SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE, HENRY V and MERRY WIVES Set for Illinois Shakes 18

The Illinois Shakespeare Festival and new artistic director John C. Stark have just announced what's in store for the summer of 2018, with all kinds of intriguing developments on the horizon.

The Merry Wives of Windsor, Shakespeare's domestic comedy about frisky housewives, their husbands and how they interact with Falstaff, a rowdy, blustering rascal, will open the Festival on Friday, July 5. The Merry Wives of Windsor was last performed at the Festival in 2010, in a sparkling production set in the 1920s. Deanna Jent, whose play Falling moved from St. Louis to New York with great acclaim and then back to Normal at Heartland Theatre, will direct this Merry Wives, which will get the theater at Ewing to itself that first week. Jent is an alumna of Illinois Wesleyan University, a professor of theatre at Fontbonne University, and artistic director of the Mustard Seed Theatre in St. Louis. This is her first directing assignment at the Illinois Shakespeare Festival.

The second play in the line-up, Henry V, the stirring "once more unto the breach" history play, wherein (spoiler alert) the same Falstaff we saw in Merry Wives kicks the bucket. Off-stage, though. Henry V was last staged here in 2007. This time, the immensely talented Karen Kessler, who directed the only production of The Taming of the Shrew I ever liked, set in 1950s Little Italy, will be at the helm of Henry V.  It's set to open one week after Merry Wives, on July 12, also at the theater at Ewing Cultural Center.

And the third play, which will be performed on campus at the Illinois State University Center for the Performing Arts, bows on July 19. This one will be one of the most popular plays of 2017, Shakespeare in Love, adapted by Lee Hall from the screenplay of the Oscar-winning film by Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard. It will be directed by Marti Lyons, another IWU alum and another in-demand director with credits ranging from Lookingglass and Chicago Shakespeare in the Windy City to Actors Theatre of Louisville's Humana Festival of New American Plays. Shakespeare in Love premiered on stage in London in 2014. Its North American premiere took place last year at the Stratford Festival in Ontario, Canada, and it's been going gangbusters across the United States ever since.

In addition to the staggered start indicated above, Illinois Shakes' managing director William Prenevost announced that changes are in the works across the ticketing side of the Illinois Shakespeare Festival. Subscription choices, seating levels and prices are getting a makeover, online ordering will be added, and the special perks that used to come with Platinum Plus tickets will now be offered to Illinois Shakespeare Festival Society members, as the Platinum Plus level of tickets is phased into plain old Platinum. All the details will be unveiled on the Illinois Shakes website as we get closer to the summer season.

Q Brothers' I HEART JULIET Sold Out for the Summer at Illinois Shakes Fest

The Illinois Shakespeare Festival is reporting that I Heart Juliet, the Q Brothers' hip-hop version of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet set to play 11 performances this summer as part of the Festival season, is completely sold out.

Westhoff is a smaller venue than the stage at Ewing Manor, so it's not surprising it would sell out even if the other shows in this summer's season -- A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Amazing Cymbeline -- still have tickets available. No word on how many seats are still open, however, so it's probably best to get your tickets secured now. Keep in mind that season tickets are out, since I Heart Juliet is full, so you will be looking for single tickets to the other two.

A waiting list has been started in case they get any cancellations or additional performances are added to accommodate the interest. You may reach the Festival box office at 309-438-2535 to be added to the waiting list or to ask about Midsummer and Cymbeline tickets. You may also visit the Illinois Shakespeare Festival website for updates and to browse your performance options.

Coming Soon: 2017 Illinois Shakespeare Festival Opportunities & Options

If it's almost summer, it's almost time for the Illinois Shakespeare Festival. If you haven't purchased tickets yet, there's still time to choose single seats or a season pass. And a call just went out for volunteer ushers, which may also get you in to see the show.

Here's the scoop on what's happening this summer:

A Midsummer Night's Dream is up first with a preview performance on June 28 and official opening night on the 30th. After that, you'll find 16 more performances in the theater at Ewing Manor through August 11. This Midsummer is directed by Robert Quinlan, head of the MFA directing program at Illinois State University. Quinlan's previous Illinois Shakespeare Festival credits include Richard II and Macbeth. Festival favorite Tom Quinn leads the cast as Bottom, with Jordan Coughtry as Puck, Thom Miller as Oberon, Nisi Sturgis as Titania, and Jesse Bhamrah, Susie Parr, Raffeal A. Sears and Emily Wold as the four Athenian lovers lost in the forest.

Next on the agenda is not just any Cymbeline but an adaptation for six actors created by Chris Coleman called Shakespeare's Amazing Cymbeline. The ensemble consists of Coughtry, Miller, Quinn, Sears and Sturgis and Patrick Toon, under the direction of Andy Park, who also directed Peter and the Starcatcher and Failure: A Love Story in Festivals past. The preview for Amazing Cymbeline happens on June 29, with performances on stage at Ewing Theater from July 1 to August 12.

The Q Brothers return to the Festival with I Heart Juliet, "bringing their incredible energy, humor, and hip-hop verse to Shakespeare’s timeless masterpiece, Romeo & Juliet." You might've seen the Q Brothers' take on Two Gentleman of Verona called Q Gents back in 2015. This time, ISF Artistic Director Kevin Rich is at the helm with a cast that includes the Q Brothers Collective (GQ, JQ, Jax and Pos) and ten members of the Festival company. I Heart Juliet opens July 9 in Westhoff Theatre on the ISU campus, continuing at Westhoff till August 8. For all the details, click here.

