It's Way Past Time for October News

It's a busy month on local stages and screens and I'm already a few steps behind. I took a trip to the Stratford Festival in Canada, and it was wonderful, but it means I wasn't here to put together all these bits and bobs on October 1. I hope you can all handle not finding out till October 5. Let's get this October party started, shall we?

I'm a little late getting the news out about the Illinois Wesleyan production of Sarah Ruhl's Dead Man's Cell Phone, which opened earlier tonight in the Jerome Mirza Theatre in McPherson Hall. Dead Man's Cell Phone begins when a woman in a coffee shop hears a ringing phone that just won't stop, sending her off in search of answers about the person who owned the phone. She finds a lot more questions, which turns out to be a good thing for all of us in this inventive, unsettling play about love, life and technology. Dead Man's Cell Phone plays October 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 at 8 pm and October 9 at 2 pm. 

The documentary The Beatles: Eight Days a Week, the Touring Years, called "Ron Howard's vibrant, joyous musical journey with The Beatles," is on screen at Champaign's Art Theater Co-op tomorrow and Thursday. This film takes a look behind the scenes at the phenomenon that was The Beatles as they played in venues from Liverpool's Cavern Club in their earliest years to San Francisco's Candlestick Park in 1966. The Art Theater is offering The Beatles: Eight Days a Week, the Touring Years at 7 pm on October 5 and 4 pm on October 6. For more information or to get a look at the film's trailer, click here.

Eureka College Theatre looks to Jordan Harrison's 2014 play The Grown-Up, a piece I saw at the Humana Festival of New American Plays, for its October entry, with performances October 6 through 15 at Pritchard Theatre. The Grown-Up is an adventurous romp somewhere between Alice and her Lookingglass and Peter Pan and his pirates. In this instance, the child in search of adventure is a boy named Kai who runs off to see where a magic crystal doorknob takes him. As Kai bends time and imagination, he runs into a salty old seafarer, his sister and maybe even his own future as a grown-up. For Eureka College, Cody Wirth plays Kai, with Garrison Green, Vic Griffith, Haley Joseph and Kendall Katz along on his journey.

The Normal Theater picks up weeks 3 and 4 of its Six Week Film School, focusing on Murder My Sweet on October 12 and The Postman Always Rings Twice on October 26. They're both deadly, delicious mystery movies, with the first following PI Philip Marlowe (Dick Powell) on a search for the double-crossing girlfriend of a mug named Moose Malloy and the second looking into the seamy private lives of an unhappy wife (Lana Turner) and the drifter (John Garfield) she gets to do her dirty work. Both films begin at 7 pm on their respective Wednesdays and they will be followed by a discussion led by ISU professor William McBride. For all the details, click here.

You get a second chance to see Mr. Burns: A Post-Electric Play, the Anne Washburn play that riffs on The Simpsons as a cultural icon and possibly a religious text in our dystopic future, when it begins at the University of Illinois October 13. Lisa Gaye Dixon directs this Illinois Theatre production in performance through October 23. Mr. Burns and friends will play in the Colwell Playhouse, but you can also see Nathan Alan Davis's Dontrell, Who Kissed the Sea, which began last week, through October 14, and Anna Ziegler's take on The Minotaur beginning October 27, both in the Studio Theatre.

Waiora continues at Illinois State University's Center for the Performing Arts through October 9, while the second and third shows of the ISU season -- two short plays performed together in one evening of theater -- open October 21 in Westhoff Theatre. Those short plays are The Coffee Bar and The Walls, with The Coffee Bar hailing from Egypt and The Walls from Argentina. They are both provocative and political, with plenty to say on issues of privilege, freedom, repression and art. Janet Wilson directs The Coffee Bar with a cast that includes Gina Cleveland, Daija Nealy and Simran Sachdev. Bruce Burningham directs The Walls; his cast includes Daniel Balsamo, Daniel Esquivel and Ryan Groves.

Entering the Halloween entertainment sweeptstakes, the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts is offering the silent film version of The Phantom of the Opera, played with live organ accompaniment just like it would've been back in 1925, at 7 pm on October 25. Lon Chaney (the original, not Lon Chaney, Jr.) may've been silent, but he set the bar high for all the Phantoms who followed with his portrait of a sad, swirling Gothic monster. As Roger Ebert put it, "[T]he Phantom is invested by the intense and inventive Lon Chaney with a horror and poignancy that is almost entirely created with body language." All it takes is one hand gesture to convey "great weary sadness." And it's that "great weary sadness" that makes his a Phantom to remember.

