GEORGE and GOOD PEOPLE Score at Chicago's Joseph Jefferson Awards

Chicago's Joseph Jefferson Awards for Equity productions were handed out last night, with Steppenwolf's production of David Lindsay-Abaire's Good People and Chicago Shakespeare Theatre's Sunday in the Park with George taking home the big awards.

I saw that Sunday, and it was a beautiful and emotional experience. I chose to end my end-of-the-year post with it, as a matter of fact. Jeff voters chose this Stephen Sondheim/James Lapine show as the best musical of the year in the "large production" category, and also honored director Gary Griffin. Although stars Jason Danieley and Carmen Cusack (seen at right) were nominated, the awards for best actor and actress in a musical went to Bill Larkin for his performance as Edward Kleban in A Class Act at Porchlight and Christine Sherrill in Sunset Boulevard at Drury Lane. A Class Act and Porchlight also won the "midsize" musical award, with Callie Johnson's performance in Pal Joey at Marriott honored as best cameo and Alexis J. Rogers' work in Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill at Porchlight named best solo performance.

Andre De Shields' star turn in the Goodman's Jungle Book won in the supporting actor in a musical category, while Bethany Thomas was named best supporting actress in a musical for South Pacific at the Marriott Theatre.

Steppenwolf's Good People took top honors as the best play by a big theatre, but William Brown, who directed The Liar for Writers Theatre, was named best director of a play. Still, Good People star Mariann Mayberry, who also happens to be an alum of Illinois Wesleyan University, was honored as best actress for her terrific work as a blue collar Boston woman whose life has hits the skids. And Michael Shannon, whose career has blown up big-time, won best actor in a play for Sam Shepard's Simpatico at Red Orchid Theatre, his stomping grounds before Hollywood and Broadway came calling.

Mariann Mayberry and Keith Kupferer in Good People

Awards in the supporting categories for plays went to Raymond Fox for Blood and Gifts at TimeLine and Elizabeth Ledo for Tartuffe at Court Theatre. TimeLine also picked up the best "midsize" play award for its production of Moises Kaufman's 33 Variations.

The Second City Guide to the Opera, a collaboration between Second City and the Lyric Opera, was named best revue, with director Billy Bungeroth also honored. Best actor in a revue went to David M. Lutken, who played Woody Guthrie in Woody Sez: The Life & Music of Woody Guthrie, a revue at Northlight Theatre in Skokie.

Best ensemble was the cast of Othello: The Remix at Chicago Shakes, and best new work was shared by Luis Alfaro, for Mojada at Victory Gardens, and Rajiv Joseph, for The Lake Effect at Silk Road Rising.

You can see all the complete list of nominations and winners here, including all the technical awards and the best choreography honor, which went to Linda Fortunato, choreographer of 42nd Street at Theatre at the Center in Munster, Indiana. Fortunato's father is Jerry Parsons, longtime teacher and coach at Normal U-High, and her mother is Marcy Parsons, who is involved with Illinois Voices Theatre and could be found again volunteering her services at the Discovery Walk at Evergreen Cemetery last month.

Bidding Adieu to 2012 with No. 366

When I began 2012, I had a goal for myself. I wanted to see if I could do a blog a day. With this leap year, that meant 366 blog posts for 2012. I hadn't done nearly that many before -- if you look over at the left column, down in Blog Archive, you'll see 141 posts total for 2010, the year I started, moving up to 220 in '11 -- and I wasn't at all sure I could find that many things to write about.

And then I decided to go back to school in August, which meant time was even harder to come by. Along with "What was I thinking?!" in general, I frequently wondered if there was any way I would make that goal I set in January.

But this post, you will also notice if you're looking over there at the Blog Archive, is my 366th of this year, and my 31st for December 2012. Which means... I did it.

I don't exactly know what to say about that. Maybe thank you to everyone who helped me out by sending news or pictures, contributing to the blog directly, commenting, encouraging, or otherwise offering suggestions or support. And maybe I should also apologize to everybody who put on a show I didn't get to. I had good intentions. But sometimes there's just too much going on out there and sometimes it seems to all open on the same night and I have to pick and choose. Sometimes my love of TV and old movies makes me choose to stay home and watch Holiday or Trouble in Paradise one more time from the comfort of my own living room.