If you're wondering who's who on the design team this year, look for Joe C. Klug as scenic designer for all three shows, with Dan Ozminkowski as lighting designer and Kieran Pereira in charge of sound design. Splitting up costume design duties, Nicholas Hartman will conceive the wardrobe for Amazing Cymbeline, Christina Leinicke for I Heart Juliet and Tyler Wilson for Midsummer.

In addition to these three shows, you'll have five chances to see The Improvised Shakespeare Company and Wednesday and Saturday morning performances of the fairytale Sleeping Beauty under the Theater for Young Audiences umbrella.

And about that volunteer usher opportunity... You can wear what you want, pick your dates (with some flexibility), and even see the show for free, as long as seats are available. Read more about it here. If ushering sounds like something you'd enjoy, contact ISF House Manager Dave Hansen at dlhans1@ilstu.edu.

What's Coming Up at Illinois Shakes in 2017

The Illinois Shakespeare Festival has announced plans for its 40th anniversary season, taking place next summer at Ewing Cultural Center in Bloomington. The 2017 summer season will include one bona fide Shakespeare play and two adaptations.

The real-live Shakespeare play will be A Midsummer Night's Dream, always a popular choice. This magical comedy, full of fairies, foolish mortals in love and an amateur acting troupe trying to put on a terrible play, will open the season on June 30, playing till August 11.

An image from the 2009 Midsummer directed by Deb Alley. Photo by Pete Guither.

A Midsummer Night's Dream was first done at the Illinois Shakespeare Festival in 1980 and has been well represented here ever since. I have good memories of the hilarious 2002 production directed by Karen Kessler, where Puck looked like a tiny pony, as well as the sultry 2009 Cajun-flavored Midsummer directed by Deb Alley. What will set the next Midsummer apart? Illinois Shakes says:  "Our family-friendly production of Shakespeare's world-famous comedy follows four young lovers into an enchanted forest for an unforgettable journey of trickery, laughter, and love. Featured in this production is a musical Puck, whose original score is sure to cast a spell on you!"

The Illinois Shakespeare Festival has a tendency to offer one comedy, one drama and one "other." This time, there are two contenders for that "other" spot, with Chris Coleman's Shakespeare's Amazing Cymbeline the first. Coleman is the artistic director at Portland Center Stage in Oregon, and his six-actor adaptation of Cymbeline, produced at PCS in 2012, represented the first time Shakespeare was performed by that theater. The image below is from that production.

In Coleman's take on Cymbeline, one of those six performers, a musician, serves as the narrator to keep all of Cymbeline's wandering plot threads together. The important thing to note is that Cymbeline, the King of Britain, isn't that important a character even if he does get the title. It's Imogen, his daughter, whose story you'll need to follow. Dad's evil wife wants to marry Imogen off to her cloddish son, but Imogen is already secretly married to a guy named Posthumus. Because of the marriage, Posthumus is banished, whereafter he makes a stupid bet concerning his wife, is fooled by a bad friend (bed trick alert!) into thinking she's unfaithful, and decides to kill her. But our Imogen is no dummy and she dresses as a boy (cross-dressing girl alert!) and goes on the lam, where she accidentally runs into her brothers, who were kidnapped when they were little. And the clod (his name is Cloten) is on her trail, too. By the time it all gets sorted out, there is a headless body dressed in someone else's clothes (mistaken identity alert!) and an appearance by the god Jupiter to promise everything will turn out OK.

By my count, Cymbeline has only been done twice by the Illinois Shakespeare Festival, making it a rare choice. If you need to check Cymbeline off your bucket Shakespeare list, this is the time, even in its reduced, six-person state. It will be performed between July 1 and August 12, 2017 in the outdoor theater at Ewing.

The last play on the schedule is also an adaptation. The Q Brothers made an appearance in Bloomington in 2015 to offer Q Gents, a hip-hop version of The Two Gentlemen of Verona performed by four actors from the Q Brothers Collective. This time they're performing something called I Heart Juliet, a hip-hop (and comedic) riff on Romeo and Juliet, performed with a cast of ten. We are told: "The Q Brothers Collective is at it again, bringing their incredible energy, humor, and hip-hop verse to Shakespeare’s timeless masterpiece, Romeo and Juliet!" Note that I Heart Juliet will be performed inside, in Illinois State University's Westhoff Theatre, from July 9 to August 8. (The I Heart Juliet image above is from a Connecticut college production.)

Tickets to all three of these Illinois Shakespeare Festival offerings will go on sale later in 2016. Keep an eye on the Illinois Shakes website and Facebook page for details.

Warnings and Portents and Evils Imminent... Time for SHAKESFEAR!

The Illinois Shakespeare Festival's annual Shakesfear event -- mixing some of Shakespeare's characters with the basic structure of a haunted house -- starts tomorrow night at Ewing Cultural Center in Bloomington.

There are two options: a half-hour "Haunted Tour" kicked off by the immortal Bard himself, after which brave souls will be guided around the grounds to see frightening scenes from Shakespeare recreated for them, or the "Enchanted Courtyard," which offers crafts and treats and less scary performances for everyone under the age of 8 and anyone not looking for the scary stuff.

