Cabin Fever? Get Out and Find February

I've been on a little vacation and away from my blog, but I know there are all kinds of February things happening that I need to tell you about before it's too late. February be a short month, but it has Groundhog Day, Valentine's Day, Presidents Day, African-American History Month, and this year the Olympics. That's a lot to squeeze into 28 days. Especially when you consider these entertainment options:

Lost Lake, the new David Auburn play getting a try-out under the auspices of the Sullivan Project, opens February 5 at the University of Illinois Krannert Center in Urbana. Tony Award-winning director Daniel Sullivan will be at the helm of this new work from Auburn, the playwright behind Proof, a Chicago-based play about a math genius and a supposedly unsolvable problem that won Auburn the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. This time, Auburn is writing about a woman named Veronica (Opal Alladin) who is looking for an escape from the city by way of a vacation home in the middle of nowhere. But when she comes into contact with Hogan (Jake Weber), the man who owns the place, she finds that her idea of escape may be more complicated than she envisioned. Lost Lake begins its short run of performances on the 5th, but last time I looked, that one was sold out. It continues on the 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th at 7:30 pm, with 2 pm matinees also on the 8th and 9th. For ticket information, click here.

Champaign's Art Theater Co-op is offering Bill Murray, Andie MacDowell and their furry friend in wonderful Groundhog Day on February 5 at 10 pm. If you don't own a copy on DVD -- or even if you do, but you want to revisit Groundhog Day on the big screen -- it's definitely worth a look at the Art in downtown Champaign. They're also offering Bogie and Bergman in Casablanca, one of the most romantic films of all time, as a Valentine's Day treat, along with The Princess Bride, that wry and wonderful fairytale from director Rob Reiner, with a screenplay from William Goldman based on his book. And that is some fine Valentine's fare. Check with the Art for showtimes.

On television, the Winter Olympics begin on the 7th on NBC, the same night Jay Leno bids goodbye (or perhaps au revoir) to The Tonight Show. Jimmy Fallon starts his Tonight Show on the 17th, Seth Myers takes up the reins of Late Night on the 24th, and The Walking Dead (9), House of Cards (14), The Amazing Race (23), The Voice (24) and Scandal (27) all come back. The numbers in parentheses are the dates you can expect to find them. Note also that Downton Abbey finishes up its season on the 23rd. Phew. Better fire up the DVR now.

On stage, Illinois Wesleyan welcomes 2014 with Caridad Svich's Twelve Ophelias (a play with broken songs), directed by Assistant Professor Dani Snyder-Young, with Sarah Menke as the No. 1 Ophelia. 12 Ophelias will be performed at McPherson Theatre from February 11 to 16, showcasing Svich's unique take on Hamlet, where the central Ophelia is reborn from her drowning pool into a mysterious pseudo-Appalachian world with rock 'n' roll, a Rude Boy who just may be Hamlet and a woman named Gertrude who runs a brothel. Svich's "mirrored world of word-scraps and cold sex" definitely represents a refocused and unexpected way to look at Shakespeare.

Heartland Theatre has performed the work of playwright Jon Robin Baitz very nicely in the past, so Baitz's newest piece, Other Desert Cities, should be a perfect fit. This one looks at the cracks forming under the foundation of a wealthy family in Palm Springs, California. The Wyeths have ties to the entertainment world as well as politics, since patriarch Lyman was a movie star back in the day, before he got an ambassadorship courtesy of his pal Ronald Reagan. Lyman and Polly had three children: wild child Henry, fragile daughter Brooke and easy-going Tripp. Henry is gone, Tripp is happily working on a TV judge show, and Brooke... Well, Brooke has come home with a memoir she's written, a tell-all that may just tear the family apart. Sandra Zielinski directs Other Desert Cities with a cast that includes Joe Penrod and Connie de Veer as Lyman and Polly, Carol Scott as Polly's free-spirited sister Silda, Joey Banks as Tripp, and Jessie Swiech as Brooke. The show opens February 20 with a special pay-what-you-can preview, followed by performances through March 9. Click here for reservation information.

