April 2024 – Chicago Theater and Arts

Oh Baby

Pam (Katie Engler), Arlene (Julie Bayer) and Lizzie (Madison Jaffe-Richter) (Photo by North Shore Camera Club)

Highly Recommended

Combine perfect casting with the keen insight of director Scott Shallenbarger and you have the superb production of “Baby,” now on stage at Citadel Theatre in Lake Forest.

A high-energy musical that appeared on Broadway in 1983-84, “Baby” explores how three different-aged couples, one in college, one in their thirties, and one who are older with kids in college, react to news that their two-member family might become three.

Lizzie (Madison Jaffe-Richter) and Danny (Ben Ballmer) live together in a basement apartment on a college campus. Instead of suffering from the flu, Lizzie finds out she is pregnant.

Pam (Katie Engler) and Nick (Mark Yacullo) are desperate to have a baby. After missing her period she’s hopeful until she learns the pregnancy diagnosis is a mistake.

Arlene (Julie Bayer) and Alan (Joe Lehman) are in their 40s and are ready to downsize from their large, older home when Arlene learns during a check-up she is pregnant.

With music by David Shire, lyrics by Richard Maltby, Jr. and a book by Sybille Pearson who developed the story with Susan Yankowitz, the show and songs reflect what the couples want from life.

The whole cast is excellent but kudos particularly go to Ballmer who totally fits his college-age musician role and to Engler who appears so physically fit that if she does get pregnant would undoubtedly give the sports ball baby present she received to her kid, a boy or girl.

Best of all, “Baby” likely will get at least a few members of the audience thinking about love and what they want from life.

DETAILS: “Baby” is at Citadel Theatre, 300 s. Waukegan Rd., Lake forest, IL, now through May 19,2024. Run time: 2 hours, 20 minutes with one intermission. For tickets and information visit Citadel Theatre.

Jodie Jacobs

For more shows visit Theatre in Chicago

The Music Man delivers on his promise

Harold Hill (KJ Hippensteel) and Marian (Alexandra Silber)

Highly Recommended

You may think you know Meredith Wilson’s “The Music Man.”

But it doesn’t matter how often you have seen this “feel-good” family show. Each time you go, you are likely to take away something different, something more than recognizing its popular, fun “Seventy-Six Trombones.”

It might be a song that you didn’t know was from the show such as “Till there was You” or “Goodnight My Someone” or “Lida Rose.”

For this reviewer, it was the “book ban” political philosophy mentioned by Marian Paroo, the River City librarian, beautifully portrayed by Alexandra Silber.

Harold Hill (Left center) Looks up and admires Marian (center) who talks and sings about books while a library patron (far left) watches.

It shouldn’t have been a surprise given that an important theme is how the town changes once Professor Harold Hill arrives.

Played by the highly talented KJ Hippensteel as the fast talking, glib salesman, we watch Hill evolve while the town he had planned to scam, changes as he falls in love with its librarian.

The leads, KJ Hippensteel and Alexandra Silber are excellent but so is the entire cast.

Kudos particularly go to Kai Edgar who is terrific as the young Winthrop Paroo, Marian’s little brother who suffers from a lisp and is painfully shy until Hill reaches him with a musical instrument. And to Janet Ulrich Brooks who returns to Marriott as Marian’s mother after doing “Beautiful – the Carole King Musical” and “The Cherry Orchard at Goodman Theatre.

Most of all, audiences will be treated to the outstanding choreography of director/choreographer Katie Spelman. Yes, the accompanying cast may have partially been chosen by their dance ability, but all their movements across the stage and interactions with others are innovatively thought out to express the town and characters personalities.

So, sit back and enjoy or clap in time to “Seventy-Six Trombones” as “The Music Man” enhances your evening.

Details: “The Music Man” is at Marriott Theatre, 10 Mariott Drive, Lincolnshire, now through June 2, 2024. Run time: 2 hrs., 40 minutes with one intermission. For more information and tickets visit Marriott Theatre.

Jodie Jacobs

For more shows visit Theatre in Chicago

Felder reveals life of Chopin

Hershey Felder as Monsieur Chopin - A Play with Music

Pianist/ theater performer Hershey Felder as Chopin

Highly Recommended

Billed as “Hershey Felder as Monsieur Chopin – A play with music,” the title doesn’t even come close to offering clues on what to expect when you enter the Alexandra C. and John D. Nichols Theatre at Writers Theatre in Glencoe.

Composer Fryderyk Chopin did speak French and spent some happy times in Paris where he did have a salon. But he was Polish and longed for his country.

Hershey Felder, a highly skilled pianist and performer does become Chopin to take audiences through the composers’ short but momentous life. But to call what is on stage “a play with music” hardly does justice to Felder’s amazing dexterity at the piano and his ability to enthrall audiences with his interpretation of Chopin’ musical compositions and tragic life.