The tours leave every ten minutes beginning at 7 pm on October 27, 28 or 29, with the last group setting out at 9:30 pm. The scenes they'll see may be on the balconies, in the gardens or even backstage at the Festival theater, wherever seems appropriate for the likes of drowned Ophelia and her seaweed-dripping locks, mad Lady Macbeth and her bloody hands, or perhaps Richard III haunted by the ghosts of everyone he murdered. Who and what will be performed this year hasn't been leaked yet, but the body count from plays like Hamlet, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, Richard III, Romeo and Juliet and Titus Andronicus is high enough to provide plenty of material. Witches, apparitions, murderers and mischief-makers abound!

"Haunted Tours" have sold out in the past, so you are advised to make a reservation by calling the Illinois State University box office at 309-438-2535 or 866-IL-SHAKE. Buying ahead not only gets you a reserved spot at a specific time, but a lower ticket price. It's $7 for adults who plan ahead and $10 at the door (cash only) if there are spaces left. Admission for children and students is $5 either in advance or at the door.

The Ewing Cultural Center is located at 48 Sunset Road in Bloomington. Parking is available at St. John’s Lutheran Church across the road on Emerson Street. You are asked to cross the street at Emerson and Towanda Avenue so as to avoid traffic.

Please also note that special effects used in this program may include strobe lighting and loud sound and noise. Persons with conditions that can be aggravated by strobe lightning and loud noise should not attend this program. No pets or skates are allowed on the grounds of Ewing Cultural Center. If you need special accommodations to fully participate in this program/event, please contact the Illinois Shakespeare Festival at 309-438-2535. Please allow sufficient time to arrange the accommodation.

For more information, visit www.IllinoisShakes.com.

Take Your Marks: August Entertainment Is Already Racing Ahead

As we come to the end of the summer, lots of people are looking for something to see or do, even as they gear up for back to school and the start of the official fall season. If you've already finished the new Harry Potter script and you're not ready to jump into fall just yet, you might want to check out these options:

Prairie Fire Theatre opens its production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma! tonight, with performances at 7:30 pm August 4 to 6 and matinees at 3 pm on August 6 and 7. Director Rhys Lovell's cast includes John McHugh as Curly and Megan Koch as Laurey, with Aric Diamani (Ali Hakim), Reid Gramm (Will Parker), Anna Karnick (Ado Annie), Blake Miller (Jud) ad Carolyn Stucky (Aunt Eller). All performances will take place in Westbrook Auditorium in Presser Hall on the campus of Illinois Wesleyan University. The box office number is 309-824-3047 if you'd like to call for tickets or check out the event's Facebook page for more information. As an added bonus, the Summer on Stage youth theater program will present Oklahoma! Jr. at 11 am on Saturday August 6, also in Westbrook Auditorium. Their info is here or here, if you look directly below the image for the full Oklahoma! production.

A handful of performances remain at the Illinois Shakespeare Festival. If you haven't had a chance to visit Ewing Manor for a show (or a picnic, a walk in the gardens and a show), you can still see Peter and the Starcatcher tonight or August 6, 9 or 11; Twelfth Night tomorrow or August 7 or 12; and Hamlet August 5, 10 or 13. Philip Dawkins' Rodeo is also offered free of charge on the grounds of Ewing Manor at 10 am on August 6 and 13, and The Improvised Shakespeare Company will perform August 7 at 5:30 pm. For tickets to Starcatcher, Twelfth Night, Hamlet or Improvised Shakespeare, check out the tickets page for the Illinois Shakespeare Festival here.

The Art Theater Co-op continues its Big Screen Noir series with Cape Fear tomorrow night at 10 pm and Kiss Me Deadly at 10 pm Friday and Saturday, 11:30 am Sunday, and 10 pm on August 11th. This is the original 1962 Cape Fear with a good guy (Gregory Peck) trying to protect his family from a very bad guy (Robert Mitchum), fresh out of prison and stalking all of them to get revenge. The Simpsons sent it up in their famous Cape Feare episode, which itself inspired Anne Washburn's Mr. Burns: A Post-Electric Play, with her characters re-enacting the episode as a sort of religious experience. Mr. Burns will be on a couple of area theaters' 2016-17 schedules, so if you want to see where it all started, now is the time. Even if you don't care about Washburn's play, it never hurts to further your Noir education.

And, of course, the Rio Olympics are also happening. Some games and matches have already started, although the big kickoff is August 5, when NBC brings us the opening ceremonies at 6 Central/7 Eastern. Swimmer Michael Phelps will be carrying the flag for the United States. You can find lots of video pieces, the broadcast schedule and results on the NBC Olympics site, or try out an official trailer from Brazil to clue you in on the different venues. For my taste, this one from the BBC is shorter and way more fun, however.

Closer to home, the Normal Theater will air The Court Jester, the 1955 Danny Kaye musical that features songs by Sammy Cahn and Sylvia Fine along with the famous "vessel with the pestle" speech to keep Danny's character from drinking poison. Hint: Stick with the chalice from the palace, Danny. Glynis Johns, Angela Lansbury, Mildred Natwick and Basil Rathbone are all part of The Court Jester's fabulous cast. The film is part of the Normal Theater's Tuesday Night Classics series, on screen August 16 at 7 pm.

Galaxy Quest is part of a different Normal Theater series, the Friday Night Late Show.  Given that we lost Alan Rickman this year, that Comic Con was last week, and that Star Trek is back with a new film, Galaxy Quest couldn't be more timely. In the film, Rickman plays one of the cast members of a very cultish TV show called (not surprisingly) Galaxy Quest that ended years ago but still inspires an incredibly faithful following. When the cast of that show, including characters played by Rickman, Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver and Tony Shalhoub, attend a fan convention, they are kidnapped by real aliens who think they are the heroic characters they played on TV. It's not as complicated as it sounds, but it is a pretty adorable movie, with Rickman's classical actor Alexander Dane, who's been trapped playing a sort of Spock-like character called Dr. Lazarus, a real highlight.