Illinois State University opens its winter theater season with Diana Son's Stop Kiss, opening February 20 at Westhoff Theatre, and the Benjamin Britten/Peter Pears opera version of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, opening February 21 in ISU's Center for the Performing Arts.

Stop Kiss, which involves a couple violently assaulted when they share a kiss on the street, was first performed at New York's Public Theatre in 1998. Its premiere cast included Sandra Oh (Grey's Anatomy) and Jessica Hecht (Breaking Bad, Friends) as Sara and Callie, the couple at the center of the storm. Leah Cassella directs Stop Kiss for ISU, with Nina Ganet and Bethany Hart as Callie and Sara, Eddie Curley as Callie's friend George, Jimmy Keating as Sara's ex-boyfriend Peter, Matt Hallahan as the detective assigned to the case, Angie Aiello as a witness, and Lauren Partch as a nurse who tries to help Sara when she is hospitalized.

A Midsummer Night's Dream as interpreted by composer Benjamin Britten couldn't be more different, taking audiences into a whirl of fairies, amateur actors and mismatched lovers inside the Athenian forest. ISU has been celebrating Britten's centenary since last October, and this production, directed by ISU Professor Paul Dennhardt, serves as another piece of the celebration. Britten's musical styles separate the fairies and their magical world from the simple folk (the Mechanicals) and the romantically inclined lovers, with more focus on the fairies than in Shakespeare's original. The part of Oberon, the King of the Fairies, was written for a countertenor, an unusual occurrence in opera. For ISU, Landon Westerfield will sing Oberon, with Kristin Moroni as his queen Tytania and Colin Lawrence as his impish servant Puck. Michael Guttierez and Adriana Ladage will play Theseus and Hippolyta, whose royal wedding brings the players together, while Audra Ferguson, Robbie Holden, Sidney Megeff and John Ramseyer form the quartet of young lovers. As Bottom, Josh Ramseyer leads the Mechanicals, joined by Eric Rehm, Lucas Tuazon, Ben Wright and Jeff Wright. Add a company of 30+ fairies, and you have the world of this Midsummer. I haven't seen a poster for it yet, so I will offer a pretty image from the Lyric Opera of Chicago's recent production (up there at the top of this paragraph).

Click here for more information on ISU's winter season.

The Illinois Symphony Orchestra will join with performers from the Illinois Shakespeare Festival to create "Shimmering Shakespeare" on Friday, February 21 at the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts and on Saturday, February 22 at Springfield's Sangamon Auditorium. Actors from the Illinois Shakespeare Festival will perform short scenes between movements of Prokofiev's opera Romeo and Juliet. The evening will also feature Silk Road Ensemble percussionist Joseph Gramley performing Chen Yi's Percussion Concerto. Tickets for the Bloomington performance can be purchased at the BCPA box office at 309-434-2777, while tickets for the Springfield performance are available at the Sangamon Auditorium at 217-206-6160. For more information, you can also visit the Illinois Symphony Orchestra online at www.ilsymphony.org.

Eureka College Theatre did Aristophanes' The Birds a few years ago, so it's only fitting they would take on The Frogs, also by Aristophanes. Holly Rocke directs this classical Greek comedy updated for Eureka with puppets. Performances begin February 25 and finish up March 1. Please note that this is Aristophanes, not the Stephen Sondheim musical (see image at left) set in a swimming pool. For Aristophanes, it was Euripides battling Aeschylus for Best Poet honors. For Sondheim and Shrevelove, it's Shaw vs. Shakespeare. Plus, of course, music. And a pool. Eureka will be going Greek with this one.

And that's just a sampling of February's many options. With the Oscars coming March 2, you will also want to take in a few movies here and there. If you have time!

Welcome to September!

September traditionally marks the start of the fall season for local theater companies. This year, Eureka College, Community Players and New Route jumped the gun on September, with "Five Women Wearing the Same Dress" last night and tonight only, "You Can't Take It With You" bowing on August 30 at CP, and "Fabulation" opening last night at New Route.

