Displaying items by tag: Ryan Armstrong

The Chicago Metropolitan area has a soft spot for a beautiful disaster, and The Play That Goes Wrong delivers the kind of exquisitely engineered chaos that feels tailor‑made for this theater‑loving region. What begins as a straightforward 1920s whodunit quickly mutates into a full‑throttle demolition derby of missed cues, mutinous props, collapsing scenery, and actors clinging to their dignity by the frayed edges of their costumes. Still, this play-within-a-play has the Cornley Drama Society charging through their staging of Murder at Haversham Manor with heroic - if spectacularly misguided - determination, clinging to the illusion of control even as the entire production disintegrates with spectacular enthusiasm.

That staunch commitment - part boldness, part sheer delusion - is exactly where the comedy ignites. Each disaster tops the last, creating a giddy, snowballing momentum that captures the thrill of live theater at its most unpredictable: anything can happen, and in this gloriously unhinged production, absolutely everything does.

Now this wonderful wreckage has landed in the northwest suburbs, with Metropolis Performing Arts Centre in downtown Arlington Heights offering Chicago‑area audiences a prime view of just how fabulously wrong things can go - and how deliriously right it all becomes.

Adeptly directed by Jahanna McKenzie Miller, the production becomes a finely tuned symphony of disarray - each mishap landing with surgical precision, each failing set piece detonating like a perfectly timed punchline. What unfolds is a relentless cascade of comic disaster, the kind that sends laughter rolling through the audience in unstoppable waves and showcases just how artful a well‑executed trainwreck can be.

Ryan Armstrong (left) as Chris Bean / Inspector Carter and Ryan Michael Hamman as Max Bennett in The Play THat Goes Wrong at Metropolis Performing Arts Centre.

To pull off such a bang-bang comedy, it all starts with the cast - and we’ve got a good one here.

Ryan Armstrong leads the beautifully controlled bedlam with a performance steeped in delicious self‑importance, giving Chris Bean - director, actor, and self‑appointed guardian of “proper theatre” - a pompous grandeur that’s as funny as it is precise, while his turn as Inspector Carter unravels in a perfectly paced crescendo of exasperation. Eric Amundson’s Charles Haversham is a riot of physical comedy, playing a corpse who refuses to stay still (hilarious!), and Casey Ross leans into Thomas Colleymoore’s melodrama with booming gusto, turning every line into a wonderfully overwrought declaration.

David Blakeman’s Perkins is a standout of earnest incompetence, mangling lines and props with lovable sincerity, while Ryan Michael Hamman’s Max Bennett steals scenes with wide‑eyed enthusiasm, overacting and shameless audience‑wooing as Cecil Haversham and Arthur the Gardener.

Even the sound and light operator becomes a crucial player in the unfolding disorder. Richaun Stewart turns Trevor Watson into a wonderfully frayed bundle of barely contained madness, playing the chronically overtaxed tech operator whose deadpan, slow‑burn panic becomes one of the evening’s most dependable laugh generators. Teah Kiang Mirabelli dazzles as Florence Colleymoore, embodying Sandra Wilkinson’s diva bravado with such gleeful abandon that each unhinged beat lands bigger than the last.

Rounding out the cast, Natalie Henry turns Annie Twilloil into the production’s unlikely center of gravity in the second act, charting a sharp, hilarious rise from hesitant stagehand to full‑blown spotlight thief.

Together, this ensemble builds a beautifully calibrated disaster - each actor contributing a distinct flavor of chaos that makes the entire production detonate with joy.

And then there’s the set, an impressive spectacle in its own right. Scenic designer Angela Weber Miller, properties designer Gigi Wendt, and technical director David Moreland push the production well beyond a typical farce, each adding a distinct layer of precision and controlled mishaps. The set functions as a full-fledged character, engineered to collapse, misfire, and betray the actors with such precision that its breakdowns become part of the comedy’s rhythm. Each wobbling wall, treacherous platform, and ill-timed malfunction gives the performers a fresh obstacle to hurl themselves against, turning physical comedy into a kind of athletic endurance test. The design doesn’t just support the charade - it actively conspires in it, creating a living, booby‑trapped environment that amplifies every pratfall and heightens the sense that the entire world of the play is gleefully turning against its inhabitants.