October 27 to 29 finds the return of the Illinois Shakespeare Festival's annual ShakesFEAR event, combining some of Shakespeare's scary characters with the haunted house concept, except in this case it's the grounds around Ewing Manor getting haunted. Tours leave every ten minutes between 7 and 9:30 pm and last approximately 25 minutes. If you want to get tickets ahead, check out this page for all the information.

As always, I will add individual pieces on other shows and events I find out about in the meantime.

It's That Time Again -- February Fever!

I'm late out of the gate, but February entertainment options are not. They're starting up soon, and you need to know to get your tickets, your DVR fired up, or your snacks ready.

Right now, Champaign's Art Theater Co-op is offering Trumbo, the biopic about blacklisted Hollywood screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, starring Bryan Cranston in the title role. A big part of the Dalton Trumbo story involves the Oscars, as his work won two of them during a time he couldn't take credit for it. An English writer named Ian McLellan Hunter "fronted" for Trumbo on the 1953 film Roman Holiday, which won an Academy Award for its writing, while Trumbo used the pseudonym "Robert Rich" for The Brave One in 1956, another Oscar winner for its story. And this year, Cranston is nominated for his work as an actor in Trumbo. You'll find the film at the Art tonight and tomorrow at 10 pm, with showings at 11:30 am on Saturday the 6th and 2:30 pm on Sunday the 7th and Wednesday the 10th. Yes, those are odd times, but Trumbo is worth a look.

On February 5, Illinois Wesleyan University's School of Theatre Arts presents Sarah Gancher's Klauzal Square, a ghostly story of bullying, religion, and the power dynamic among preteens, inspired by a real Budapest playground built on top of what was once a Nazi mass grave. IWU senior Tyler Stacey directs a cast of five, including sophomore Libby Zabit, who plays Klara, the one with a ghostly friend, along with Hailey Lechelt, Jackie Salgado, Kristin Solodar and Brooke Teweles. Performances of Klauzal Square run from February 5 to 7 in the E. Melba Johnson Kirkpatrick Lab Theatre on the Wesleyan campus. Call the box office at 309-556-3232 for ticket information.

Next week, Heartland Theatre kicks off the winter part of its season with Clybourne Park, Bruce Norris's Pulitzer, Tony and Olivier-winning play from 2010. The play, which functions as a companion piece to Lorraine Hansberry's award-winning A Raisin in the Sun, uses events in one Chicago house, shown in 1959 and then 2009, to illuminate the racial issues underlying where and how we live in America. In the 50s, Clybourne Park is a white, middle-class neighborhood, and a white couple named Bev and Russ are selling their home to a black family. When we see it again in 2009, it has become an all-African-American neighborhood, but white people are trying to move back in, pushing all the black people out and razing houses to the ground in the name of gentrification. The same actors play different people in the two timelines, giving them a chance to take on more than role, in some cases on opposite sides of the issues raised. Heartland Theatre's Artistic Director Rhys Lovell is at the helm of Clybourne Park, with a cast that includes John Bowen, Anastasia Ferguson, John Fischer, Joshua McCauley, Elante Richardson, Michelle Woody, Tim Wyman and Kristi Zimmerman-Weiher. For show dates and times, click here. For reservation information, try this page.

The musical Ragtime takes the stage at the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts on February 11 for just one show at 7:30 pm. It's not clear from the BCPA site who is performing this Broadway musical, which played for two years before the turn of the 21st century and earned three Tony Awards, including a Featured Actress win for Audra McDonald, who only had two Tonys back then. Ragtime was her third, but she has six now, if you're keeping track. Ragtime is based on the E. L. Doctorow novel, showing a swirling series of events in American history that involve people from disparate parts of society -- the upper and lower classes, a jazz musician, Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe -- against a backdrop of a very American form of music. Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty wrote the score, while Terrence McNally wrote the book.

The Illinois State University School of Theatre and Dance also kicks off its 2016 theatre season next week, with Illinois Shakespeare Festival Artistic Director Kevin Rich directing... Shakespeare! It's Romeo and Juliet this time, that timeless tale of star-crossed lovers who fall for each other in spite of parental disapproval and a climate of feuds and fighting in old Verona. Romeo and Juliet opens in Westhoff Theatre on February 12, with James Keating and Kaitlyn Wehr as R and J. Performances continue through the 20th, including a 2 pm matinee on the 14th if Romeo and Juliet is your idea of a cool Valentine's date. For more information (including a link to buy tickets), check out this ISU press piece.