Alan Ball is most famous as the creator of TV's "Six Feet Under" and as the screenwriter behind the Oscar-winning movie "American Beauty." Before that, he wrote a play about Southern bridesmaid dysfunction called "Five Women Wearing the Same Dress," which Eureka College's theatre department chose as its season-opener. EC senior Becky Collins directs this not-all-that-romantic comedy for two (and only two) performances, of which there is one left. Tonight is your only chance to see Ball's dark, twisted take on bridesmaids, which features a pretty funny and slightly raunchy script.

"You Can't Take It With You" and its tale of the crazy Sycamore family keeps on keeping on through September 9, with a cast that includes Bruce Weise, Judy Stroh, Tom Smith, Melissa Fornoff and Spencer Powell under the direction of Jeremy Stiller.

Over at New Route, this new production of "Fabulation, or the Re-education of Undine,"stars Melissa James-Shrader as the Undine in the title, who goes from a fabulous life at the top of the heap to being back in the projects with Mom and Dad before you can say "Bad Boyfriend Stole All My Dough." Undine gets her comeuppance and then some, as she realizes that status and pretense aren't really enough to sustain her. Gregory D. Hicks both directs and plays a role in "Fabulation," which runs through September 9 at the YWCA of McLean County on Hershey in Bloomington.

Heartland Theatre returns for show #2 of its 2012-13 season (the annual 10-Minute Play Festival was show #1 back in June) with Melanie Marnich's "These Shining Lives," a play that is both heartbreaking and uplifting, exploring the value of life and women's work as well as the carelessness and perfidy of corporations exploiting their workers. "These Shining Lives" opens on September 7 with a special Pay-What-You-Can preview, followed by performances from September 8 to 23. This show is sponsored by the Bloomington-Normal Trades and Labor Assembly (AFL-CIO). As labor unions increasingly come under attack from politicians, we'd all do well to remember why they got traction in the first place. Because employers like the Ottawa watch factory in "These Shining Lives" willfully and knowingly poisoned the ladies who worked for them.

And speaking of perfidy... Charlie Chaplin's "Monsieur Verdoux" takes the screen at Champaign's Art Theater as the noon show on September 8 and 9, with another showing at 2:30 pm on September 12. This dark comedy turns Chaplin into a ladykiller (literally -- he kills the ladies he romances) as it takes sharp aim at the shortcomings of capitalism and the folly of war. Chaplin's Verdoux is a devoted family man who loses his job, so he makes ends meet -- and then some -- by marrying and killing rich old ladies. It's a brilliant movie, one that wasn't all that popular in the US in 1947 and isn't revived that often.

Timed to match its title to the date, "8," a play by Dustin Lance Black about Proposition 8, the ballot proposition and constitutional amendment that sought to eliminate gay marriage in California, gets a staged reading at Illinois State University's Center for the Performing Arts on September 8. That's one performance and one performance only of "8" on the 8th, with a cast that includes retired Chicago judge Tom Chiola and a collection of ISU faculty members, actors and alums. You can read about "8, the Play" here, with more info about the ISU production here and here. This staged reading is sponsored by the Prairie Pride Coalition as well as ISU’s School of Theatre and Dance, University Housing Services, Diversity Advocacy, and the LGBT/Queer Studies and Services Institute.

A different panel of improv comedians from "Whose Line Is It, Anyway?" played the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts under the "Whose Live Anyway?" moniker last year, but this time it will be Ryan Stiles, Greg Proops, Chip Esten and Jeff B. Davis. That means you can see a whole new "Whose Live Anyway?" show at 7:30 pm on September 8 at the BCPA. Stiles was a staple on "The Drew Carey Show" and "Two and a Half Men" as well as "Whose Line," Proops has been all over the game show world as a host and guest star, and Davis memorably popped up on "The Sarah Silverman Show." Still, Chip Esten is my favorite of the four and the reason I'd go to "Whose Live;" he played the boss at the Stamford branch of Dunder-Mifflin on "The Office," and he'll be showing up in the new "Nashville" coming to ABC this fall. Tickets for "Whose Live" are pricey, ranging from $29.90 to $55, depending on who you are and where you want to sit.

