This Week in Theatre: EARTH AND SKY Opens Tonight at Heartland

Douglas Post's neo-noir thriller Earth and Sky opens tonight at Heartland Theatre with a special Pay What You Can preview performance that begins at 7:30 pm. These previews tend to be quite popular, so you should probably plan to be there by 7 to get in line.

I watched one of Earth and Sky's dress rehearsals earlier this week, and I can tell you that director Don LaCasse and his cast and crew have put together a terrific little show. Heartland doesn't do mysteries all that often, which is why this show stands apart a bit. It's definitely mysterious, following the story of Sara McKeon, a librarian who also writes poetry, and what happens -- backwards and forwards in her life -- when her boyfriend disappears from her life. Sara's love story shifts into reverse so that we can see how she and David met and forged a connection, while the police procedural part of the plot goes forward, from the moment Sara finds out her lover is gone through her journey into danger and lies as she searches for the truth.

I tend to like plays and films that fool with form, and there are quite a few examples of this "reverse chronology" phenomenon. Harold Pinter's Betrayal is probably the most famous on stage, while the movie Memento may take those honors on film, but there's also Alan Ayckbourn's Time of My Life, with its three overlapping "time streams," including one moving in reverse, Merrily We Roll Along, which goes backwards in both the Kaufman and Hart original play and the Furth/Sondheim musical version, Atom Egoyan's The Sweet Hereafter, and parts of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, where the technique is employed particularly effectively.

Since you're solving a mystery forwards as well as putting together the fragments of a romance backwards, Earth and Sky will command your attention throughout its 100-minute playing time. Karen Hazen, who plays Sara McKeon at Heartland, creates a compelling, sympathetic heroine, and the supporting cast is pretty terrific, too, with a range of suspicious cops and robbers that is quite fascinating. I was also impressed with Kenneth Johnson's "under the L" scenic design, which moves seamlessly inside and outside seamy Chicago corners, dives and alleys, and the sound and light cues from Caisa Sandberg and Anita McDaniel that move us from past to present and back.

Performances of Earth and Sky continue Friday and Saturday -- but not Sunday -- this week, with Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday performances during the rest of September. Ticket prices range from $15 for general admission to $12 for seniors and $5 for students. You can see show times here and get reservation information here.

September Kicks Fall Theatre Season into High Gear

Whether it feels like summer has left or not, school is back in session, theaters are gearing up for fall, and your entertainment options are going to look a little more serious from now through the end of the year. Hang on tight. September is here!

Right this very minute, Heartland Theatre is accepting entries in its annual 10-minute play competition. FOWL PLAYS (or plays with some connection to the bird world) will be accepted through February 1, 2014. You can see all the details here and get to writing about the goose that laid the golden egg, blackbirds singing in the dead of night, a partridge in a pear tree, or why the caged bird never sings.

Community Players opens its first show of autumn with Arsenic and Old Lace, the Joseph Kesselring classic that made a lot of people look at elderly ladies and their tea parties a little differently. It's an up-tempo comedy set around murder, as sweet old Aunt Abby and Aunt Martha, played for Community Players by Carol Scott and Tricia Stiller, entice lonely gents into their parlor to knock them off with poisoned elderberry wine. It's the kindest thing to do, the aunts assure their nephew, Mortimer Brewster (Brian Artman), the only member of the family who seems to have avoided the Brewster penchant for galloping insanity. Tom Smith directs Players' Arsenic and Old Lace, which will take the stage from September 6 to 15. To proceed directly to ticket-buying, click here.

 

And Heartland Theatre offers its first fall show as well, with the brooding neo-noir thriller Earth and Sky, by Chicago playwright Douglas Post, opening on September 12. Don LaCasse directs a cast that includes Karen Hazen as Sarah, a librarian and poet who finds herself way outside her comfort zone,  thrust into a scary urban landscape of cops and robbers, good guys and bad guys and guys in between, with all kinds of shades of gray. Local actress and poet Kathleen Kirk was in the original production of Earth and Sky, and she is acting as assistant director and dramaturg on this one. Read about Earth and Sky here, and check out the schedule of shows here.