If Hamlet is your favorite Shakespeare play (and it is mine), you're in luck. Illinois Wesleyan University's School of Theatre Arts is putting Hamlet on stage at the Jerome Mirza Theater in McPherson Hall on February 23, 24, 25, 26 and 27 at 8 pm and February 28 at 2 pm. IWU professor Christopher Connelly directs Shakespeare's longest play, the tragedy of the Prince of Denmark as he muses on life, death, revenge, and what to do about the rotten state in which he lives. No poster for this one that I could find, so let's content ourselves with a picture of David Tennant as Hamlet on a British stamp from 2011.

Street Scene on Broadway in 1947.

ISU Theatre is back on February 26 with the opera version of Elmer Rice's Street Scene, directed by new faculty member Robert Quinlan. Rice wrote the book of the musical, too, moving the action from a sweltering day on the front steps of a tenement in a "mean quarter of New York" in the 1920's to the same hot spot in 1946. The plot involves various residents of the building, as they gather to gossip, flirt, fight and generally push against each other in their small square of real estate. The opera's music was written by Kurt Weill, while poet Langston Hughes provided the lyrics. The 1947 Broadway production won Tonys for Weill and its costume designer, although it has never been revived on Broadway. When casting was announced, Quinlan's ensemble included Rebecca Crumline as Anna Maurrant, an unhappy woman who lives in the tenement behind the stoop; Joshua Ramseyer as her violently jealous husband; Morgan Melville as their daughter, Rose; and Kevin Alleman as Sam Kaplan, a Jewish boy who's in love with Rose. Street Scene is scheduled for performances in the ISU Center for the Performing Arts from February 26 to March 4. 

Closing out the month, Arts at ICC will present The Dead Guy by Eric Coble, with performances from February 26 to March 6. Coble's 2005 play looks at the continuing appetite for reality TV and the moral price we pay, focusing on a show (also called The Dead Guy) with a shocking premise. Contestant Eldon Phelps gets a cool million dollars to appear on the show, but... There's a big but: Eldon is required to spend the entire amount during one week, with his death looming at the end of it, live and on TV. As he goes through his spending-a-million week, the audience is busy voting on how he should kick his reality TV bucket. Ouch. ICC Theatre is giving you six performances to catch The Dead Guy, with shows on Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 pm and Sundays at 2:30 pm starting February 26. I am also without a poster for The Dead Guy at ICC, but Proper Hijinx Productions in Texas has a nifty one for their current production that you can see here.

Let's Catch Up with September

Yes, it's late, but it's the day after a holiday weekend, which is the perfect time to take store of what's coming up. September! Back in school, theatre scene set to simmer, everybody looking for entertainment...

There's plenty of drama happening out there! Serena and Venus Williams are battling in a quarterfinal at the US Open even as we speak, and that's about as dramatic as it gets. And later tonight, Stephen Colbert hits the desk for his very first Late Show from the Ed Sullivan Theatre in Manhattan. If his Comedy Central show was any indication, it will take Colbert a night or two to really get rolling. But once he's got his Late Show legs under him, watch out! Tonight Stephen hosts George Clooney and Jeb Bush, with Jon Batiste leading the band. You can find Mr. Colbert et al. on CBS after the nightly news.

Community Players opened the Michael Frayn backstage farce Noises Off last weekend, but they'll be back this weekend, too. Darlene Lloyd stars as Dotty Otley, an English actress a bit past her prime, taking her act on the road with a bad farce and a terrible company of actors. The hapless troupe includes Dotty's much-younger boyfriend, Garry Lejeune, played for Community Players by Thom Rakestraw, and much-beleaguered director Lloyd Dallas, played by Brian Artman, who himself directed Noises Off at Players a few years ago. There's also an aging dipsomaniac (played by Alan Wilson), a gossip (Bridgette Richard), two dim bulbs (Hannah Kerns and Chris Terven), a sleep-deprived stage hand (Jon Hubal) and a stage manager (Erica Sommers) who really does have it all together, except everybody else keeps getting in her way. Suffice it to say several people end up in their underwear at one time or another and there are a whole lot of slammed doors, sardines and stairs to run up and down. Noises Off continues at Community Players through the 13th. Click here for ticket information.