Mid-month, the University of Illinois Department of Theatre offers its biennial costume and prop sale held inside the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts. I nabbed a hoop skirt there once, as well as a crazy military outfit from "Macbeth." This costume-and-prop bonanza is scheduled for Saturday, September 15, at 9 am. A ticket is required if you want to shop first (from 9 am to 11:30 am) but the sale continues with no entry fee after 11:30 am. They'll keeping going until either 4 pm or every item has been sold, whichever comes first. Costumes will be displayed inside the Studio Theatre, with props and other items in the hallway on the second-floor rehearsal level. Note that tickets for the early entry portion of the event only cost $3 and are very much recommended; they go on sale at 10 am on September 10th. Call 217-333-6280 for more information.

Illinois State University's Department of Theatre and Dance gets a later start than most, with Naomi Iizuka's "(Anon)ymous" on stage at the Center for the Performing Arts from September 28 to October 6.  Richard Corley directs Iizuka's contemporary take on "The Odyssey," with young Anon, played by Owais Ahmed for ISU, set adrift in an unfriendly world, trying to find his way back to his mother, here a seamstress in a third-world sweatshop. It's an excellent play with lots of opportunity for vivid character work from ISU's student actors. Click here for ticket information.

Finishing up the month, the McLean County Museum of History, Illinois Voices Theatre and Bloomington's historic Evergreen Memorial Cemetery join forces to bring you the annual Discovery Walk, where costumed actors portray real people who once lived in Bloomington-Normal. You can take the Discovery Walk over the weekend of September 29-30 or October 6-7 this year, getting up close and personal with former Bloomingtonians ranging from a fortune teller to a race car driver and a restaurateur. Click here for information about this year's selection of characters and how to get tickets to the Walk.

And, as always, stay tuned for more information about these shows and whatever else comes up as the month wears on. There's always more!

Adventure, Music and Drama at U of I's Summer Studio

The University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign has announced the selections for this year's Summer Studio Theatre at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts.

Krannert's summer season begins June 1, but tickets go on sale Monday, May 7th, for three shows and one special cabaret offered for only two nights in June.

"Shipwrecked! An Entertainment: The Amazing Adventures of Louis de Rougemont (as Told by Himself)" is first up, opening June 1 in the Studio Theatre. This picaresque adventure is by Donald Margulies, who won a Pulitzer Prize for "Dinner With Friends." "Shipwrecked" couldn't be more different from that realistic look at marital woes and friendship; this one is about a young man, the same Louis de Rougement mentioned in the title, who takes off from London on a ship-board journey, only to encounter a shipwreck, an octopus, an Aborigine romance, and a place back in London as a storyteller of tall tales. With eight performances from June 1 to 22, "Shipwrecked" begins the Summer Studio season.

Then there's "Gone Missing," a collection of songs and sketches based on the lost and not necessarily found. What kind of lost items are we talking about? How about "a black Gucci pump, an uncle’s fortune, Sniffle the doll, Atlantis, a sweetheart’s photo, various body parts. Based on interviews with New Yorkers, this witty musical tracks emotional and philosophical responses to life’s transient pleasures and the many ways we cope." Sounds intriguing, even though I just found the sweater I'd been missing for awhile. Sometimes, there are happy endings (although the missing body parts thing sounds ominous.) "Gone Missing" opens June 7, with ten performances before June 23.

"Gone Missing" was created by the Civilians, who bill themselves as "investigative theater." This piece was written by Steve Cosson, based on interviews conducted by the company, with music and lyrics by Michael Friedman.

A two-night cabaret called "Sprung and Awakened" will spring into the Studio Theatre on June 16 and 17, with Paul Johnston on the piano and Kent Conrad offering his vocal stylings on the subject of change. "Using a mixture of biography and invented truths, a series of meditations on the effects of change—real or imagined—are presented through monologue and song," Krannert's press materials tell us.

And the last show for the summer will be "The Diary of Anne Frank," newly adapted by Wendy Kesselman from the 1955 play by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, telling the story of a young girl sent into hiding with her family to escape from the Nazis during World War II. Bright, lovely Anne Frank tries to maintain her optimism and hope for the future, even as the world turns very dark outside. U of I's summer production will feature local adult actors from the Champaign-Urbana community as well as younger actors Dominique Allen and Max Keagle.

"Anne Frank" will have the Studio Theatre to itself for 12 performances from July 5 to 21.

