Family Drama, Musicals and More at Community Players in 2017-18

Ready or not, it's time to think about fall seasons at area theaters. Community Players announced their 2017-18 season earlier this month, with season tickets now available. What's up at Players as we move into fall?

Arthur Miller's complex family drama, All My Sons, opens September 1, with performances through the 10th. Bruce Parrish will direct this "gripping classic by a master playwright," which "explores the father son dynamic and the corruption of the American Dream." Miller took the idea for the play from a newspaper account about a World War II scandal involving defective aircraft engines used in military planes. In the play, which is set in 1947, we meet Joe Keller, who was accused of selling a flawed part for aircraft engines that resulted in the death of 21 pilots. He was cleared, but that isn't the whole story. His wife Kate is in denial, both about Joe's part in the scandal and about her son Larry, who has been missing in action for several years. Younger son Chris also went off to war, but he has returned, and his realization that his father is not the man he thought he was forms the central conflict in the play. Parrish will hold auditions for All My Sons on July 17 and 18. You can see details on characters and casting here.

The November choice is the musical Sister Act, based on the 1992 movie with Whoopi Goldberg as a wannabe diva who goes on the lam -- hiding in a convent -- after she witnesses a crime. She is a force to be reckoned with in the confines of the convent, but her musical talent gives her a chance to bond with the sisters. Marcia Weiss will direct this one, with auditions in September and performances November 2 to 19. Alan Menken wrote the music for the Broadway musical version of Sister Act, with lyrics by Glenn Slater and book by Cheri and Bill Steinkellner.

If you need to lighten up your January, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged), may be just the ticket. This funny, fast and furious race through the works of Shakespeare, with the history plays as a football game and Hamlet in 30 seconds (and then in 30 seconds backwards), has been very popular since the three men (Adam Long, Daniel Singer and Jess Winfield) who created the Reduced Shakespeare Company and launched The Complete Works at Edinburgh's Festival Fringe in 1987. Look for auditions for this three-person (usually three-man) show in November and performances January 11 to 21, 2018. Brett Cottone will helm the Reduced Shakespeare madness for Community Players.

After that, it's Into the Woods, Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's fractured fairytale musical that offers a different look at the magical obstacles facing Cinderella, Rapunzel, Little Red Riding Hood, Jack (the one with the beanstalk), a childless Baker and his Wife, a pair of charming Princes, and a Witch who has a thing about her garden. Into the Woods premiered on Broadway in September 1987, with a well-received revival in 2002. Those two productions earned a total of 20 Tony nominations; the show was named Best Revival along with awards for its score, book and lighting design, and best actress Joanna Gleason, who played the Baker's Wife in the original production. Into the Woods will be on stage at Players from March 8 to 25, under the direction of Sally Parry.

Then we're back to scalding family drama -- with some very black comedy at its heart -- in the form of Tracy Letts' blistering August: Osage County, focusing on the messed-up members of the Weston family. Entertainment Weekly called it "Southern-fried familial dysfunction" and that's as good a description as any. August: Osage County premiered at Chicago's Steppenwolf Theater in 2007, followed by a Broadway run that earned five Tony Awards, incouding Best Play. It also won a Pulitzer Prize for Letts. August takes the stage from May 8 to 14, 2018, directed by John D. Poling.

The season finishes up with family-friendly Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, the perennial favorite from Andrew Lloyd Weber and Tim Rice that tells the Biblical story of Joseph, the favorite son of Jacob, who can read dreams to predict the future. His 11 brothers are not happy about their dad's favoritism, spurring a nasty plan that sends Joseph into Egypt as a slave. He may start out with nothing, but he ends up interpreting dreams for the Pharaoh and rising to power and influence before once again coming face to face with his brothers. Aimee Kerber will direct this pop-rock musical in performance from July 5 to 22, 2018.

Season tickets are now available, either by downloading the order form at the top of this page or this page. For more information, you can try the box office at 309-663-2121 or email boxoffice@communityplayers.org.

Sneak Peek at U of I's 2014-15 Theatre Season

In what is being called a "High energy, contemplative, unexpected, reverent, inspiring, and esteemed" season, the University of Illinois Krannert Center for the Performing Arts will showcase music, dance, drama, opera, circus, acrobats, the 100th anniversary of the start of World War I, and the Day of the Drum in its 2014-15 lineup of events.

Tickets will go on sale at 10 am on August 16th for all of these concerts, shows and celebrations, with the Opening Night Party featuring Mariachi Sol de México, Tiempo Libre and Samba Soul officially kicking off the fall season on September 12.

More details are promised for July 24, but in the meantime, here are the theatrical highlights that popped out at me.