Nina Raine's Tribes, an Olivier nominee for Best Play in its inaugural production in London in 2010, begins at Heartland Theatre on Thursday the 10th with a Pay What You Can Preview, running till September 27. Tribes is a family drama, circling around Billy, born deaf into an intensely verbal clan. He can read lips but he has never learned sign language. That's just fine by his family, even if he tunes them out on occasion. But then Billy meets Sylvia, a hearing young woman from a deaf family. Sylvia is very good at sign language. She understands Billy's "tribe" much better than he does at the onset of the play. Tribes is a provocative play with strong language and a lot to say. Sandra Zielinski directs a cast that includes Colin Lawrence as Billy, Tim Wyman and Cristen Monson as his parents, Connie Chojnacki Blick and Aaron Sparks as his sister and brother, and Kaitlyn Wehr as Sylvia, the catalyst for change. Showtimes are listed on this page, with reservation info at the bottom.

In television news, Dancing with the Stars returns to ABC on the 14th, with Doctor Who (seen above) coming back to BBC America on the 19th; Gotham (Fox), The Voice (NBC), The Big Bang Theory (CBS) and Castle (ABC), all on the 21st; soapy goodness Empire (Fox) and Nashville (ABC) on the 23rd; and Shonda Rhimes' Scandal and How to Get Away with Murder both back on ABC on the 24th. There's new stuff popping up, too, from Scream Queens on Fox on September 22 to ABC's much ballyhooed Blood and Oil and Quantico on September 27.

Here's something you don't see every day... A one-man Wild Bill Hickok show. Walt Willey, who starred as one of Erica Kane's most lasting romantic foils on the daytime soap All My Children, comes to the BCPA in Wild Bill! It's billed as "an evening with James Butler Hickok starring Walt Willey," although it's actually an afternoon in this case. Bloomington's stop on the Wild Bill! tour is at 2 pm on September 20th. If you're wondering what this exploration of the life and times of Western legend looks like, you can catch a teaser video on Youtube.

The fall theatre season at Illinois State University starts on September 23 with Neil Simon's Brighton Beach Memoirs, directed by Jonathan Hunt Sell in the Center for the Performing Arts. Brighton Beach is the first of Simon's autobiographical trio of plays, with the fictional character of Eugene standing in for Mr. Simon in all three. In this one, Eugene is a teenager in Brooklyn during the Depression, obsessed with baseball and girls and trying to survive in his crowded household. Garrett Douglas will play Eugene for ISU, with Jimmy Keating as his brother Stanley, Gloria Petrelli and Graham Gusloff as his parents, Christina Duris as Aunt Blanche, and Cassandra Conklin and Megan Tennis as cousins Laurie and Nora, who move in and cause Eugene no end of tsuris.

Prairie Fire Theatre offers A Night of Big Band Music on September 25 and 26. The two Nights will take place at Illinois Wesleyan's Memorial Center on 7:30 pm each night. According to the Prairie Fire site, tickets aren't on sale yet, but will be soon.

And, to bring this full circle, another late night host steps into the box on September 28 when Trevor Noah officially takes on The Daily Show on Comedy Central in the wake of Jon Stewart's departure earlier this summer. He won't be Jon Stewart, but I guess we'll have to see if he can make it work.

June Heats Up with Entertainment

As temperatures heat up, so do your entertainment options. Several of the theatrical options listed are included in the Summer Arts Sampler offered by the Area Arts Roundtable, so if you're in a sampling mood, you may want to start with that.

The 5th Annual REEL IT UP Film Festival comes to the Art Theater Co-op in Champaign for four Tuesdays in June. That's the 3rd, 10th, 17th and 24th, with films ranging from Puzzles, about a hate crime in a gay bar called Puzzles Lounge in New Bedford, MA that "explores the correlation between American economic desperation and homophobia, intolerance, and, ultimately, violence," set for June 3 at 7:30 pm, to Such Good People, a screwball romantic comedy about a gay couple that finds an unexpected cache of cash while house-sitting. Such Good People is the 7:30 pm selection on June 24. To see all of the titles and descriptions of the films, click here.

Beginning this Thursday with a Pay What You Can Preview performance, Heartland Theatre presents its 13th annual 10-Minute Play Festival, this time called FOWL PLAYS. All eight winning plays fit the "bird" theme in honor of longtime sponsor Deanna Frautschi, who is a fabulous bird photographer. These FOWL PLAYS will be performed on June 5, 6 and 7; 12, 13, 14 and 15; 19, 20, 21 and 22; and 26, 27, 28 and 29. Thursday, Friday and Saturday performances begin at 7:30 pm and Sunday matinees start at 2 pm. There will be a special talkback including Heartland's 10-Minute Plays judges (including me, since I chair that committee for Heartland) after the matinee on the 22nd. For showtimes and ticket information, click here. For a rundown of all eight shows, including playwrights, cast and directors, come back tomorrow for my preview piece.

