Jumping Into June!

When June hits, we usually begin to talk about summer theater options. This year, it feels a lot more like early spring around here, not summer, but I guess we'll cope. And I hope all the outdoor theater people have umbrellas!

Two notes about June that are different from previous years: The mainstage plays at the Illinois Shakespeare Festival won't start till July and the University of Illinois has benched its summer rep completely. But don't fret -- you'll still find plenty of June options to entertain you.

An Australian movie called The Sapphires is currently playing at Champaign's Art Theatre Co-op. Its "girl group goes to Vietnam" sounds a bit like Dreamgirls meets The Commitments meets Shirley Lauro's A Piece of My Heart, except not sad. Inspired by "an incredible true story," The Sapphires involves a girl group of aboriginal sisters from a small, remote mission town who take their act into the middle of a war to entertain American troops. Chris O'Dowd (The IT Crowd, Bridesmaids, Family Tree) plays their well-meaning manager, while Deborah Mailman, Jessica Mauboy, Shari Sebbens and Miranda Tapsell are the Sapphires. Check out the trailer here. The Art has The Sapphires scheduled for performances tonight through Thursday at 7:30 pm.

Eureka College continues the Central Illinois Stage Combat workshop through June 7, plus Eureka's new high school play competition is underway, with a July 1 deadline. They're looking for ten-minute plays written by high school playwrights, with six winning scripts to be performed by Eureka College in conjunction with the Peoria Live Theatre League.

And speaking of ten-minute plays... Heartland Theatre's very popular annual 10-Minute Play Festival, this year centered on plays with packages, parcels and presents front and center, opens this Thursday, June 6, with a special pay-what-you-can preview performance. The festival continues through June 30, with all the details on the eight winning 10-minute plays here and the schedule of performances here. Call 309-452-8709 to reserve tickets.

Although Macbeth, The Comedy of Errors and Failure: A Love Story don't start till July, the Illinois Shakespeare Festival will offer its Theatre for Young Audiences choice -- The  Magical Mind of Billy Shakespeare, written by artistic director Kevin Rich -- on Wednesdays and Saturdays throughout June. Performances will take place either on the grounds of Ewing Manor, the Bloomington Farmers Market, Lincoln Park or the Children's Discovery Museum. The Improvised Shakespeare Company will also perform their spur-of-the-moment Shakespearean hijinks at 8 pm on June 6 and 13 in the theatre at Ewing Manor. More information on all the Festival goings-on is available here.

And even though U of I is no longer in the summer rep business, Urbana's Station Theatre is. You can see Tracy Letts' Superior Donuts and something called Evil Dead the Musical this month, with performances from June 6-15 for Donuts, directed by Thom Schnarre, and June 27 to July 13 for the Evil Dead, whose spoofy musical adventures will be directed by Aaron Kaplan for the Station. Click here for all the details.

 

New Route Theatre presents Dael Orlandersmith's The Gimmick from June 7 to 16, complete with a very nice "gimmick" of their own -- librarians and teachers get in free! New Route artistic director Don Shandrow directs local favorite Jennifer Rusk as Alexis, a young girl struggling with the life she's been handed, which includes an alcoholic mother and a very bad neighborhood. But Alexis's world is opened up by a librarian who reaches out to her. And that's why librarians and teachers get free admission to this play! The Gimmick will be presented at the McLean County YWCA located at the corner of Hershey and Empire. Call 309-660-2275 or visit New Route's Facebook page for details.

Area students will come out to play at the Connie Link Memorial Ampitheatre when Normal Parks and Recreation's summer musical season begins June 13. This year's June offering is The Secret Garden, a beautiful musical based on the children's book by Frances Hodgson Burnett, with book and lyrics by Marsha Norman and music by Lucy Simon (Carly Simon's sister). Normal's cast includes Caroline McKenzie as Mary Lennox, the girl who discovers the magical garden, Ryan Groves as her uncle, Archibad Craven, and Zachary Mikel as her cousin Colin.  For news about Normal Parks and Rec and their summer shows, check out their Facebook page here.