And in the world of series TV, Mr. Robot is back on USA and UnREAL is trashing up the place on Lifetime, Dancing on the Edge promises to finally tell us who really killed chanteuse Jessie on PBS, The Get Down, a hip hop miniseries from Baz Luhrmann set in the 1970s in the Bronx, begins August 12 on Netflix, Fear the Walking Dead returns to Netflix August 21, and a show called Gomorrah (although the poster says Gomorra) that looks at power and machinations inside an Italian crime syndicate, premieres August 24 on the Sundance Channel.

That's enough to keep anybody busy!

Hot Fun in the Summertime on Stage and Screen in July

June may be gone, but the summer is just getting started when it comes to entertainment. You can keep yourself occupied every night (and a few days) if you want to, and that's just with the few things I've collected here. There's plenty more out there, believe me.

But for now, here are some highlights that jumped out at me.

The Lady From Shanghai, Orson Welles' fun-house mirror of film noir crosses and double-crosses, plays at Champaign's Art Theater Co-op tonight and tomorrow night, and then again on the 7th and 17th. Welles directed and stars alongside Rita Hayworth, the screen siren he was married to at the time, even though Welles made her cut her hair and dye it blonde, which isn't really her best look. And Welles has his own nose in this one, which is quite unusual!

The Art follows that with another piece of film noir, this time The Killing, written and directed by Stanley Kubrick. The Killing was released in June, 1956, making it 60 years old. It involves some petty crooks trying to pull off a racetrack heist, with complications from a no-good dame and a too-big suitcase. The film's star is Sterling Hayden, the precious-bodily-fluids-obsessed general in Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove, but you'll also see Vince Edwards, TV's Dr. Ben Casey, Elisha Cook, Jr., who had a memorable role in Casablanca, and comedian Rodney Dangerfield in a small role. The Art Theater Co-op is offering The Killing on July 8, 9, 10 and 24. See all the details here.

It's almost time for the Illinois Shakespeare Festival, which kicks off its summer season at Ewing Cultural Center with previews of Twelfth Night on July 5, the Broadway play Peter and the Starcatcher on July 6, and Hamlet on July 7. Those three plays run in repertory through August 13, with extras like Philip Dawkins' new children's play Rodeo at 10 am on Wednesdays and Saturdays all summer, and the Improvised Shakespeare Company performing July 17, 24, 31 and August 7 at 5:30 pm. If you'd like to see ticket information, it's right here.

Community Players' production of Disney's Beauty and the Beast starts with a preview July 7, followed by performances Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays through July 24. To create this "tale as old as time," director Alan Wilson has assembled a cast that includes Kiera Martin as Belle, Sean Stevens as her Beast, Alex Knightwright as oh-so-wrong man Gaston, Jennifer Stevens as Mrs. Potts, Jaden Ward as her son Chip, and Joe McDonald as Lumiere, the candlestick butler who sings "Be Our Guest."

The Station Theatre brings Bat Boy: The Musical to its cozy confines starting July 14, with Mikel L. Matthews, Jr. directing Evan Seggebruch as the Bat Boy himself. This "dark and hysterical look at how we deal with those unlike us" hangs around at the Station until August 6.

The Mike Dobbins Memorial New Plays from the Heartland -- new one-acts from Midwestern playwrights performed as staged readings -- are on stage July 15, 16 and 17, with director Cyndee Brown at the helm this year. Winning plays on the theme "A Key" are Key Ring by Steven Peterson from Chicago, Good Morning, Miriam by Jacquelyn Priskorn of Troy City, Michigan, and päzədiv (Positive) by Chicago's Alyssa Ratkovich, an ISU acting alum who appeared in Heartland's 10-Minute Play Festival more than once while she was in town. This year's guest playwright, who will conduct a master class for the winning playwrights and offer an open forum at the theater on Ju;y 14, is Mia McCullough, author of the play Chagrin Falls as well as a new book about creative writing.

The summer season at the Midwest Institute of Opera kicks off with excerpts from Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel on July 25 and 27, followed by Poulenc's Dialogues of the Carmelites, featuring the Metropolitan Opera's Heidi Skok, on July 28 and 30, and Verdi's Falstaff on the 29th and 31st. All MIO performances will be held in Illinois State University's Center for the Performing Arts Concert Hall. For more information, check out the Midwest Institute of Opera website.

The Summer Season Starts... Now!

I feel as if we hardly had a spring (I think I say that every year) but here we are, with a toe dipped in June, and it seems summer is here, whether we're ready or not. With summer come some different theater options we don't see the rest of the year. More things involving the younger set, lighter fare, and fun stuff all around.

Starting tonight, Heartland Theatre is back with its 15th annual ten-minute play festival, this year on the theme "The Art Gallery," with performances June 2-4, 9-11, 16-18 and 23-25. For all the details on what kind of art playwrights chose for their "Art Gallery plays," check out this preview piece, including info on the eight winning plays, playwrights, directors and casts. For show times, you'll want to visit this page.

