Bidding Adieu to 2012 with No. 366

When I began 2012, I had a goal for myself. I wanted to see if I could do a blog a day. With this leap year, that meant 366 blog posts for 2012. I hadn't done nearly that many before -- if you look over at the left column, down in Blog Archive, you'll see 141 posts total for 2010, the year I started, moving up to 220 in '11 -- and I wasn't at all sure I could find that many things to write about.

And then I decided to go back to school in August, which meant time was even harder to come by. Along with "What was I thinking?!" in general, I frequently wondered if there was any way I would make that goal I set in January.

But this post, you will also notice if you're looking over there at the Blog Archive, is my 366th of this year, and my 31st for December 2012. Which means... I did it.

I don't exactly know what to say about that. Maybe thank you to everyone who helped me out by sending news or pictures, contributing to the blog directly, commenting, encouraging, or otherwise offering suggestions or support. And maybe I should also apologize to everybody who put on a show I didn't get to. I had good intentions. But sometimes there's just too much going on out there and sometimes it seems to all open on the same night and I have to pick and choose. Sometimes my love of TV and old movies makes me choose to stay home and watch Holiday or Trouble in Paradise one more time from the comfort of my own living room.

New Year's Eve and the countless end-of-year pieces in the news tend to make me sentimental and sad. I don't usually do those kinds of pieces myself for that reason. But I really did see some extraordinary work this year, and that needs a little recognition. Illinois State University's robust Mother Courage and Abby Vombrack's and Michelle Stine's performances in that show stand out for me, as does Illinois Wesleyan's sad but hopeful A Shayna Maidel and a luminous performance by Colleen Longo in Heartland's These Shining Lives.

On a lighter note, I loved Lisa Kron's Veri**zon Play during my annual trip to Actors Theatre of Louisville for the Humana Festival of New American Plays. And in Chicago, there was the sublime Sunday in the Park with George at Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, which just may be the best thing I saw all year. Okay, it's totally the best thing I saw all year. Follies is my favorite show, but this George was something special. I always forget how personal it feels when Dot and George sing about moving on.

Stop worrying where you're going
Move on
If you can know where you're going
You've gone
Just keep moving on

Carmen Cusack sang it beautifully in a beautifully imagined production directed by Gary Griffin, and I was sitting in the front row. Jason Danieley's George was exquisite. Thanks, Chicago Shakes, for a moving experience. I'm trying to remember those words. I'm trying to keep moving on. I really am.

As I said at the top, I tend to get teary at end-of-the-year celebrations. If you are made of sterner stuff than I, or you've made it this far and you think you can handle it, Google is offering a Zeitgeist 2012 video that sums up this year pretty well.

Anything you do
Let it come from you
Then it will be new
Give us more to see...

On Sunday, My Thoughts Turn to "Sunday," Coming Soon to Chicago Shakes

Chicago Shakespeare Theatre's Associate Artistic Director, Gary Griffin, has made a cottage industry of directing Sondheim shows at Chicago Shakes, with much acclaimed productions of "Follies" last year and "Pacific Overtures" and "Sunday in the Park with George" before that, upstairs in the smaller theater.

Griffin and Sondheim will be back in business later this month, with a new "Sunday in the Park with George" in the larger Courtyard Theatre at Chicago Shakespeare Theatre on Navy Pier. Given how wonderful Griffin's black-box production was back in 2002, this one on the main stage is eagerly anticipated. Tickets are on sale now and likely to go fast, if the "Follies" pattern is repeated.

"Sunday in the Park with George" is a natural for Chicago audiences, given that the painting ("A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte," seen below) which serves as inspiration for the Sondheim/Lapine musical hangs at the Art Institute of Chicago. You can (and should) check out the painting and the musical in the same trip. Seurat worked in tiny dots of color in a technique called "pointilism," which informs the style and themes of "Sunday in the Park with George."

The cast for this production includes Broadway star Jason Danieley (once noted for having "the most exquisite tenor on Broadway" by Ben Brantley of the New York Times) as artist Georges Seurat, and Carmen Cusack, probably best known for playing Elphaba in the touring production of "Wicked" that came through Chicago, as Dot, Seurat's model and muse.