The Penguin Project of McLean County has chosen The Little Mermaid Jr. for its 2014 summer show. Performances will take place at Normal University High School on June 6, 7 and 8. This Little Mermaid is a junior version of the Broadway musical based on the Disney animated film, which itself was based on a Hans Christian Anderson fairytale. Eight-time Academy Award winner Alan Menken wrote the msic, which includes songs like "Under the Sea" and "Part of Your World." Tickets are $10 for adults and $5 for anybody high school age or under -- they are available in person at the Bloomington Parks, Recreation & Cultural Arts office at 115 E. Washington Street in Bloomington. For more information on the Penguin Project in general, click here.

The Normal Theater offers a mini-Coen Brothers festival with Fargo June 12 and 13 and The Big Lebowski June 14 and 15. Now that Fargo has been translated to the small screen, you may want to refresh your recollection of this darkly comic murder thriller and compare/contrast to how it plays out on FX.

Prairie Fire Theater and director Rhys Lovell will be holding auditions for their production of My Fair Lady from 6 to 8 pm on June 12 and 13 at Illinois Wesleyan University's Presser Hall, Room 16. Lovell will be looking for ten women and twelve men of various ages, and he's asking that each auditioner come in prepared to sing from a musical of his or her choice. An accompanist will be provided. Performances are scheduled for July 31 to August 3 at Illinois Wesleyan University's Westbrook Auditiorium. For more information, you can check out the My Fair Lady auditions page on Facebook, but please note that the correct audition information is included a May 26 post from Rhys that appears farther down the page. Also note that the role of Henry Higgins has been already been cast, but you'll still get to audition for Eliza Doolittle, her dad, new beau Freddy, Higgins' mom, Colonel Pickering and the rest of the toffs and hoi polloi.

And if you'd like to plan further ahead, the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts has announced its new schedule, with a whole lot of events coming up in 2014-15. That includes the Ides of March, the rock group that played at my prom in 1974 (their big hit was "Vehicle," which you may recall) with an appearance in November, Dickens' A Christmas Carol in December, and a screening of the silent film The General, starring Buster Keaton, accompanied by organist Dennis Scott, in April. 

Try Out the SUMMER ARTS SAMPLER for a Bundle of Hot Tickets

The Area Arts Round Table, a cooperative venture aiming to bring together different threads in the local artistic tapestry, is offering one big Summer Arts Sampler to give you a taste of local theatre and music from early June to late August.

The cost of the Sampler is $60, and that provides access to six different performances at six different venues.

Your choices range from selected dates at Heartland Theatre Company's 10-Minute Play Festival and New Plays from the Heartland to a trio of Music for a Summer Night chamber performances from the Illinois Symphony Orchestra, a trio of My Fair Lady performances from Prairie Fire Theatre, Thursday nights and Sunday matinees in July at Shrek the Musical at Community Players, a  scattering of July and August dates from the Illinois Shakespeare Festival's Anthony and Cleopatra, Elizabeth Rex and Much Ado About Nothing, and three different Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts events, including singer Sebastian Bach, the Bruegala beer fest, and Northern Exposure, a showcase of Chicago music.

Your $60 passport will get you into one show from each of the six participating organizations on the dates they've set aside for the Summer Arts Sampler. You can see the specific dates and performances to choose from here.

If you're ready to go, you can purchase your Sampler online -- scroll down and check the Summer Arts Sampler circle under Donation Information -- or in person at the Garlic Press in Uptown Normal. That will get you a voucher that you can exchange for the official "passport" at the first venue you visit. Please note that you do need to make reservations in advance when you've chosen where and when you want to try out your Sampler.

The AART estimates that this bundle of tickets is a $250 value, which means the $60 asking price is a pretty darn good value. And it's best to act quickly, since they are stopping when 250 Samplers have been sold.

Click here for all the Summer Arts Sampler details.

There's been some trouble with the links to the specific Sampler page, so if you find yourself with an error message, just go to the main Area Arts Roundtable page and then look for Summer Arts Sampler info there.