The Champaign-Urbana Theatre Company offers its summer student production of Urinetown from June 13 to 23 at the Parkland College Theatre in Champaign. Quinn Murphy stars as our hero, Bobby Strong, with Jenna Conway and Kate Meyers sharing the role of his sweet and adorable love interest Hope Cladwell. Urinetown is a very funny, very pointed satirical show, showing a neo-Brechtian dystopic world where water is scarce and "it is a privilege to pee." You can check out the whole cast list here and check in on the CUTC Urinetown blog here.

New Route Announces Provocative New Season

New Route Theatre has announced a line-up of ambitious and provocative shows for their 2013-14 season. Artistic Director Don Shandrow sent out the list this morning, including work by four Pulitzer Prize winners and one local playwright. Plays range from the well-known, like August Wilson's Fences and Lynn Nottage's Ruined, both Pulitzer Prize winners, to new work like F2M from Patricia Wettig and Hostage, written by Illinois State University Professor Kim Pereira.

Here's what you'll see coming from New Route beginning this May:

Dael Orlandersmith

The Gimmick by Dael Orlandersmith
May 10-19
Directed by Don Shandrow
This moving play, by the Pulitzer Prize winning playwright of Yellowman, tells the story of Alexis, an intelligent girl whose life is complicated by her alcoholic mother and impoverished neighborhood. Only a librarian with a love of words can open a window of hope for Alexis, hope for something beyond the world of “gimmicks” that plague her neighborhood.

Patricia Wettig

F2M by Patricia Wettig
June 13-22
Directed by Irene Taylor
Parker, a transgender freshman college student, is confronted by his parents during an unexpected visit. This new play by Patricia Wettig, primarily recognized for her acting roles in "30 Something" and "Brothers and Sisters," is a funny and poignant look at identity, parenting and making choices.

Lynn Nottage

Ruined by Lynn Nottage
August 2-11
Directed by Don Shandrow
This 2009 Pulitzer Prize winning play is a powerful portrayal of the triumph of human spirit in a war-torn country. Guided by music and the rhythm of life in the Congo, Ruined transports us to Mama Nadi’s bar, a small town refuge where intimacy comes at a price. This remarkable story is rich with humor, hope and humanity as it expertly navigates relationships, politics and the resiliency of the female spirit.

Kim Pereira

Hostage by Kim Pereira
September 12-21
Directed by Heidi Harris
An American journalist is captured by an Arab in the Middle East. What starts as a stereotypical situation takes a few unexpected turns as both men are forced to confront some difficult truths about themselves and each other... and the strange roles they will play in each other's lives. A Semi-finalist for the O'Neill Center National Playwrights Conference.

August Wilson

Fences by August Wilson
November 1-10
Directed by Kim Pereira
The 1950s ushered in a new era for blacks in America. The complex rhythms of be-bop and cool jazz reflected a changing country in which African-Americans began to stake a claim. Fences is the story of Troy Maxson, a baseball player trapped between two worlds -- not just between blacks and whites but between his frustration of the past and his suspicion of the future.

Quiara Alegría Hudes

Elliot, a Soldier's Fugue by Quiara Alegría Hudes
February 14-23
This 2007 Pulitzer Prize Finalist in Drama tells the interwoven story of four Puerto Rican family members who represent three generations of military service. Elliot, the son, returns home a wounded hero from Iraq, While on leave, Elliot learns the stories of his father and grandfather who served in Korea and Vietnam before him. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution called the play "A lush and evocative tone poem about the way the landscape of the soul is transformed by war."

New Route's shows are performed at the YWCA of McLean County, located at 1201 North Hershey Road in Bloomington. Friday and Saturday performances are scheduled for 7:30 pm, with Sunday matinees at 2:30 pm. You may reserve tickets in advance by e-mailing new.route.theatre@gmail.com or by calling 309-827-7330. For more information about New Route and its new season, check out their Facebook page.

Coming Up: Something Wild at the Goodman in 2012-13

It's time for Chicago theaters to announce their new seasons, with Steppenwolf first out of the gate a few days ago. I previewed Steppenwolf's 2012-13 season here, but today we'll be looking at the Goodman Theatre, which has announced an ambitious and exciting slate of shows falling under the theme "Expect Something Wild."

The Goodman has two theaters -- the larger, more grand Albert, which seats 856, and the smaller Owen Theatre, which has room for 468 -- which means they have several subscription plans, allowing you to do all eight shows in both theaters, or pick one or the other. There will be five mainstage shows in the Albert Theatre, and three more intimate shows scheduled in the Owen.