Others in the cast include Chicago favorites Sean Fortunato, Kevin Gudahl and Heidi Kettenring. And Illinois Wesleyan University School of Theatre Arts has informed us that Sarah Bockel, who graduated from their Musical Theatre program in 2010, is also part of the ensemble as an understudy for several roles, including those played by Elizabeth Lanza, herself an IWU alum from 2007.

"Sunday in the Park with George" happens to be the second show I saw on Broadway, and I have fond memories of it and my own reaction to it. If you are involved in any kind of artistic endeavor, its messages about art, the creative process, color and light, the fleeting nature of life, putting the pieces of one's life and work together, and ultimately moving on, can be very moving and profound.

People strolling through the trees

of a small suburban park

on an island in the river

on an ordinary Sunday

Sunday...

Sunday...

Equity Jeff Award Nominations Announced

It's an embarrassment of riches. Or nominations. This year the judges handing out nominations for the equity side of Chicago's Joseph Jefferson Awards went big, with ten nods in the Director of a Play category and nine each for large and midsize plays.

Meanwhile, they made the usual head-scratching choices, singling out only Caroline O'Connor among the four leads of Chicago Shakespeare's "Follies," when she was by far the least successful of the four. Sorry, Susan Moniz! I loved you.

That "Follies" led the pack with seven nominations, including one for the production itself (large musical), supporting actress Hollis Resnick (who was terrific), director Gary Griffin, musical director Brad Haak, choreographer Alex Sanchez and costume designer Virgil C. Johnson.

Other productions with seven nominations include "Death and Harry Houdini" at the House Theatre of Chicago, and "Invisible Man," at Court Theatre in association with Christopher McElroen Productions.

The cast of "The Iceman Cometh" at the Goodman, one of the most talked-about shows of the year, was given an "ensemble" nomination along with individual nods for Brian Dennehy, as Larry Slade, director Robert Falls, scenic designer Kevin Depinet, lighting designer Natasha Katz, and the show itself in the large play category.

"Clybourne Park" at Steppenwolf was another show with its ensemble outshining individuals, as the cast as a whole, along with director Amy Morton and scenic designer Todd Rosenthal, were nominated. Rosenthal collected more nominations than most shows, with his work on "An Iliad" at Court Theatre and "Red" at the Goodman also honored. 

Other big name shows -- "Elizabeth Rex" at Chicago Shakes, "Angels in America" and "An Iliad" at Court Theatre, "The March" at Steppenwolf, "Mr. Rickey Calls a Meeting" and "Eastland" at Lookingglass -- were handed multiple nominations, as well.

Like Rosenthal, lighting designer Jesse Klug, scenic designer Jack Magaw, sound designer Kevin O'Donnell, and production/media designer Mike Tutaj each received three nominations.

And IWU's Amanda Dehnert ("Eastland") and ISU's Gary Griffin ("Follies") were both nominated for best direction of a large musical.

For the complete list of nominations, click here. Theatre in Chicago and the Chicago Tribune's Chris Jones have some interesting commentary on the nominations, too.

Simon Callow Lights Up "Being Shakespeare"

British actor/director/writer Simon Callow may be better known for his various appearances as Charles Dickens (including the BBC's "An Audience with Charles Dickens," in a one-man show called "The Mystery of Charles Dickens" and in two episodes of "Doctor Who"), but that doesn't mean he's a slouch when it comes to Shakespeare.

In his program notes for "Being Shakespeare," which runs through April 29 at Chicago's Broadway Playhouse in conjunction with the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, Callow notes that his career as an actor began when he was still at school and he was assigned the role of Bottom in scenes from "A Midsummer Night's Dream" for a class exercise. Years later, or more precisely, five years out of Drama School, Callow took on the role of Titus Andronicus  at the Bristol Old Vic and he considered himself, as he puts it, "a Shakespeare virgin."

He continues, "[I]t was then and only then -- wrestling with this astonishing play during the course of which the youthful author graduates from bombast to some of his most profound explorations of grief and madness -- that I became deeply interested in the man who could have created it."