BCPA Throws a Party to Launch New Season

The Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts is offering snacks and punch along with an advance look at their 2014-15 season next Wednesday, May 28. This announcement party is free, although attendees will be encouraged to become "Arts Partners" with the BCPA and to buy tickets to upcoming events. The doors open at 5:30 pm and the presentation on the new season starts at 6 pm.

Last summer the BCPA brought the Missoula Children's Theatre to Miller Park for two musicals. No word on that, but I wouldn't be surprised to see that kind of collaboration happen again. And if it doesn't, there will surely be more concerts and shows added as time progresses.

Summer BCPA events we already know about include a "Bayou Bash" on June 21 and a "Bruegala" on August 22 and 23. The former is a free concert with a Cajun theme, while the latter is a two-night fundraiser and beer festival with "an opportunity to enjoy some great music on the lawn and some of the world's best beers inside the beautiful BCPA." Tickets for the Bruegala are priced at $15 and are available to those over 21 only.

In addition to hearing lots more details about what will be coming this summer and fall at the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts at the launch party on the 28th, you will have the opportunity to buy tickets, join their Arts Partners program, ask questions of staff, enjoy punch or a snack, buy a beverage from the cash bar, or check out the new artwork in the BCPA lobby. That new artwork consists of mobiles created by local students who participated in a recent sculpture workshop at the Creativity Center.

For more information, click here or here or keep an eye on the BCPA website.

Happy 2014!

Neither snow nor sleet nor gloom of night -- nor the turn of the calendar from 2013 to 2014 -- will stay these theaters from the performance of their appointed shows. Here's what's happening on stages and screens (including our television screens) in January:

Television is heating up very soon, with Community offering a supersized double episode to open its fifth season tonight on NBC, CBS also gearing up Elementary and a slew of sitcoms tonight, and ABC going with a show called The Assets, about real-life spy Aldrich Ames and the woman out to unearth him. Looking ahead to Sunday, Downton Abbey will bring its brand of classy Brit soap back to PBS, The Good Wife and its snappy legal escapades return that same night with an episode called "Goliath and David," and we'll see about that amnesia thing on the "Homecoming" episode of Revenge over on ABC.

The Golden Globes start awards mania off for the season on NBC on January 12.  After that, American Idol begins its 13th season on FOX on the 15th, the Critics Choice people give out their movie awards on the CW on the 16th, and Benedict Cumberbatch and his Sherlock return to PBS on the 19th.

To celebrate the new year and the onset of awards season, Champaign's Art Theater Co-op will be showing Oscar bait Nebraska, with Alexander Payne (The Descendants, Sideways) directing Bruce Dern as a man from Missouri who convinces his son, played by Saturday Night Live's Will Forte, to take him to Nebraska to pick up dubious lottery winnings; Philomena, a tour-de-force directed by Stephen Frears (The Queen) with perennial nominee Judi Dench as a mother who comes to America looking for the son who was taken from her years ago; and Inside Llewyn Davis, with the Coen brothers focusing on a prickly folk musician teetering on the edge of a career in Greenwich Village in 1961. Nebraska is playing tonight through January 9, while Philomena begins tomorrow at 7:30 pm, also ending on the 9th, and Llewyn Davis starts on the 10th. The Art schedules different performances in the afternoons and evenings, so be sure to check their website for times and dates before you go.

The Normal Theater is also focusing on high-profile recent releases with potential award nominees, with The Book Thief, a good companion piece for The Diary of Anne Frank (see below) since it involves a young girl in Germany during World War II, playing from January 9 to 12; Enough Said, James Gandolfini's last film that has garnered good notices and lots of attention for star Julia Louis-Dreyfus, from January 16 to 19; and All Is Lost, Robert Redford's solo effort about a man lost at sea, from January 23 to 26.

Community Players opens its year with The Diary of Anne Frank, the award-winning play based on the diaries of a young Jewish girl trying to survive hidden in an Amsterdam attic with her family during the Holocaust. Anne Frank takes the stage at Players with a preview on January 16 and regular performances January 17-19 and 23-26. The play linked to above was written by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, but Wendy Kesselman changed it slightly for a 1997 production starring Natalie Portman as Anne, and that's the script Players is using. Veronika Betts will step into those shoes for Community Players, with a supporting cast that includes Nathan Bottorff, Rebekah Easling, Amanda Fisher, Jake Rathman, Tom Smith, Tyler Stark,Tricia Stiller, Paul Vellella, Alan Wilson, Penny Wilson and Tim Zaitseff.