First up is Tennessee Williams' "Sweet Bird of Youth," directed by "visionary wunderkind" David Cromer for the Albert. Cromer was born in Skokie, Illinois, and he has a pile of Jefferson Awards for his work in Chicago, plus he earned a Lucille Lortel and an Obie in 2009 for his well-received (and dramatically different) direction of "Our Town." This is his first trip to the Goodman.

"Sweet Bird of Youth" is a Williams classic, with unforgettable characters like Princess Kosmonopolis, the aging screen goddess whose career is crumbling, and young, handsome gigolo Chance Wayne, who makes a big mistake when he brings his new girlfriend, the Princess, to his hometown in Mississippi, where he  comes up hard against his old girlfriend Heavenly and her powerful family."Sweet Bird of Youth" is scheduled for September 15 to October 28 in the Albert Theatre.

Next is "Black N Blue Boys," subtitled "Broken Men," by Dael Orlandersmith, set for September 29 to October 28 in the Owen. The play is described as "an explosive narrative that uncovers the darkest corners of humanity—and shatters our notions about predators and their victims." Orlandersmith was a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn prize in 1999 with "The Gimmick" -- she won that award in 2003 and was a finalist for the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for "Yellowman."

Jon Robin Baitz's "Other Desert Cities," a smart family drama about a woman who has written a memoir revealing a long-buried family secret to the world, will play in the Albert from January 12 to February 17, 2013. "Desert Cities" was a hit at Lincoln Center last year, with a follow-up Broadway production. Ben Brantley reviewed it for the New York Times, including this major compliment: "Built with gleaming dialogue, tantalizing hints of a dangerous mystery and a structural care that brings to mind the heyday of Lillian Hellman, 'Cities' has the appeal of a Broadway hit from another age."

Christopher Shinn's "Teddy Ferrara" is up next in the Owen. Shinn is another Pulitzer Prize finalist, and his new play seems ripped from the headlines, about a gay college student whose world is turned upside-down by a campus tragedy. "Teddy Ferrara" will play February 2 to March 3, 2013.

The last play in the Owen is "The Happiest Song Plays Last," by Quiara Alegría Hudes, opening April 13 and running till May 12, 2013. Hudes was nominated for a Tony for the book of "In the Heights," but she goes farther afield with "The Happiest Song," setting the action in North Philadelphia and a town in the nation of Jordan. The first is the home of a community volunteer trying to help the needy, while the latter is the location of her cousin, an Iraq War vet, as he tries his hand as an action movie star. "The Happiest Song Plays Last" was part of the 2011 National Playwrights Conference at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center.

The most interesting play for me on the Goodman's schedule is Lynn Nottage's "Meet Vera Stark," which takes a look at Hollywood during its "golden" years when black actresses could play only maids. In the play, Vera Stark really is a maid, to a star known as "America's little sweetie pie," while Vera tries to hunt down her own dreams for stardom in her spare time. She makes a bit of a splash in the small roles available to her, which doesn't go over well with "America's little sweetie pie." And then the play leaps forward to the 1970s and then 2003, as film scholars try to figure out what happened to this mysterious actress who jumped off the screen way back when. Nottage is a fabulous writer, the Hollywood premise is fascinating, and I can't wait till "Meet Vera Stark" hits the spotlight in the Albert Theatre April 27 to June 2, 2013.

And the last play of the season will be Mary Zimmerman's take on "The Jungle Book," based on the 1967 Disney movie. It will feature Zimmerman's trademark stage magic, mixing songs, dance, lights, costumes and whatever else she comes up with to create stunning visuals. The Goodman is calling "The Jungle Book" the theatrical event of the season, and if it's anything like Zimmerman's other work, it will be that and more.

"The Jungle Book" will swing by the Albert Theatre June 22 to July 28, 2013.

They will add one other show, to be announced later, to its Albert schedule, presumably to fit sometime in the November/December area. Stay tuned for that announcement.

In the meantime, peruse the descriptions of the other seven shows at the Goodman website, and be sure to look closely at the "Expect Something Wild" banner, which has "The Jungle Book" written all over it in the coolest possible way.