And there's the rub. Because we really don't know that much about Shakespeare. It's the absence of knowledge that has created all the speculation that Edmund de Vere or Christopher Marlowe or Francis Bacon or Queen Elizabeth or Miguel de Cervantes or a mysterious sheik named Zubayr was the real author of Shakespeare's plays.

Rather than going that route, Simon Callow and playwright Jonathan Bate use pieces from Shakespeare's sonnets and plays to create a plausible life story for William himself, the guy from Stratford. The structure of "Being Shakespeare" follows the "Seven Ages of Man" speech from "As You Like It," with Callow as a narrator who steps into various roles throughout -- from little Mamillius from "The Winter's Tale" to Juliet and Romeo, Falstaff, Macbeth, Prospero and Lear -- to illustrate those seven ages and how they might've been reflected in Shakespeare's own life. For the most part, that works quite well, and it's no surprise that Callow is marvelous in every role he takes on. His Bottom was wonderful, and the staging of that section, allowing him to play Peter Quince and Francis Flute, as well, was especially well accomplished.

A few chairs and props, a glimpse of trees behind a scrim or the shadow of a children's mobile, move the scenes along nicely, with excellent lighting effects from designer Bruno Poet that ratchet up the drama. The music and sound provided by Ben and Max Ringham are, on the other hand, rather more intrusive and obvious than they need to be, but luckily, Callow is big enough to offset them.

I'm not sure I learned anything new about Shakespeare the man, and I'm not sure I buy some of the assumptions the script makes about his sex life with Anne Hathaway, for example, but it's still all quite intriguing and fun, and educational in terms of Elizabethan life and culture. "Being Shakespeare" also made me want to see Simon Callow in a lot more Shakespearean roles. How about a Richard III or a Lear or a "Tempest" that tours the provinces? Or his Claudius opposite pretty much anybody as Hamlet?

"Being Shakespeare" is like an hors d'oeuvre in that respect, teasing us with Callow's powers with the poetry and the prose.

BEING SHAKESPEARE
By Jonathan Bate

Broadway Playhouse at Water Tower Place

Presented by the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre

Directed and Designed by Tom Cairns
Lighting Designer: Bruno Poet
Music and Sound Designers: Ben and Max Ringham
Stage Manager: Peter Wolf

Cast: Simon Callow

Running time: 1:50, including one 20-minute intermission

Remaining performances through April 29.

For ticket information, click here.

Happy Shakespeare's Birthday!

No, no one is sure which day exactly William Shakespeare was born. But April 23rd is the day that scholars have decided is the most likely, and celebrations happen around the world in honor of the playwright. And so today we mark the 448th anniversary of the birth of Shakespeare.

They've already done the parade and luncheon in Stratford-upon-Avon, and today the World Shakespeare Festival begins. Here's how they're describing the festivities:

"Produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company, in an unprecedented collaboration with leading UK and international arts organisations, and with Globe to Globe, a major international programme produced by Shakespeare’s Globe, it’s the biggest celebration of Shakespeare ever staged.

"Almost 60 partners are coming together to bring the Festival alive. Thousands of artists from around the world will take part in almost 70 productions, plus supporting events and exhibitions, right across the UK, including London, Stratford-upon-Avon, Newcastle/Gateshead, Birmingham, Wales and Scotland and online."

 

Closer to home, it's "Talk Like Shakespeare" Day in Chicago, with a proclamation from Mayor Rahm Emmanuel. You should totally click on that last link, if only to see the video of Chicago and Illinois-related folks like George Wendt, Dick Durbin, Renee Fleming, Ora Jones and Harry Groener talk like Shakespeare. There's also audio from the Q Brothers to teach you how to talk like Shakespeare with a hip hop twist.

Performances of lauded British actor Simon Callow's one-man Shakespeare show continue (in conjunction with Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, but performed at the Broadway Playhouse at Water Tower Place) through April 29, plus Ian McDiarmid opens tomorrow in "Timon of Athens" back at the Courtyard Theatre at Chicago Shakes.

Our very own Illinois Shakespeare Festival is open for ticket sales, if you'd like to celebrate Shakespeare by getting your season tied down or making a donation now. They'll be performing "As You Like It," "Othello" and Sheridan's "The Rivals" this summer, opening with a preview of "Othello" on June 26. Ticket information is here.

