smaller regional competitions before getting to the nationals. Aiming to get them fired up about the dance show he will soon reveal, Teacher Pat turns it on:

“Let’s give them something to tell them there is a revolution coming out of Liverpool Indiana!” he says. (Hopper delivers the line so perfectly, appending Indiana after just a beat.) The show that will spark this revolution is overwrought and cockamamie.  

The students struggle through insecurities, personal issues, and the competitive challenges - but are generally bonded as a mutually supportive group. Barron also affords those flashes in scenes in which we can see laid out before us the promise of a young person who is destined to achieve great things in life. 

Dance Nation runs through February 2, 2020 at Steppenwolf Theatre. Don't miss it!

Epic tragedy shapes a society. For Chicagoans, there were the Great Fire of 1871 (300 dead, 100,000 homeless), and the 1915 SS Eastland sinking (844 died). Less remembered is the Iroquois Theater, which burned to the ground in 1903. The conflagration killed 602 people, and changed fire safety practices in theaters everywhere.
Just over a month after its grand opening run, on December 30, 1903, the Iroquois Theater was destroyed when an arc light ignited a muslin curtain. (That site is now the home of the Nederlander Theatre, the restored Oriental movie palace.)

The Ruffians theater troupe recounts this tale – seminal to Chicago’s theater communit -  in Burning Bluebeard, in a truly inspired production. The performance incorporates dance, music, mime, acrobatics, in a that evokes the atmospheric gymnastics of Cirque de Soleil, or perhaps even more the defunct Red Moon Theater for those who remember it). Let’s say from the start Burning Bluebeard is entrancing, mesmerizing, and something not to be missed.

The Ruffians have been serving up this unusual holiday fare since 2011, when it was originated with the support of the NeoFuturists Theater. This year Porchlight Music Theatre has placed the show on its stage at the Ruth Page Center (1016 N. Dearborn), supplying plenty of seating for the growing cult following Burning Bluebeard has garnered.

Burning Bluebeard retells the story of the fire from the point of view of cast and crew who survived it – all but one escaped - in a mash-up with scenes adapted from the original Mr. Bluebeard on stage at t he time. In so doing, playwright Jay Torrance (who also plays stage manager Robert Murray) and director Halena Kays provide us a sampling of antique theatrical techniques and practices from the period. Choreographic by Ariel Etana Triunfo is exquisite, and scenic design by Doug Kmiec is wonderful.

The show opens with body bags on the smoldering ruins of the stage, the actors emerging in tattered costumes, and launch into the story – reminding the audience they are playing the role of the original audience – more than a third of whom died. This provocative tease (though it goes on a little too long, giving us multiple false starts)
Running 100 minutes with no intermission, the characters are drawn from real people like stage manager Murray, and Chicago vaudeville comedian Eddie Foy (Ryan Walters), who was in the road show production, and earned acclaim in the disaster for helping keep the audience calm.

Most entertaining is Pamela Chermansky as the Fancy Clown, who plays through various vignettes and comic scenes, then periodically steps out of the clown character to comment as a “master thespian” on the production of Mr. Bluebeard.

“History knew better than the playwright, better than any of us, that it wasn’t any good,” she declaims haughtily. Ticket sales were slow, so the producers kept adding scenes, songs, and production embellishments, which also added fuel for the fire. Objecting to revisions in one of her scene, Fancy Clown ironically tells them to go ahead, “Unless you are bored with petty things, like artistry, and craft!” her a voice dripping with disdain.

At the other end of the spectrum is stage manager Robert Murray (Jay Torrance), who is all about the technical mechanics of the show, and knows this production is a dog. He also provides the specific details regarding locked safety doors, incomplete fire escapes, a burning fire curtain, and hemp-filled seating that magnified the effects of the tragedy.

A realistic touch from from the pantomime style of Mr. Bluebeard is the inclusion of The Fairie Queen, with Crosby Sandoval giving an absolutely arresting performance. In a worn white lace and organdy frock, the hairy chested, mustachioed Sandoval delivers engimatic utterances muffled through a tin can hanging on a string around his neck. (Notes in the progam let us know cross dressing, fairie queens, and purely silent scenic interludes were all part of the pantomime theatrical style.) 

Adding to the woe, the day of the Iroquois Theater tragedy was the show’s first sell out in the 1,650 see theater, with scores more packed in, the overflow filling standing room and even seating themselves in the stairway aisles of the upper balconies.

The mayor shuttered all the theaters in town while the fire was investigated. Afterward emerged building code changes like mandatory exit lights, improved fire proofing and readily accessible fire escapes – and other changes that are now the norm in all public spaces.

Burning Bluebeard runs through December 27 at the Ruth Page Center in Chicago, and is highly recommended.