Naomi Iizuka's version of Ovid's Metamorphoses, called Polaroid Stories, will open the Illinois Theatre season on October 2, 2014, with performances through the 12th. U of I's Department of Theatre has taken on Iizuka's darkly poetic work before with Anon(ymous) in the Studio Theatre several years ago. Polaroid Stories began its life at the Humana Festival of New American Plays in 1997. Iizuka sees Ovid's characters as street punks and runaways in an unfriendly world of drugs, violence and danger. I remember being especially moved by her depiction of Narcissus as a self-absorbed gay hustler and Orpheus and Eurydice as a possessive, abusive boyfriend and the girl who can't get away.

Next up is Thornton Wilder's The Skin of Our Teeth which won the 1943 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, on stage at Krannert Center from October 16 to 26. Like Polaroid Stories, Skin of Our Teeth harkens back to an older source. In this case, it's the Bible, with that "skin of our teeth" title as well as references to Cain and Abel and maybe Noah's Ark sprinkled in among its journey from New Jersey on the brink of an Ice Age to a major flood and a major war. Through farce and folderol, Wilder tells the story of a regular old suburban family that manages to survive everything, by the skin of their teeth, of course.

Donizetti's comic opera The Elixir of Love, about a poor, besotted young man who procures a phony love potion in order to woo a wealthy girl, is on the schedule for November 6 to 9, followed by Oh What a Lovely War from November 11 to 16. Oh What a Lovely War,  a 1963 anti-war musical developed by Joan Littlewood and England's Theatre Workshop, was created by that ensemble company as a reaction to World War I, juxtaposing cheery period music with dire statistic and stories of war. You can read more about this seminal work here. That kind of expressionistic, collaborative work seems very 60s in retrospect. What will it look like in 2014, with a hundred years gone since World War I, the war to end all wars, began?

The Nutcracker will be back in December, and the Russian National Ballet will be back in January, this time with Romeo and Juliet, The Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella.

From last year's Illinois Theatre production of Shakespeare's The Tempest

February brings Tango Buenos Aires, Circus Oz and a new chapter in The Sullivan Project, wherein Tony Award-winning director Daniel Sullivan pulls together a new play and a first-rate cast of actors to offer Central Illinois audiences a look at how new dramatic works are developed nationally. Last year's Lost Lake by David Auburn will be part of the Manhattan Theatre Club's 2014-15 season, illustrating the potential for Sullivan project plays.

Franz Lehar's The Merry Widow checks in to close Februray and open March, with 'Tis Pity She's a Whore hot on its heels. 'Tis Pity is a 17th century tragedy written by John Ford. The common wisdom is that it was too incendiary for its time but is a lot more popular now, probably because of its tempestuous, incestuous plot, involving a brother and sister who are undone by their impossible passion for each other. Love! Murder! Poison! Torture! Revenge! Incestuous pregnancy! A heart on a stick! 'Tis Pity She's a Whore has it all. And you can see it from March 5 to 15 in 2015.

Tennessee Williams' Not About Nightingales, a prison drama written in the 1930s but not performed till the 90s,  comes to Krannert from April 9 to 19, followed by the Sondeim/Lapine musical Into the Woods for what appears to be four performances from the 23rd to the 26th. Sondheim and Lapine's fabulous fairytale and its not-so-happily-ever-after message need more than four performances if you ask me, but Cinderella, Rapunzel, the two Princes, the Witch, the Baker and his Wife, Little Red Riding Hood, Jack and his Mother (as well as his magical cow), plus the vengeful Giant, will make it all fit somehow.

Check out the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts website for details as they're added. And remember, tickets for these events as well as all the ones I didn't tell you about, like Renee Fleming, Wynton Marsalis, Rosanne Cash and the Chicago Symphony, go on sale August 16 at 10 am.

Sondheim Sondheim Sondheim!

If you thought 2010 (the year composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim turned 80) was full of everything Sondheim, look out for 2013 an 2014. There continues to be all kinds of Sondheim news, covering movies, concerts, stage productions and all-around Sondheim-mania.

We've already discussed the fact that a filmed version of Merrily We Roll Along from London's Menier Chocolate Factory will be screened worldwide on October 23. You can check out the list of movie theaters offering this Merrily, which Mr. Sondheim called "not only the best I’ve seen, but one of those rare instances where casting, direction and show come together in perfect combination..." Around here you have a choice of Peoria or Champaign-Urbana (or more specifically, Savoy) as well as Rockford, fourteen Chicagoland locations, Indianapolis or St. Louis.

In November, New York's City Center will host a special concert called "A Bed and a Chair: A New York Love Affair," featuring jazz trumpeter, composer, teacher and legend Wynton Marsalis, who has arranged and orchestrated some two dozen Sondheim songs for this event. Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center orchestra will perform these new versions of the songs alongside Broadway stars Bernadette Peters, Norm Lewis and Jeremy Jordan and jazz singer Cyrille Aimée. New York City Center has details for these November 13, 14, 15, 16 and 17 concerts, while Broadway World's Pat Cerasaro spotlights it here. (In case you're wondering, the title "A Bed and a Chair" is taken from the lyrics of "Broadway Baby," the same song in Follies that provides the title for this blog.)