If you'd like to celebrate Shakespeare in the cozy confines of your own home, I recommend popping in the "Shakespeare in Love" DVD, trying the Zeffirelli "Romeo and Juliet," the 1999 "Midsummer Night's Dream" with Kevin Kline as the most engaging Bottom ever, or the Kenneth Branagh "Much Ado About Nothing," with a luminous performance from Emma Thompson as Beatrice.

One last choice: Paul Collins' "The Book of William,"which follows the path of the First Folios, those much-coveted collections of 36 Shakespeare plays printed in 1624, after they began to be disseminated into the world. Collins tells a lively and compelling story of printers, collectors, museums, shipwrecks and thieves. Fascinating.

Art, Lies and Kings: Chicago Shakespeare Theatre in 2012-13

Chicago Shakespeare Theater has announced their plans for their 2012-12 subscription season as well as a couple of extras to keep you entertained all the way through to June 16, 2013.

Chicago Shakes offers 4-play and 3-play subscription packages, with the Sondheim/Lapine musical "Sunday in the Park with George," directed by Gary Griffin, scheduled for September 26 to November 4; "The School for Lies," the David Ives adaptation of Moliere's Misanthrope, directed by Chicago Shakes Artistic Director Barbara Gaines, from December 4 to January 20; Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar," directed by Jonathan Munby, from February 5 to March 24, thereby including the Ides of March; and the seldom-produced "Henry VIII," also directed by Barbara Gaines, from April 30 to June 16.

"Sunday in the Park" is Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's Pulitzer-Prize-winning look at French Post-Impressionist painter George Seurat and his pointillist painting, "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte," which hangs in the Art Institute of Chicago. It also looks at his fictional mistress and great-grandson and some of the character represented in the painting, as it ponders questions of art, creativity and how community and connections affect them. Griffin directed an earlier (and much-lauded) production of the show in the smaller theater upstairs, but this one will be in the main Courtyard Theatre.

"The School for Lies" appeared Off-Broadway at the Classic Stage Company in 2011, still set in France, still using period costumes, but with a guy named Frank instead of Moliere's original misanthrope and snappy swipes at people who say LOL or wear flip flops. Ives goes big and bawdy with his rhyming couplets, taking aim at the follies of mankind just as Moliere did.

You still have a few chances to see "Julius Caesar" at Illinois State University if you want to contrast and compare with the Chicago Shakes production next winter. Shakespeare's story of political ambition, loyalty, power and conspiracies never goes out of style.

Shakespeare's "Henry VIII" is usually a dryer affair, but let's give credit to Chicago Shakes for taking on some of the lesser-known plays in the canon. (See "Timon of Athens," coming up in April.) "Henry VIII" is all about Henry's marital problems and the religious and political storms that creates, as he tosses out Katherine of Aragon, takes up with Anne Boleyn, and battles the double-dealing Cardinal Wolsey over matters of finance and power. With Barbara Gaines at the helm, this "Henry" may turn out as brash and bold as the old king himself.

The first of the scheduled extras comes from the National Theatre of Scotland, who'll be bringing "The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart," created by David Greig and directed by Wils Wilson, to the theater Upstairs at Chicago Shakespeare. "Prudence," which involves a prim academic on a voyage of self-discovery, is described as "a Faustian tale" as well as a "music-filled romp of rhyming couplets and wild karaoke."

The National Theatre of Scotland is also behind "Black Watch," which will be presented off-site at the Chicago Park District's Broadway Armory. This is a return visit for "Black Watch," which combines Scottish folk music and military anthems (and lots of bagpipes) to tell its story of a Scotsmen fighting in Iraq. Playwright Gregory Burke conducted interviews with soldiers back from Iraq to get the real story of what it means to fight and whether it's ever possible to come back home. If you click here, you can see an interview with Burke, director John Tiffany, and associate directors Steven Hoggett, who was in charge of movement, and Davey Anderson, who handled the music. "Black Watch" will be presented in a limited engagement October 10 to 21, 2012.

For information on all of those shows, subscriptions, or tickets to Simon Callow's "Being Shakespeare," "Timon of Athens," or "The History of Everything," still to be performed this season, you can visit the Chicago Shakes site here.