Written by Henry Lewis, Henry Shields and Jonathan Sayer, the Olivier Award-winning The Play That Goes Wrong is the kind of theatrical joyride that reminds audiences why live performance is irresistible: it’s unpredictable, it’s explosive, and it’s crafted with such precision that the turmoil becomes its own kind of art. This production delivers laugh after laugh through fearless physical comedy, razor‑sharp timing, and a cast fully committed to the magnificent meltdown unfolding around them. It’s the rare show that guarantees a good time - whether you’re a seasoned theatre goer or someone who just needs a night of pure, cathartic laughter.

For tickets and/or more show information, visit https://www.metropolisarts.com/event/the-play-that-goes-wrong/. Through March 29^th.

Recommended.

Tickets: Regular $49, Preview $35, Students $25
Pay What You Can: February 25, 7:30 pm
Previews: Evenings, February 25 – February 27. Matinee, February 28.
Opening: February 28, 7:30 pm

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

Refuge Theatre Project likes to pick up what it calls under-appreciated musicals and put them on in non-traditional settings.

They hit that mark with The Last Session, an off-off-Broadway musical from 1997 that ran for about 20 weeks off-Broadway. Set in a 1990s Los Angeles recording studio, this production takes place in a real-life commercial music recording studio, Atlas Arts Studio at 4809 N. Ravenswood – giving complete realism to the setting and excellent sound quality for the performances.

Directed by Christopher Pazdernik, The Last Session tells the story of Gideon, a 1990s songwriter, who is tiring in his battle against AIDS. (In the early years of the epidemic, the treatments for the disease were much more intrusive than today’s refined drugs, with brutal after-effects like those associated with powerful cancer chemotherapies.)

Gideon’s medical weariness has led him to a decision to end his life – but he wants to do it after recording one last album. This concept album-in-the-making is to capture Gideon's life journey, from son of a Texas preacher, to married religious musician (the "Baptist Barry Manilow"), then to a man living in an openly gay relationship and penning pop-music hits. It also will capture his battle with AIDS. 

The Last Session is largely autobiographical, with music and lyrics by Steve Schalchlin – the real life Gideon - with book by Jim Brochu, his lover. Brochu encouraged Schalchlin (who was, like Gideon, suffering with AIDS) to channel his angst into a creative work. Thus, The Last Session stage musical. 

It's a workable dramatic piece, with interesting characters (all of them in the music business) and motivations for the encounters on stage – though the plot is contrived, e.g., no one knows it’s his last session - they only know that they must sing in a cold read from the sheet music, and each take is to be the final track recording.

As the play opens, we meet two back-up singers for this session who are also sworn enemies: Schalchlin’s ex-wife Vicki (a zestful performance a tad overplayed by Elizabeth Bollar); and a dishing-but-wise diva, Tryshia (Darilyn Butler’s excellent performance is on another plane from the show). And then there is Buddy (Ryan Armstrong is surely Broadway bound), a fundamentalist fan-boy musician who has tracked Gideon down, hoping to apprentice to him. Jim gets hired for The Last Session recording too, discovering to his horror that his Christian idol has veered from the path of righteousness, to put it mildly.

Putting in a striking performance as the star, Gideon, is Erik Pearson – who plays and sings affectingly and with deep conviction - performing pretty much continuously through the two acts. Pearson is mesmerizingly good. This demanding role has him at the piano, singing or speaking, almost non-stop. Brochu and Schalchlin modeled Gideon from real life, and Pearson inhabits that role.

What about the music? It’s good, even very good. The songs run the gamut from comical ditties, sensitive ballads, and lots of blues-inflected tunes. There are a several memorable pieces – Going It Alone is a standout. (You can hear The Last Session soundtrack through Spotify). http://www.thelastsession.com

As a gay-themed play, The Last Session is much more personal and focused than, say, Torch Song Trilogy or Angels in America. It’s a personal story and a good showcase of Schalchlin’s range as a songwriter. See The Last Session through December 2, 2019 at Atlas Art Studio.