Also at Heartland, June brings auditions for the "New Plays from the Heartland" project, which offers staged readings of three new one-act plays written by Midwestern playwrights, this year directed by Illinois State University professor Cyndee Brown. The winning plays in need of actors are Key Ring by Steven Peterson from Chicago, Good Morning, Miriam by Jacqueline Floyd-Priskorn of Troy City, Michigan, and Pazediv (Positive) by Alyssa Ratkovich. You may remember Ratkovich, an ISU alum, from her appearances in several Heartland ten-minute play festivals of yesteryear. Brown will hold auditions on Monday, June 6, and Tuesday, June 7, from 7 to 10 pm at Heartland Theatre. You can read more about what she's looking for here.

Illinois Theatre, the production arm of the University of Illinois's theatre department, has announced the return of the Sullivan Project, which pairs Daniel Sullivan, Tony Award winning director as well Swanlund Chair in theatre at U of I, with a new play by a major playwright. This time the play is Long Lost, written by Donald Margulies, the playwright behind Dinner with Friends (a Pulitzer Prize winner, also directed by Sullivan), Sight Unseen, Time Stands Still and Collected Stories. Long Lost concerns two middle-aged brothers attempting to reunite after years of conflict. Seven performances are scheduled between June 8 and 12 in the Studio Theatre inside Urbana's Krannert Center for the Performing Arts. For ticket information, look for the green button on this page.

Normal Parks and Recreation's 2016 High School Summer Theatre brings You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown to the Connie Link Ampitheatre on Linden Street in Normal at 7:30 pm on June 9, 10, 11 and 12 and 16, 17, 19 and 19. As they describe it, "Happiness is...Charlie Brown and the Gang!" They're using the script from the 2012 revival of the musical (with music and lyrics by Clark Gesner) based on Charlie Shultz's comic strips and cartoons. Like the cartoons, You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown features Charlie Brown, Lucy, Linus, Sally, Schroeder and of course Snoopy, the dog who has fantasies of flying his doghouse against the Red Baron. The cast includes Jamie Keller (Sally), Nicholas Koch (Schroeder), Will Koski (Charlie Brown), Brendan Riley (Linus) Paige Woods (Lucy) and Simmy Woods (Snoopy), as well as about 35 more high school and junior high age actors, dancers and singers. The Normal Parks and Recreation Summer Musical Facebook page has a list of the entire cast.

If you have a hankering to return to the big hair and hot dance moves of the 1980s, you're in luck. The Normal Theater goes all the way back to 1986 for Pretty in Pink, where pretty Molly Ringwald yearns for popular Blane, played by Andrew McCarthy, while driven crazy by weird-but-interesting Duckie, played by Jon Cryer, on June 10, and then to 1984 for Footloose, the one where Kevin Bacon just wants to kick up his heels in a town where dancing isn't allowed, on June 16. If the Psychedelic Furs ("Pretty in Pink") or Kenny Loggins ("Footloose") and Deniece Williams ("Let's Hear It for the Boy") are the soundtrack to your life, the Normal Theater is waiting for you.

The Station Theatre opens its summer season July 16 with the vacation comedy Leaving Iowa by Tim Clue and Spike Manton. The authors' website for the play tells us that "Leaving Iowa first premiered at Jeff Daniels’ Purple Rose Theatre, where it broke box office records and received a nomination for Best New Play from the Detroit Free Press. After a year-long, sold-out run at Chicago’s Royal George Theatre, Leaving Iowa made its west coast debut at the Laguna Playhouse, where it earned another honor as one of SoCal Theater’s 10 Most Memorable Moments." Performance of Leaving Iowa, directed by David Barkley, will continue at the Station Theatre through July 2.

With a presidential race happening right now, especially one with a demagogue front and center, there could be no better time for Charlie Chaplin's 1940 masterpiece The Great Dictator. Cinema Judaica presents the film on Sunday, June 19, at 7:30 pm at the Art Theater Co-op in Champaign. Chaplin plays two roles, one an evil tyrant named Adenoid Hinkle (the country he's got in his grip is called Tomainia), a caricature of Adolph Hitler, and the other an innocent Jewish barber who bears a certain resemblance to Little Tramp, his own classic comic persona from silent films. The Great Dictator was Chaplin's first real talking picture, making the most of his grace and physical humor, with supporting performances from comedian Jack Oakie as Napaloni, the dictator of Bacteria, and Paulette Goddardas a beautiful young woman named Hannah. You need to see The Great Dictator. Even if you've seen it before, you need to see it again. I'm not kidding.

Schoolhouse Rock Live comes to Community Players Theatre on June 24, 25 and 26, showcasing a cast of performers ranging from 5th to 8th graders. This is the inaugural production under Players' new Summer Camp banner. And what's Schoolhouse Rock? It's a pop-culture phenomenon based on the Emmy Award-winning Saturday morning cartoon series from the 1970s. With songs like "Conjunction Junction" and "Just a Bill," Schoolhouse Rock taught grammar, history and math to unsuspecting kids.You can see Schoolhouse Rock Live with your children on Saturday, June 25, at 1 pm and 4 pm, or on Sunday the 26th at 2 pm. Director Kelly Rosendahl's cast includes Olivia Graham, Jacob Matchett, Monica Martinez, Savannah Sleevar and Matthew Williamson and an ensemble of about 40. To purchase tickets, click here.

As a teaser for its summer season, which starts in July, the Illinois Shakespeare Festival visits the Normal Public Library at 10:30 am on June 24 with something they're calling Scenes and Songs from Peter and the Starcatcher. Tickets for all three Festival productions -- Hamlet, Twelfth Night and Peter and the Starcatcher -- are now available, if you're considering a subscription or individual tickets. The Illinois Shakespeare Festival opens in previews July 5, with performances continuing through August 13.