The musical Hello, Dolly! has seen a lot of different Dollies over the year. Carol Channing, Pearl Bailey, Eve Arden, Yvonne de Carlo, Phyllis Diller, Betty Grable, Lainie Kazan, Dorothy Lamour, Mary Martin, Ethel Merman, Martha Raye and Ginger Rogers all played the role, along with, of course, Barbra Streisand in the movie. The original Broadway production ran for seven years and won ten Tony Awards. Everybody loves Dolly! Sally Struthers, who rose to prominence playing Archie Bunker's daughter on the TV show All in the Family, will be Dolly when the show comes to the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts January 21. Struthers previously played the role of the irrepressible matchmaker in 2005, and has been hoofing it up on tour as Dolly since October of last year. You can see all about this touring version here or check out BCPA info about it here. Trivia note: I saw Sally Struthers on stage sometime in the early 70s when she brought a little piece called A Girl Could Get Lucky to Pheasant Run Lodge, whose playhouse was part of the resort hotel where I worked as a front desk clerk. At the time, we all thought she was way cuter than we expected from TV. And that was the sum total of my critical reaction.

Don't forget that Heartland Theatre is open for submissions for both its New Play projects, with a February 1 deadline for the Fowl Plays 10-minute play competition and entries accepted through May 1 for one-act plays written to fit the Escape theme. This year Heartland is offering a $150 prize to each of the three winning one-acts in the latter contest. All the details on both contests are available under the links in this paragraph.

CATS Prowls at Miller Park Starting Tonight

Miller Park Summer Theatre will open their production of Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Cats" tonight, with a slight adjustment in time due to the heat.

"Cats" opens tonight at the theater in Miller Park, with performances Saturday and Sunday this weekend, as well as Friday and Saturday next week. Sunday, August 5, has been reserved as a rain date. Performances were originally scheduled to begin at 7:30 pm, but have been pushed back to 8 pm to make it a little easier on the actors as well as the audience.

For this Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts production, Perry Self directs a cast of 50+ adult and child performers donning their best feline make-up and costumes in order to sing and dance their way through this ALW/Trevor Nunn/Gillian Lynne take on T. S. Eliot's "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats." Among the cats who perform for your pleasure, you'll find 25-pounder Bustopher Jones; Rum Tum Tigger, the ladies' man of felines; Mr. Mistoffelees the magical cat; Rumpleteaser and Mungojerrie the cat burglars; and Grizabella, who used to be a glamour puss, but now can only dream of past glory. It's Grizabella who sings the show's big hit, "Memory," near the end of the show.

The BCPA poster above tells us that this "Cats" is the first-ever to be produced in Bloomington-Normal. I can't attest to the veracity of that claim, but it's certainly interesting. "Cats" is the second-longest-running show in Broadway history, and it won seven Tony awards when it premiered on Broadway in  1983. It has toured the US repeatedly -- I think I reviewed it four or five times when tours came through Champaign-Urbana -- and it is an international hit, translated into ten languages, with productions "in over 20 countries and in about 250 cities, including such diverse destinations as Buenos Aires, Seoul, Helsinki and Singapore."

If you prefer your "Cats" in your own back yard, the Miller Park venue, where admission is free and refreshments are close at hand, may be just the ticket. For more information, call the BCPA at 309-434-2787, or visit the Miller Park Summer Theatre "Cats" page here.

With April Upon Us...

I am a day late in setting up your theatrical options in April, but at least this way you know I'm not making it up. Everything here is really scheduled to happen on area stages and screens in April. Put on your roller skates. It's going to be a busy month!

First up, tomorrow night we've got "Promenade," the absurdist musical about two prisoners (played by IWU students Will Henke and Isaac Sherman) escaping into a world that seems crazier than the one they left, at Illinois Wesleyan's McPherson Theatre. "Promenade," with music and lyrics by Cuban-American avant garde artist María Irene Fornés and book by Al Carmines, is directed by Jean Kerr, associate professor and choreographer at Illinois Wesleyan. If you want to see "Promenade," you'll need to get to McPherson Theatre this week, as the final performance is Saturday the 7th at 2 pm.

"Picnic" continues at Illinois State University's CW 207 through April 7,  with "La Bohème" in the Center for the Performing Arts, also through the 7th. "Picnic," directed by Lori Adams, has been selling out (it's in a small venue) so you are well-advised to make reservations if you can. And Connie de Veer's take on "La Bohème" is not to be missed, either, even though the CPA allows a little more breathing room when it comes to available seats. Just in case you still don't have your fill of ISU Theatre, Shakespeare's timeless political drama "Julius Caesar," directed by Christopher Dea, opens on the 5th, with performances until the 14th. See "Picnic," "La Bohème" or "Julius Caesar" now; do your taxes later.