You can order your tickets beginning at 10 am on Monday the 7th, with a variety of options. You can shop online at KrannertCenter.com, phone the box office at 800-527-2849 or 217-333-6280, email kran-tix@illinois.edu, or visit the ticket office in person at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts on the U of I campus between 10 am and 6 pm daily.

Watch Out! Steven M. Keen Takes on "Killer Joe" at U of I.

My friend Steven M. Keen, an actor and director in this area for many years, agreed to guest-blog his reaction to Tracy Letts' "Killer Joe," playing in the Studio Theatre at U of I's Krannert Center. I think you're going to enjoy this one.

It was with a fair amount of fear and trepidation that I walked into the Krannert Center to see the University of Illinois Department of Theatre's production of "Killer Joe." I wasn't afraid that I would be assaulted with full-frontal nudity, violence, graphic sex acts, and profanity -- I was afraid that I wouldn't be assaulted enough. I have long believed that if you can't do a show as it is intended to be done, then you have no business doing the show in the first place. And I was afraid that a university theatre department would censor themselves and water down this potent stewpot of a play to make it palatable to more sensitive audiences.

My fears proved to be groundless. "Killer Joe" was presented in all its graphic glory in a very brave, fearless production. This was a long way from the type of "educational theatre" that we so often see on college campuses. This was no Shakespeare, Shaw, or Moliere. It wasn't Miller, O'Neill, or Williams. This was visceral, contemporary stuff by a hot new playwright. I first saw this play in an early Chicago production several years ago. I will readily admit that it takes a lot to shock me, but even I was shocked when I first saw this volatile, in-your-face, thrill ride of a play. How could a university theatre department do justice to it? And is it right to expect them to do so?

"Killer Joe" is an early play from the pen of Tracy Letts, better known as the playwright who gave us "August: Osage County," which went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the Tony Award for Best Play on Broadway, and just about every other major theatrical award out there. Like "August: Osage County", "Killer Joe" deals with an American family -- warts and all. The families in the two plays are from different social strata, but they both share dirty secrets, and they both share the same propensity for going at each other's throats.

The plot is fairly straightforward. The lights come up to find Chris, a wayward, druggie son, pounding on the door of his father's house trailer in the middle of the night. Chris is in hock to a local drug dealer and needs money fast. Of course Chris's deadbeat dad, Ansel, doesn't have that kind of money laying around. Neither does Sharla, Ansel's trashy second wife (who evidently abhors the idea of wearing underwear). What to do? Chris has an idea that he wants to bounce off his dad. What if they hire a hitman to knock off Chris's mother who is now living across town with her new boyfriend? It seems that Chris's mother is the only member of this clan with an insurance policy, and the beneficiary of that policy is none other than Chris's dim, ripe sister, Dottie. Once Mom is dead and Dottie has the insurance money, Chris will use it to pay off the drug dealer. Enter Killer Joe, a local law enforcement agent who moonlights as a hitman. Joe states his price and demands his money up front. Chris and Ansel explain that they don't currently have the money, but they attempt to persuade him to do the deed anyway, on the guarantee that he'll receive his money once the insurance policy has been cashed in. Killer Joe, of course, scoffs at this idea and is on his way out the door -- until he sets eyes on Dottie. Killer Joe knows hot stuff when he sees it, and he agrees to the deal with the stipulation that he receives Dottie as a retainer. Done deal. Of course, anyone within a hundred miles of the theatre knows that things will not go as planned. And one outrageousness after another piles up until the entire play explodes under its own force.

Director Robert Quinlan puts the pedal to the metal from the minute this play begins. However, the entire production moves at such a fever pitch that nearly all of the humor in the script is lost. "Killer Joe" is not unlike watching a particularly nasty Jerry Springer episode. We may hate and ridicule what we're seeing, but we can't turn away. And a lot of the reason for that fascination is our guilty pleasure of the wicked humor inherent in such bad behavior. Without that humor, "Killer Joe" comes across as a rather unpleasant experience. And this play is more than just an exercise in shock and titillation. There are real power struggles happening between the characters as things spiral out of control. None of these power plays really has a chance to develop in this production, however, because everything is played full-throttle. It is only in the long, candle-lit seduction scene between Killer Joe and Dottie that things are allowed to breathe and find their real power. Conversely, an extended scene involving two mysteriously overstuffed Hefty bags sitting in the kitchen is totally underplayed and ineffective. Also, I have to say that I've always believed that when an audience doesn't know when a play is over, there are huge problems with how the play has been directed. The night I was in attendance, the audience remained sitting in silence until well after the lights came up for the curtain call.