It’s a tale that bounces in both enacting Chopin’s life and playing his compositions from romantic moments to mental illness and from depression to exuberance.

Felder starts by addressing the audience as if they are music students at his salon, 9 Square d’Orleans, Paris on the afternoon of March 4, 1848.

The scenic design is by Felder who carefully researched the time, place and salon. But along with the elegant setting, audiences will also be watching the wall behind him where projections change to what is going on in Poland and Paris thanks to production manager Erik Carstensen’s excellent video Design.

Directed by Joel Zwick, Chopin’s music and Felder’s “book” or “play” if you want to call it that, “Hershey Felder as Monsieur Chopin” provides an extraordinary glimpse into the life of a famous composer that is arguably little known beyond his compositions.

Felder is also known for his performances as other composers such as Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Leonard Bernstein and Ludwig von Beethoven.

Details: “Hershey Felder as Monsieur Chopin” is at Writers Theatre, 325 Tudor Court, Glencoe, IL April 10 through May 12, 2024. Running time: between 90 and 110 minutes (depends on questions from the audience) with no intermission. For tickets and more information visit Writers Theatre.

Jodie Jacobs

For more shows visit Theatre in Chicago

April events to know and go

EXPO Chicago (2023) at Navy Pier (Photo by Justin Barbin)

After experiencing the extraordinary solar eclipse, other good, yet less unusual April events are likely to be missed. But two art experiences are on this month’s agenda for people who appreciate and enjoy really special artistic events.

EXPO Chicago

Expo Chicago, both an exhibit of the best art examples filling the top contemporary and modern galleries in 29 countries, and art programs, are going on now, April 11 through April 14, 2024 at Navy Pier and several Chicago area locations.

Begun in 2012, Expo Chicago, brings 170 international galleries to Chicago. This year, they come from Argentina, Australia, Bahamas, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Cuba, Denmark, Ethiopia, France, Germany, Iran, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, Peru, Portugal, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Uganda, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, and the United States.

For more information see ArtWeek.

Among the local participating museums and institutions are the Art Institute of Chicago, Peninsula Chicago, Art on the Mart, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Driehaus Museum and the Block Museum of Art on Northwestern University’s Evanston campus in addion tgo the Barely Fair at the Color Club at 4146 N. Elston. A loop shuttle will run between some of those venues. See ESPO Chicago. Visit Alignments.

One of a Kind

Also in April is the One of A Kind Spring Show April 26-28, 2024. Held at The Mart, 222 Merchandise Mart Plaza at the Chicago River between Wells and Franklin Street, it features, 350 artists, makers and designers in such areas as glass, furniture, sculpture, paintings and gourmet food. For more information visit Attend/One of a kind.

Jodie Jacobs

Tragic Tennessee Williams well told Streetcar

(Photo by Liz Lauren)

Highly recommended

Having seen Tennessee Williams “A Streetcar Named Desire” numerous times before, the wonder was how the Paramount Theatre’s “Bold Series” production could be interpreted any differently.

The answer came immediately as Blanche Dubois wandered shakily as she made her way across the small stage of the Copley Theatre, obviously having had one too many shots of the hard stuff.

In the Copley, an intimate secondary venue across the road from its parent Paramount building, the lighting design of Cat Wilson and the scenic design of Angela Weber Miller cast just the right mood for Williams’ hot and sweaty New Orleans. But the show is not really hot or sweaty. It is about a character shaped by a Southern culture.

We might guess that when we see the almost, but not quite well-put-together Blanche as dressed by costumer designer Mara Blumenfeld, that this seemingly refined person would be the story’s tragic character.

As the long, nearly three-hour show, uncovers Blanche’s history, it no longer matters that the show is set in steamy New Orleans even though its title picks up on a real streetcar in the French Quarter that is named “Desire.”

Unlike many other productions, this interpretation is not particularly dripping with atmosphere. It is merely telling a story. And it is tells it well.

Perfectly portrayed by Amanda Drinkall, Blanche is another of Williams’ way to portray a dissolute South trying to hold on to its plantation culture.

Co-directed by Jim Corti and Elizabeth Swanson, the acting is superb. Along with Drinkall, kudos also go to Alina Taber who is believable as Blanche’s sister Stella, and to Stella’s husband, Stanley (well played by Casey Hoekstra).

Even if you have seen “Streetcar” before, see it again as a Paramount production.

Details: “A Streetcar Names Desire” is at the Copley Theatre, 8 East Galena Blvd., Aurora, IL through April 21, 2024. For tickets and more information call (630) 896-6666 or visit Paramount Aurora.

Jodie Jacobs

For more shows visit Theatre in Chicago