Meryl Streep in Witch attire

A big-screen version of Into the Woods (music and lyrics by Mr. Sondheim, book by James Lapine) is also in the works, with Rob Marshall directing. Since Marshall was the one who made such a mess of Maury Yeston and Arthur Kopit's Nine, I am not holding out a whole lot of hope this will be anything to write home about, especially since the likes of Johnny Depp and Chris Pine have been cast in singing roles. Still, there's Meryl Streep as the Witch, which has possibilities. Having said that, I do not know if Streep's voice, which is decent, is up to the Witch in Into the Woods standards. She may be La Streep, but she's not Bernadette Peters, Julia McKenzie, Donna Murphy or Vanessa Williams. But I guess we'll find out how she fares in December, 2014, when the movie is scheduled to open. For some of the first pictures from the set, you can check out the Huffington Post's slideshow featuring Emily Blunt (the Baker's Wife), Pine (Cinderella's Prince) and Anna Kendreck (Cinderella) or a first look at Streep as the Witch. Note the curious lack of reference to Stephen Sondheim in either piece. Also note that Streep looks dandy as the Witch, although I am seeing something of a facial resemblance to Angela Lansbury, which I didn't expect.

We'd also heard that Sondheim was working on something with David Ives, and just this week came the news that the very busy composer is creating a new version of Company, one in which the central character of Bobby and all his friends are gay men. Speculation that Bobby is gay is not new, although the married couples surrounding him have always been portrayed as straight as far as I know. For this new Company, director John Tiffany is reportedly workshopping with a cast centered around Daniel Evans, who previously did Bobby in London. And there are rumors about Alan Cumming, Michael Urie and Bobby Steggert playing some of his friends. Cumming is supposedly doing Joanne, the one who gets the caustic song about "Ladies Who Lunch." Clearly, the song -- and George Furth's book -- will need a major redo to bring "The Lads Who Lunch" to life.

And, as previously announced, Chicago Shakespeare Theatre on Navy Pier will continue its Sondheimian ways, with director Gary Griffin helming both Gypsy, with Broadway's Louise Pitre (Mamma Mia) as Rose, the total stage mother package, and Road Show, a picaresque piece about the legendary Mizner brothers and their part in America's boom and bust in the early decades of the 20th Century. Performances of Gypsy begin in February 2014 in the Courtyard Theater while Road Show starts up in March 2014 in Chicago Shakespeare's Upstairs space.

Happy Birthday, Stephen Sondheim!

There were a whole lot of special celebrations and tributes planned for Stephen Sondheim's 80th birthday in 2010, continuing on through at least March 9, 2012, when Sondheim was given the UK Critics' Circle 2011 Award for Distinguished Services to the Arts.

Whether they were specifically intended to honor Sondheim's 80th, 81st or 82nd birthdays or it's just a general sense of celebration, we've seen "Sondheim: the Birthday Concert" at the New York Philharmonic, telecast on PBS and available on DVD; the musical "Sondheim on Sondheim," with a cast album available at PS Classics; "Sondheim 80," a concert at the Roundabout; another celebration at New York City Center; a British birthday concert during the BBC Proms; the New York Pops offering yet another tribute concert at Carnegie Hall; the publication of "Finishing the Hat" and "Look, I Made a Hat," two volumes written by the man himself discussing his lyrics and his general philosophy on songwriting; a New York Philharmonic concert version of "Company" that was filmed and screened all over the US; a "Follies" on Broadway (cast recording also available at PS Classics) and another one in Chicago; an outdoors "Into the Woods" built into a tree in Regent's Park; a City Center Encores! version of "Merrily We Roll Along," and, of course, lots and lots and lots of productions of other Sondheim shows all over the place.

I'm totally in favor of keeping this party going if it means I keep getting concerts and shows and cast recordings and book and posters to entertain me. I'm also willing to adopt Sondheim's birthday as my own if it will match up better to when Sondheim stuff is made available and I have gift list privileges.

In any event, if you haven't brought your own collection up to date, you have time to do that. But don't wait too long. Because (and I realize I have totally buried the lead here) The Guardian in England has announced that Sondheim is working on a new show. No, I'm not kidding. His last show was Wise Guys/Bounce/Road Show, which went through many different versions, casts and plot byways, never did quite gel as far as most critics are concerned, and is discussed at length in "Look, I Made a Hat." But this new show... The Guardian reports that Sondheim said he had 20 to 30 minutes of material written and that he is working with playwright David Ives ("All in the Timing," "Venus in Fur") on the book. And here's the really intriguing quote: "It's an idea I've had for a long time and it springs indirectly from a moment in a play of David's." Trotsky with a hatchet embedded in his head? Spinoza on trial? A cross-dressing painter or businessman?

We'll have to wait and see, but it's certainly intriguing. And I hope he has more than half an hour of material by now.