Perhaps the biggest problem I had with this production was the lack of authenticity in the cast. We all know (or think we know) how people like this look and talk and behave. But as I sat in the audience, I couldn't help but think that I was watching a group of well-educated, well-groomed college students trying to dumb down and slum it. Mike DiGirolamo brought an edgy quality to Chris, but I never got the sense that he was strung out on drugs or wiley enough to hatch this bizarre plot. Nile Hawver lacked stage presence and any sense of physicality in his portrayal of Ansel, the beer-swilling father of this clan. Plus he looked entirely too young and clean cut to be convincing in his role. Monica Lopez, as Sharla, is certainly trashy enough, but only superficially so, lacking any depth to her character. And she also looks much too young and clean-cut. Anastasia Pappageorge also misses the mark as Dottie. Dottie is probably mentally challenged. She's certainly slow on the uptake. She's the unwilling pawn in this scheme that's swirling around her, but this aspect of Dottie's character totally escaped Pappageorge. The character of Killer Joe should be a tightly-wound coil of sex and danger. Killer Joe was played by Scott Carpenter in New York, and that's the kind of actor you need for this role -- someone who has that snake-y kind of smile and oozes menace from the minute he steps through the door. Killer Joe says and does some really outrageous things, and the colder and more in control he is, the more frightening and disturbing he is. Only rarely does he explode, but when he does -- watch out. It was a very strange experience to sit in the audience and recognize that Samuel Ashdown is probably a very good actor, even though he wasn't doing full justice to the role of Killer Joe. Ashdown's Killer Joe was much too ordinary and likeable. And his explosions, when they came, came out of nowhere.

Ian James Anthony's scenic design was the most successful element of the production in terms of authenticity. Played against one long wall of the Studio Theatre, I could easily believe that I was peering through the fourth side of a double-wide house trailer with all of its attendant trash and clutter. Annaliese Weber's costumes, however, missed the mark. Once these characters put on more than their dirty underwear, they didn't look nearly trashy enough. In a play like this, subtle doesn't cut it. Darren W. McCroom's lighting design unfortunately left enough light onstage after each scene to allow us to watch actors get up and exit the stage, thereby negating any dramatic impact. And Elizabeth Parthum's sound design was just annoying. At first, I thought the sound I was hearing was intended to be rainfall outside the trailer, but I ultimately decided that it was probably intended to be the background static on a dead channel of a television set. All I can say for that is -- you try sitting through that noise for thirty minutes before a show starts and for another twenty minutes during intermission! I was desperately searching for a plug to pull. The production could have benefitted immensely from some well-chosen music instead, not only before the show and during the intermission, but also between individual scenes. Also, one of the running motifs in the play is the presence of a vicious dog tied up just outside the trailer door that sounds as if it will take the leg off of anyone who approaches or leaves the trailer. Unfortunately, this particular dog didn't sound all that vicious, and it also sounded like it was chained up in a neighbor's yard somewhere down the road. Hardly a threat at all.

I think "Killer Joe" ultimately trumps just about everything else out there in terms of its sex, violence, profanity, and overall outrageousness. It makes Martin McDonaugh's bloodbaths seem tame. And it makes David Mamet seem like an old codger. But there is something bracing and exhilarating afoot here, and I find it to be a real rollercoaster of a play. However, as I left the theatre, I felt like there was a little Sarah Palin sitting on my right shoulder, whispering doubts into my ear about whether or not this was a play that should be done by a college cast. My liberal self immediately responded with a resounding "Yes!" but I wouldn't be at all surprised if the Krannert Center box office doesn't find itself fending off calls from patrons unused to seeing such actions on a college stage. As for me -- I say "Go for it." Just do it better next time.