There's plenty more happening in June and I'll try to catch up with that as we move along. But for now... It's time to start making reservations.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like December

There's a lot to stuff in your stocking this month, with some interesting not-so-holidayish items, (like a very special trio of staged readings) to go along with the classic Nutcrackers (and more Nutcrackers) and Christmas concerts.

This week, Heartland Theatre is doing something a little different -- a staged reading of a completely new (updated and contemporized) version of an "undiscovered Ibsen classic" in collaboration with Illinois State University's School of Theatre and Dance. Although Ibsen's title was originally translated as A League of Youth, this new version by playwright Nigel O'Hearn is called An Alliance of Brats. It's political and timely, with a cast led by ISU MFA actor Joey Banks, directed by Sandra Zielinski, with talkbacks on political topics scheduled after every performance. You can see An Alliance of Brats for a $5 donation from December 4 to 6, with the playwright himself in house on Friday the 4th. Click here to check out the schedule and the lineup of guest speakers after the show.

Turner Classic Movies is offering way too many holiday movies for me to enumerate them. But you can peruse the list here, with a choice of Scrooges (Albert Finney and Reginald Owen) as well as the cream of the holiday film crop with Meet Me in St. Louis, Christmas in Connecticut and The Shop Around the Corner. The holiday parade at TCM starts on Thursday at 8 pm with It Happened on 5th Avenue, a slight but sweet romantic comedy about GIs solving the post-World War II housing crisis for themselves by moving into a posh but empty 5th Avenue mansion while its millionaire owner summers in warmer climes. TCM finishes up December with a whole lot of Marx Brothers and Thin Man movies on December 31.

Hayao Miyazaki’s much-beloved Spirited Away makes the lineup at Champaign's Art Theater Co-Op this month, with screenings from December 5 to 10. This beautiful piece of animated fantasy sends a young girl named Chihiro deep into an enchanted theme park, battling demons, witches and sorcery to save herself and her parents. Spirited Away ranks No. 30 among IMDB's list of the all-time best movies. To see showtimes and a trailer for this Oscar-winning film, click here.

Music for the Holidays at ISU December 5 and 6

Illinois State University’s annual Music for the Holidays concerts will take place at 3 and 7 pm on December 5, and 3 pm December 6, in the Center for the Performing Arts Concert Hall on the ISU quad. Music for the Holidays includes traditional holiday music performed by instrumental and vocal ensembles from ISU's School of Music at ISU, with orchestral pieces such as Russian Christmas Music and Hanukkah Festival Overture, choral arrangements of the Christmas Waltz, "Pat-a-Pan" and "Still, Still, Still," and an arrangement of "The Twelve Days of Christmas." Audience members are encouraged to join and sing along. Tickets are $15 for general admission, $12 for faculty/staff and $10 for students and seniors.

Illinois Wesleyan's annual Christmas Choral Concert takes place December 6 at Holy Trinity Church. This special holiday concert will feature IWU’s Collegiate Choir, University Choir and Chamber Singers, conducted by Professor of Music J. Scott Ferguson. The Lincoln-Way East High Schol Chorale, conducted by Matthew Granger, will also perform. For more information, click here.

The Normal Theater is branching into live theater with a special staged reading of Lillian Hellman's gripping family drama, The Little Foxes, directed by Patrick O'Gara, on Tuesday, December 8, at 7 pm. The role of Regina Gibbons, the scheming matriarch of a poisonous family, has been played by Tallulah Bankhead, Bette Davis, Anne Bancroft and Elizabeth Taylor, but O'Gara has put together an all-star cast of his own, including local powerhouses Lori Adams, Dean Brown, Gregory Hicks, Kyle Fitzgerald, Don Shandrow, Claron Sharrieff and Todd Wineburner, along with all three members of the de Veer acting family. Yes, this Little Foxes includes Connie, Gwen and Mark de Veer on stage at the same time. I would say it's not to be missed, but that should be apparent from the cast without any input from me. The Normal Theater will follow that up with a screening of the 1941 movie version of The Little Foxes, starring Bette Davis, with a screenplay penned by Lillian Hellman herself. (Note that the image accompanying this paragraph is from the 1997 Broadway revival with Stockard Channing.)

New Route Theatre's According to John on December 11

New Route Theatre is up and running in December with According to John, a new piece based on the Gospel of John in the New Testament, written and performed by Ron Roman, another of Illinois State University's third-year MFA actors. This solo performance, a staged reading, takes place at the First Christian Church of Bloomington on December 11 at 7 pm. Tickets are available at the door on the night of the performance. There is no set ticket price, but donations are encouraged. Email new.route.theatre@gmail.com for more information.

This month they're busy rehearsing The Crucible, their January show, at Community Players, but in the meantime, Players is also offering a "Holiday Movie Night" double feature with The Muppet Christmas Carol, where Michael Caine plays Scrooge alongside Kermit as Bob Cratchit (with songs!) and Christmas Vacation, with Chevy Chase tied up in lights as the crazy Griswolf family gathers for the holidays. Players' "Holiday Movie Night" is set for December 12; doors open at 4:30, with the Muppets starting at 5 and Chevy Chase & Co. taking over at 7. And it's free!