The Art Theater in Champaign is showing lots of amazing things this month, including a restored print of Georges Méliès' "A Trip to the Moon," which was showcased in last year's "Hugo," at 7:30 pm on April 4. The Art is also offering "Cave of Forgotten Dreams," Werner Herzog's documentary about the drawings inside the Chauvet caves of Southern France, "capturing the oldest known pictorial creations of humankind in their astonishing natural setting." This cave painting documentary comes to the Art on April 7 at 5 pm and April 8 at noon. On Sunday, April 15, look out for the filmed version of Oliver Goldsmith's comic romp "She Stoops to Conquer" from Britain's National Theatre Live program. I'm guessing that will also be a noon show, as their other National Theatre Live programs have been.

Here in Normal, the Normal Theater continues to highlight Oscar-nominated (and winning) films, with boffo Best Picture winner "The Artist" back on screen from April 5 to 8. All shows are at 7 pm. That's followed by "Albert Nobbs," the cross-dressing Glenn Close pic about a woman in Ireland in the mid-19th century who remakes herself as a man in order to find work in an uncertain world. "Albert Nobbs" runs April 12 to 15. The Tilda Swinton showcase "We Need to Talk About Kevin," a searing examination of parenthood and children who go wrong, is up next from April 19 to 22.

Heartland Theatre opens its production of Tracy Letts' "Superior Donuts" on April 12 with a special Pay-What-You-Can preview, with performances continuing through April 29. This "sharp little bite of Uptown life" is set in Chicago, and it involves the owner of a faded doughnut shop and the eccentric little family he's created for himself, including the Russian down the street, a couple of cops, and a homeless woman who isn't all there. Arthur Przybyszewski (pronounced more like Shubershevski) and his Superior Donuts have settled into a world-weary rut, but then new employee Franco Wicks comes along, bringing a spark of life and the hard reality of the outside world into Arthur's doughnut shop. Michael Pullin stars as Arthur, with Gregory Hicks as his new pal Franco. "Superior Donuts" is directed by Eric Thibodeaux-Thompson.

Also opening on the 12th over in Urbana is the Station Theatre's production of John Logan's "Red," about painter Mark Rothko and his tortured relationship with art and artistic integrity. Will he paint a mural commissioned for New York's posh Four Seasons restaurant, with its huge commission and murky ethical waters? Or will he try to keep his art above the petty demands of financial gain? Celebration Company Artistic Director Rick Orr directs Gary Ambler as Rothko and Jesse Angelo as his assistant in the two-hander that won the 2010 Tony Award for Best Play.

On Saturday, April 14, the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts offers "Say Goodnight, Gracie," a one-man show featuring Alan Safier as George Burns, telling stories about his long life and his lifelong love for his comedy partner and wife, Gracie Allen.

"Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day," a musical stage adaptation of Judith Viorst’s award-winning children’s book, comes to Eureka College Theatre April 17 to 21. All performances are scheduled for 7:30 pm in Pritchard Theatre on the Eureka College campus. "Alexander" is directed by EC Theatre Professor Holly Rocke, someone you may've seen acting on area stages. (She's very good.) Her direction is also excellent as a matter of course and should create interest in the show whether you have children or not.

David Sedaris, billed as a "best-selling author, humorist and contributor to This American Life," brings his wry and entertaining musings to the Peoria Civic Center on Friday, April 20, celebrating the release of his newest book, "Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary." The book, which was released in September 2010, contains "acerbic, outrageously funny fables, featuring animals with unmistakably human failings." This "Evening with David Sedaris" is a one-night only event, and tickets are available at the Peoria Civic Center box office, online at ticketmaster.com, by phone at 800-745-3000. Travelzoo is also offering a discount on tickets if you don't have yours yet.

I have no particular information on anything happening to celebrate Shakespeare's birthday, usually attributed to April 23, but maybe we can rustle up a cake with 448 candles. I myself will be going to Chicago to see Simon Callow's one-man Shakespeare show, not on the 23rd, but close. Another option would be to take that day to order your subscription or single tickets to this summer's Illinois Shakespeare Festival, which will be offering "Othello" and "Comedy of Errors" from Shakespeare and Sheridan's "The Rivals," as well.

And that is most of April. I'm sure I will be adding things as the month progresses, so stay tuned.