Displaying items by tag: Jessie Fisher

Having followed JJ Niemann’s Broadway career on social media for years, I was especially eager to see him take the lead in Marriott Theatre’s revival of Catch Me If You Can. While social media offers curated glimpses – often in the form of brief, specially selected clips – Niemann proved from the very first moment that his talent extends far beyond a phone screen. As Frank Abagnale Jr (and all of his many alter egos), he delivered remarkable acting, vocals, dance, and charisma, captivating the audience every second of the 2.5-hour show. Put simply, he was flawless, stepping into a role once played by Leonardo DiCaprio on the big screen and making it entirely his own on the Marriott’s stage.

If anyone could have carried the entire production single-handedly, it would have been JJ Niemann – but fortunately, he didn’t have to. Every member of the cast shone on the stage in every aspect, truly making the show a shared success.

Though positioned as Frank’s pursuer and foil, Carl Hanratty (played by Nathaniel Stampley) was endearing in his own gruff way. Amplified by powerhouse vocals and his chemistry with Niemann, Stampley lent real emotional weight to the main character’s cat-and-mouse dynamic. He was supported by a trio of FBI agents (played by Justin Albinder, Alex Goodrich, and Karl Hamilton), each leaning into a distinct, delightfully caricatured 1960s-cop persona that balanced humor with crisp stage presence.

Frank Jr’s parents, Paula and Frank Sr Abagnale (played by Jessie Fisher and Sean Fortunato), were equally memorable, both pairing outstanding vocals with impressive dancing for numerous numbers throughout the production. Fortunato’s descent into drunkenness was one of the best that I’ve ever seen on stage, making it captivatingly painful to watch.

And then there was Brenda Strong (played by Mariah Lyttle), Frank’s love interest and an understated character who is introduced later in the story. In lesser hands, this role may very easily be overshadowed; however, she was unforgettable. With her soaring rendition of “Fly, Fly Away,” Lyttle transformed an incredible, but quiet, presence into one of the evening’s most breathtaking moments.

The ensemble as a whole was excellent, but the women of the cast especially stood out. They cycled through what felt like countless costumes, each one helping chart Frank’s quick pivots from one setting to the next. With every lightning-fast change of outfit and role, they embodied entirely new characters with sharp precision, bringing fresh energy to each scene.

For those unfamiliar with Marriott Theatre, its productions are staged in the round, with the audience on all sides. This format can pose real challenges, from sightline issues to spacing constraints, and often risks making the stage feel cluttered. Layer on top of that a show like Catch Me If You Can, which demands constant shifts in setting, and this could easily be a recipe for disaster. Yet here, the design choices were ingenious.

The main scenic elements were just two benches – retro enough to scream 1960s airport or that could have been pulled from The Jetsons – sitting on a circular track that rotated around the stage. Paired with set pieces that came and went through the aisles, the transitions felt effortless and kept up with the naturally fast pace of the show. When combined with the lighting, costumes, and hair and makeup, everything came together into a strikingly cohesive and thoughtfully designed production. Much credit is due to director Jessica Fisch, whose vision kept all of these moving parts balanced and unified.

It was clear that every detail of this production was carefully planned and executed, and paired with a cast this talented, the result was something truly special. Catch Me If You Can is an absolute must-see, running at Marriott Theatre through October 19th. Tickets are available at https://www.marriotttheatre.com/show/catch-me-if-you-can.

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

“Every Brilliant Thing,” places unusual demands on its lead character, Narrator. Jessie Fisher delivers a carefully calibrated performance from a comedic script that is deceivingly simple, but deeply emotional and upon reading it afterward, I saw that it is beautifully structured, as well. 

Fisher is the center of our attention in this 70 minute monologue that evokes the gamut of emotions—at times poignant and tearful, at others boisterously funny. She relates a sampling of thoughts of people, places and things intended to capture life’s happy and satisfying moments. This was Narrator's lifelong quest, begun in childhood, to stave off her mother’s suicidal tendencies by coaxing her to dwell on the brighter side of things.

In this demanding role, Fisher must be onstage 30 minutes before the “curtain” rises formally, welcoming each audience member with numbered slips of paper, each bearing a charming thought evoking joy: 1. Ice Cream. 2. Water fights. 3. Staying up past your bedtime and being allowed to watch TV. In the course of the performance, we are each called upon to read aloud the item we received. (My companion had #1654: "Christopher Walken's voice." mine was #1655: "Christopher Walken's hair.")

Fisher also eyes the incoming ticket holders as potential stagemates, and several will be called from their seats to play an array of characters from her life: a school counselor, a lecturer, a veterinarian, her father, her spouse, even herself, at one point. As the formal show begins, Fisher narrates the story of her life, and calls on these individuals and others, and all of us eventually, to voice items from the list, or to play the bigger roles. She becomes both actor, and director, and we are transformed from spectators to players, the fourth wall continuously dissolved in this unusual play.

So reliant on the audience is “Every Brilliant Thing,” that each performance varies significantly—yet reading the script afterward, things that I imagined must have been spontaneous or ad libbed, are in fact detailed by the British playwright Duncan Macmillan (with comedian Jonny Donahoe, who played Narrator in the original productions in London and New York). Director Kimberly Senior has guided Fisher to a remarkable performance that is deceivingly natural and immensely convincing. I had a chance to see “Every Brilliant Thing” a couple years ago at WIndy City Playhouse, and this production, in Writers Theatre's more intimate Gillian space is every bit as good as that one.