Singer Sal Viviano comes to the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts on December 12 with his tribute to Frank Sinatra called Perfectly Frank: Celebrating a Century of Sinatra. December 12 happens to be Mr. Sinatra's birthday -- his 100th, as a matter of fact -- so you are promised cake if you attend this concert, which will cover Sinatra hits like "Luck Be a Lady" and "My Kind of Town." Viviano doesn't sound a great deal like Sinatra (you can hear a lot of him on the long teaser video posted on the BCPA site) so this is clearly not intended as an imitation.

Carols in the Courtroom on December 15

Illinois State University's Civic Chorale hosts Carols in the Courtroom on December 15 at 7:30 pm in the Governor Fifer room of the McLean County Museum of History. And hot cocoa and Christmas cookies will be available, as well. Once again, admission is free, but donations to help support ISU's Civic Chorale will be accepted. Professor John M. Koch is conducting, with Patricia Foltz at the piano and Julia Kay Jameson at the harp. The event has a Facebook page here.

On December 18, Illinois Central College's Guest Artist Series celebrates a different musical superstar when "tribute artist" Carla DelVillaggio and pianist Chris Rottmayer present Simply Streisand: Holiday Memories to put the spotlight on Barbra. No word on what songs DelVillaggio will be performing, but it could be anything from "Jingle Bells" to "Ave Maria" to "It Must Have Been the Mistletoe," all of which have appeared on Streisand's Christmas albums. For performance and ticket information, you can visit ICC's page for the event.

If you need a Christmas gift for somebody who likes Shakespeare (and specifically the Illinois Shakespeare Festival), the Festival is offering subscription packages now, with plenty of time to stick Viola and Orsino, Hamlet and even a little Peter Pan under the tree. Individual tickets won't go on sale till February, but this is your chance to get your choice of seats with your season tickets now. All the details are available at the Illinois Shakespeare Festival website.

Plenty of opportunities to give yourself the gift of theater this December!

Illinois Shakespeare Festival Lets the Cat (and the HAMLET) Out of the Bag

The Illinois Shakespeare Festival has announced its 2016 line-up of summer plays. And the winners are...

Hamlet, Twelfth Night and Peter and the Starcatcher!

Hamlet and Twelfth Night are the Shakespeare choices, obviously, with Rick Elice's  Peter and the Starcatcher taking the "other" spot. That wildcard slot has been filled in recent years by funny, fizzy stuff like the Reduced Shakespeare Company's The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) -- twice -- and last year's Q Gents, the Q Brothers hip-hop take on Two Gentlemen of Verona, as well as classics like Richard Brinsley Sheridan's The Rivals and an updated version of Scapin, plus newer, less easily pigeon-holed material like Philip Dawkins' Failure: A Love Story.

Elice's Peter and the Starcatcher, a prequel of sorts to the Peter Pan story, is both fun and energetic, with a little music and a lot of imagination and high-flying movement, meaning it should fit in just fine at the Shakespeare Festival. Elice adapted the play from a 2006 children's book with as similar name written by Dave Barry (yes, the Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper columnist) and Ridley Pearson (New York Times best-selling author). The play was directed by Elice's husband, the late actor Roger Rees, and Alex Timbers, with a 2009 production at California's LaJolla Playhouse, followed by an off-Broadway run in 2011, a Broadway production that opened in 2012, and an another off-Broadway run after that. The Broadway version of Peter and the Starcatcher (whose logo you see here) was nominated for nine Tony Awards, winning for its scenery, costumes, lights and sound, and bringing Christian Borle a Tony for his performance as "Black Stache," the forerunner to Captain Hook.

David Tennant and Patrick Stewart in the
Royal Shakespeare Company's 2008 Hamlet.

Hamlet's last appearance at the Illinois Shakespeare Festival was in 2004, but I have stronger memories of the 1997 production, when it was played in repertory with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, the Tom Stoppard play which takes two of Hamlet's minor characters and looks at the action from their point of view. The 1997 production set Prince Hamlet and the rotten court of Denmark in the early part of the 20th century, with a doomed aristocratic look that reminded me at the time of Brideshead Revisited. Now I think we would say upstairs at Downton Abbey, but the idea is the same -- the melancholy and madness of a privileged son in an age of privilege. It's impossible to guess where they will take Hamlet this time, since pretty much everything has been tried somewhere, from Hamlet on a blank stage to a Russian fugue state, Star Trek's holodeck, a corporate boardroom, a repressed 1950s European kingdom, and an urban jungle where the title character is an angtsy rebel in a T-shirt and jeans. As well as, of course, a traditional Elizabethan setting where Hamlet wears black tights and a doublet. The possibilities are endless.

As for Twelfth Night... The Illinois Shakespeare Festival famously began its history with a production of the play directed by Dennis Zacek that was described as "futuristic space age" in tone and I seem to recall a Dickensian Christmas production as well as one that looked a bit like the Arabian Nights. Viola, the ship-wrecked twin dressed as a boy who wanders into Duke Orsino's court and falls in love, is one of Shakespeare's brightest, most charming heroines. Orsino and Olivia, the other two legs of the romantic triangle, can be a bit soggy, given that he's pining after her and she's in mourning and having none of his overtures, but they can also be quite wonderful in the right hands. And the supporting players -- a drunken oaf named Sir Toby Belch, his silly friend Sir Andrew Aguecheek and Malvolio, Olivia's uptight steward -- can also be hilarious or wrenching, depending on how they're handled. I recall an Illinois Shakespeare Festival production in the mid-90s with actor Frank Nall slipping into Malvolio's yellow stockings where it all worked like a charm. The 1996 film version with Imogen Stubbs and Helena Bonham Carter was also lovely. (See poster above.) Fingers crossed for another one like that either of those!