The always-amusing Wayne Brady pops up at the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts on September 13 for one night only. I don't know about you, but Brady was always my favorite among the Whose Line regulars. (Note that if you made me pick one overall favorite, I would've gone for Chip Esten, but he wasn't there every week.) The BCPA tells us that Mr. Brady will be "doing what he does best... making funny stuff up off the top of his head! Funny with a sweet edginess… A night of laughter you’ll never forget." For ticket information, click here.

Eureka College Theatre is hosting a 24-hour play festival on September 14. I don't have details on how exactly they're structuring it, but other 24-hour play events have pulled playwrights and actors together in one place to brainstorm, create the play on the fly, rehearse it overnight, and then get it up on its feet the very next day. In other Eureka College Theatre news, their 2013-14 season will include The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) from the Reduced Shakespeare Company September 26 to October 5, Aristophanes' The Frogs (with what sounds like puppets instead of a swimming pool, where The Frogs is usually performed) from February 25 to March 1, and the musical Godspell, with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz, from April 9 to 13, 2014.

Back at Community Players, auditions will be held starting at 7 pm on September 16, 17 and 18 for Spamalot, the irreverent musical comedy "lovingly ripped off from" the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Spamalot won the 2003 Tony Award for Best Musical and received 14 other Tony nominations. There are lots of roles in this one, from King Arthur to his coconut-carrying servant, Patsy, and Sir Lancelot, Bravely Bold Sir Robin (who is neither brave nor bold), Sir Galahad, the Lady of the Lake, the Black Knight (who is missing a few limbs), and the Knights Who Say Ni! Python Eric Idle wrote the book and the lyrics, collaborating with John Du Prez and Neil Innes on the music, and the score includes "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life," which was originally written for Monty Python's Life of Brian.

Illinois State University's theatre season jump-starts on September 27, when Spring Awakening, Duncan Sheik's alt-rock musical about sexual awakening and repression among turn-of-the-century teenagers, opens at the ISU Center for the Performing Arts. I did a post on who's who in director Matthew Scott Campbell's cast here, or you can find more details on the Facebook page for the event. Also check out ticket information here. Tickets for Spring Awakening are available at Ticketmaster and through the CPA box office at 309-438-2535.

I will be back with more of the September schedule for area theatre as information becomes available. Until then... Start making reservations!

Upcoming Auditions: EARTH AND SKY at Heartland Theatre

Heartland Theatre has announced it is holding auditions from 7 to 9:30 pm on July 21 and 22 for its September production of Earth and Sky, Douglas Post's "poetic thriller" that asks disturbing questions about how well we know the people we think we love, who we trust, and when it is right and important to keep asking questions.

For Heartland, director Don LaCasse will work with local actress and poet Kathleen Kirk as dramaturg. Kirk appeared in a Chicago production of the play some years ago in the lead role of Sara, a librarian and part-time poet who finds herself disappearing down a rabbit hole of murder, lies and betrayal after the death of her fiance. Sara thought David was the perfect man, but the police are telling her a very different story. Who does she believe? How much can she trust her own instincts when everything she thought she knew has been ripped away?

Other versions of Earth and Sky featured powerhouse actresses like Annette Bening, Kate Burton and Martha Lavey as Sara, so it will be very interesting to see who nabs the role here.

LaCasse will be looking for three women and six men to play the following characters:

SARA McKEON, late 20s
DAVID AMES, early 30s
DETECTIVE AL KERSNOWSKI, mid 30s
DETECTIVE H.E. WEBER, 40
JOYCE LAZLO, early 20s
BILLY HART, early 30s
CARL EISENSTADT, 50
MARIE DEFARIA, early 30s
JULIUS GATZ, 40

Keep in mind that the ages listed are those specified in Post's script, but the director may choose to be flexible with his cast's actual ages, depending on how they read and interact with each other.

To get an idea of what the play is about, you can visit its page at Dramatists Play Service or see some pages from the script at Google Books.

Performances of the play are scheduled for September 12 to 29, with specific dates and times here.