We see Narrator through stages of her life, in college, getting engaged, married, divorced—all the while growing and maintaining this list of “brilliant things” that make life worth living. In her earlier life, she shared it with her mother, but it made little impact on her. The audience members are cued to read their assigned thoughts by number. As she courses through life, Narrator’s list grows into the tens of thousands, and hundreds of thousands, deepening in complexity. The pace of Narrator's recitation of brilliant things hastens, and she recites many of them herself.

We see that ultimately, this list is for the Narrator, a lifeline to which she clings as a vision of a happier life. 

 “Every Brilliant Thing” runs through January 5, 2025 at Writers Theatre in Glencoe, IL, and comes highly recommended. 

*Extended through January 12th

Watching one scene acted four or five ways is intrinsically interesting. It’s regularly played to comic effect at Second City. But what about an entire play strung together from a series of such scenes?

This structure, used in Constellations at Steppenwolf Theatre, may put your interest to the test. But it will not lose it.

This celebrated work is by British playwright Nick Payne, whose daring script has a simple storyline – boy and girl meet, court, marry. They face the joys and trials of coupledom: sharing, loving, careers, infidelity, illness.

Many scenes (all of them quite short) are played verbatim, or nearly so, three or more times in rapid succession. The characters shift emphasis, even reverse roles - the victimized party turns victimizer; the adulterer turns adulteress. Other scenes are almost largely rewritten for the multiple versions – delving into a conditional world – one in which this same relationship has played out differently than other scenes have suggested to us.

As Constellations progresses, the effect of so many short scenes is like standing at Oak Street Beach as the waves lap up, each similar, but different. In totality, the effect is mesmerizing.

And those individual scenes are very strong. The excellent performances by Jon Michael Hill as Roland, a beekeeper, and Jessie Fisher as Marianne, a theoretical physicist, give this work its due. (Both play with plausible British accents.)

After the 80 minute performance (no intermission) one can think back and say, “I saw a play tonight, and here’s what happened.” At Wednesday’s performance the audience was clearly engaged, getting the jokes, and tracking the action– as those scenes washed over them again and again.

The unlikely pairing of a beekeeper and a theoretical physicist also assures there will be great contrast in these characters. The beekeeper’s career path, explored through exposition, is quite credible in our renaissance of makers and foodies. He clearly admires the well defined roles of bees (i.e., worker,drone, queen).

But it is the role of Marianne, the theoretical physicist, that may be the key to this drama. Explaining her work to Roland, she posits a world in which all the choices we have made, or didn’t make, and lives we could have led, or did lead – coexist. Perhaps like Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five, these characters are "unstuck in time." This helps explain recurring scenes that diverge from the most likely story line. One example: a wistful exchange when the two, apparently living separate lives, meet up “years later” by sheer chance – a scene (repeated multiple times in various ways) that runs counter to suggestions they lived happily ever after.

The handsome set (Joe Schermoly) carries Constellations' theme well, setting the duo on a seamless, cornerless, groundless landscape of blue, evoking an unbounded cosmos. Above hang webs of LED rope (light design by Heather Gilbert) that crackle and flare like lightning (perhaps a visual cue of String Theory?).

Another provocative aspect of Constellations is conjured by a line delivered repeatedly by Marianne early on, and again near the end: “Mother wasn’t afraid to die; she was afraid of being kept alive.” This play is also about that solemn thought.

Constellations, directed by Jonathan Berry, runs through July 3. In addition to its well regarded author and highly regarded performances in London and New York, the show lets fans see TV star Jon Michael Hill (Detective Marcus Bell in CBS-TV’s Elementary) and Jessie Fisher, who starred on Broadway in Once.

What do Michael Jackson and Abraham Lincoln have in common? Playwright Bixby Elliot explores the parallels between the sixteenth president, the king of pop and the landscape for LGBT youth in his new play “Abraham Lincoln was a Faggot” at About Face Theatre.

Elliot’s play follows two intertwining narratives in an attempt to answer the eternal question: was Abraham Lincoln gay? In the present, there is Cal (Matt Farabee), a high schooler coming to terms with his sexuality while trying to prove Lincoln’s orientation. In the past, there is the supposed story of Lincoln’s homosexual love affairs. In between are Cal’s terrified mother (Jessie Fisher) and uncle (Nathan Hosner) who must traverse the uneasy waters of an older generation’s attitude toward homosexuality.

Director Andrew Volkoff brings together a well-equipped cast for this show. Dana Black’s clowning as narrator, historian and Ellen Degeneres will likely be most remembered. She accents and punctuates nearly every scene and it brings a much needed sense of lightness. Jessie Fisher in a duel role as both Mary Todd Lincoln and Cal’s mother balances  eccentricity and subtlety.

Bixby’s script, even if at times extraneous, has a lot of heart and makes a lot of great points about our media obsessed culture. At first the Michael Jackson musical numbers and background tracks seem strangely out of place, but as the show continues the script points to two lives lived under grueling American scrutiny. The author writes from a much more closeted generation than our current times, but still the struggle to live a life that is true to oneself is the ultimate argument. This essential human necessity transcends race, gender, class and sexuality. The script is well-structured and under Volkoff’s direction, has a real sense of emotional authenticity that could be lost in such an inventive concept.

Through July 5^th. At the Green House Theatre Center. 2257 N Lincoln Ave. 773-404-7336