The Illinois Shakespeare Festival will begin its 39th season with preview performances on July 5,6 and 7, and official opening nights on July 8, 9 and 10. You can visit their Facebook page here or check out their website here.

Hang on Tight -- October's Getting Scary!

October is brimming over with Things to Do, ranging from a little musical comedy and a big announcement to a whole lot of drama.

This first weekend in October is a big one for local theater, with events that include Fences, the August Wilson play about a garbage collector who once dreamed of becoming a major league baseball player, opening in Westhoff Theatre at Illinois State University, Little Shop of Horrors and its big green carnivorous plant from Outer Space at Eureka College Theatre unfurling its leaves, and eight characters in the annual McLean County History Museum/Evergreen Cemetery Walk showcasing local history taking their places grave-side in Bloomington. Over in Champaign, Parkland College presents Jennifer Haley's video-game-based scary story Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom tonight through October 10, while the Station Theatre offers Will Eno's The Open House, a quirky and strange dysfunctional family drama, from tonight through the 17th.

Fences is one of Wilson's "Century Cycle," with a play devoted to each decade of African-American life in the 20th century. This one takes place in the 1950s; its original Broadway production earned four Tony Awards, including Best Play, Best Director for Lloyd Richards, Best Actor for James Earl Jones and Best Featured Actress for Mary Alice. Like James Earl Jones and Mary Alice before them, Denzel Washington and Viola Davis won Tony Awards in the 2010 Broadway revival for their performances as Troy Maxson, a garbage man with thwarted dreams, and Rose, his second wife. In a related August Wilson note, Denzel Washington recently announced his intention to produce filmed versions of all ten plays in the "Century Cycle" for HBO, with Fences -- which Washington will direct, produce and star in -- up first. Viola Davis will be there for Fences, as well.

ISU's Fences is directed by Duane Boutté, with a cast that includes Hannaniah Wiggins as Troy, Marixa Ford as Rose, Emmanuel Jackson as their son Cory, Gregory Hicks as Troy's younger brother Gabriel, Bryson Thomas as Lyons, Troy's son from a previous marriage, Timothy Jefferson as his friend Bono and Janiya Franklin as Raynell, a late addition to the family. Performances are scheduled for October 2 to 4 and 6 to 10. For ticket information, click here.

Illinois Wesleyan enters the fall theatrical fray with the Midwest premiere of Blown Youth, a play that serves as playwright Dipika Guha's response to Shakespeare's Hamlet. Guha muses, "It was borne out of my desire to challenge the notion that Hamlet (the character) is the embodiment of human consciousness when he is, in fact, a man. Where Hamlet’s madness smacks of genius, would a woman in his shoes be seen as just as stunningly witty and seductive -- or just a pain in the ass hysteric?" IWU's production of Blown Youth is directed by Nancy Loitz and opens with a performance at 8 pm on October 6. Call 309-556-3232 to reach the box office.

October 6 is also the date for the big announcement of what the Illinois Shakespeare Festival has planned for next summer. They promise a "spectactular" season coming up in 2016, but you'll have to wait till after the 6th to find out exactly what that entails.

The theatre program at University of Illinois kicks off its fall season with Michael Gene Sullivan's 2006 adaptation of George Orwell's 1984 opening October 15 in Colwell Playhouse at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts. Tom Mitchell directs this stage version of the classic science fiction novel that introduced concepts like "Big Brother," "doublespeak" and "thought crimes" to the lexicon. Click here for more information.  

You can also catch a free concert version of the musical Dreamgirls at Krannert Center presented by the Banks, Bridgewater, Lewis Fine Arts Academy on Sunday, October 18th. Local C-U singers Noah Brown, Crofton Coleman, Sherrika Ellison, Tyra Nesbitt and Erica Smith will light up the Henry Krieger and Tom Eyen score, which features big pop hits like "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going," "One Night Only" and "I Am Changing."

Whose Live Anyway? with a cast that includes Jeff B. Davis, Greg Proops and Ryan Stiles, as well as Nashville heartthrob Charles "Chip" Esten, returns to the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts on October 17 for one performance only at 7:30 pm.

On October 23, Illinois State University's School of Theatre and Dance is back with Dale Wasserman's stage version of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, directed by Lori Adams for the Center for the Performing Arts. Cuckoo's Nest was an award-winning (and frequently banned) book written by Ken Kesey before it became a play, and an award-winning movie directed by Milos Forman afterwards. The role of rebellious mental patient Randle McMurphy, played by Kirk Douglas and Jack Nicholson on stage and on film, will be played by Kyle Fitzgerald for ISU, with Kate Vargulich as his nemesis Nurse Ratched, and Josh Pennington and Matt Frederick as fellow inmates. I haven't seen an image for the ISU production, so that is Ken Kesey's book cover you see here.

Walking With My Ancestors, Ama Oforiwaa Aduonum's powerful examination of the ghosts of slavery as expressed in song, dance and words, returns to New Route Theatre, again directed by Kim Pereira, for one night only on October 23. This time, Walking With will be presented at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Bloomington at 7:30 pm on the 23rd. Tickets are available in advance by e-mailing New Route at New.Route.Theatre@gmail.com or at the door on a first come/first served basis for a suggested donation of $10.

And that's what I have for you to pencil into your calendars right now. Stay tuned for updates as I get them!