New Year's Eve and the countless end-of-year pieces in the news tend to make me sentimental and sad. I don't usually do those kinds of pieces myself for that reason. But I really did see some extraordinary work this year, and that needs a little recognition. Illinois State University's robust Mother Courage and Abby Vombrack's and Michelle Stine's performances in that show stand out for me, as does Illinois Wesleyan's sad but hopeful A Shayna Maidel and a luminous performance by Colleen Longo in Heartland's These Shining Lives.

On a lighter note, I loved Lisa Kron's Veri**zon Play during my annual trip to Actors Theatre of Louisville for the Humana Festival of New American Plays. And in Chicago, there was the sublime Sunday in the Park with George at Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, which just may be the best thing I saw all year. Okay, it's totally the best thing I saw all year. Follies is my favorite show, but this George was something special. I always forget how personal it feels when Dot and George sing about moving on.

Stop worrying where you're going
Move on
If you can know where you're going
You've gone
Just keep moving on

Carmen Cusack sang it beautifully in a beautifully imagined production directed by Gary Griffin, and I was sitting in the front row. Jason Danieley's George was exquisite. Thanks, Chicago Shakes, for a moving experience. I'm trying to remember those words. I'm trying to keep moving on. I really am.

As I said at the top, I tend to get teary at end-of-the-year celebrations. If you are made of sterner stuff than I, or you've made it this far and you think you can handle it, Google is offering a Zeitgeist 2012 video that sums up this year pretty well.

Anything you do
Let it come from you
Then it will be new
Give us more to see...

On Sunday, My Thoughts Turn to "Sunday," Coming Soon to Chicago Shakes

Chicago Shakespeare Theatre's Associate Artistic Director, Gary Griffin, has made a cottage industry of directing Sondheim shows at Chicago Shakes, with much acclaimed productions of "Follies" last year and "Pacific Overtures" and "Sunday in the Park with George" before that, upstairs in the smaller theater.

Griffin and Sondheim will be back in business later this month, with a new "Sunday in the Park with George" in the larger Courtyard Theatre at Chicago Shakespeare Theatre on Navy Pier. Given how wonderful Griffin's black-box production was back in 2002, this one on the main stage is eagerly anticipated. Tickets are on sale now and likely to go fast, if the "Follies" pattern is repeated.

"Sunday in the Park with George" is a natural for Chicago audiences, given that the painting ("A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte," seen below) which serves as inspiration for the Sondheim/Lapine musical hangs at the Art Institute of Chicago. You can (and should) check out the painting and the musical in the same trip. Seurat worked in tiny dots of color in a technique called "pointilism," which informs the style and themes of "Sunday in the Park with George."

The cast for this production includes Broadway star Jason Danieley (once noted for having "the most exquisite tenor on Broadway" by Ben Brantley of the New York Times) as artist Georges Seurat, and Carmen Cusack, probably best known for playing Elphaba in the touring production of "Wicked" that came through Chicago, as Dot, Seurat's model and muse.

Others in the cast include Chicago favorites Sean Fortunato, Kevin Gudahl and Heidi Kettenring. And Illinois Wesleyan University School of Theatre Arts has informed us that Sarah Bockel, who graduated from their Musical Theatre program in 2010, is also part of the ensemble as an understudy for several roles, including those played by Elizabeth Lanza, herself an IWU alum from 2007.

"Sunday in the Park with George" happens to be the second show I saw on Broadway, and I have fond memories of it and my own reaction to it. If you are involved in any kind of artistic endeavor, its messages about art, the creative process, color and light, the fleeting nature of life, putting the pieces of one's life and work together, and ultimately moving on, can be very moving and profound.

People strolling through the trees

of a small suburban park

on an island in the river

on an ordinary Sunday

Sunday...

Sunday...

Art, Lies and Kings: Chicago Shakespeare Theatre in 2012-13

Chicago Shakespeare Theater has announced their plans for their 2012-12 subscription season as well as a couple of extras to keep you entertained all the way through to June 16, 2013.

Chicago Shakes offers 4-play and 3-play subscription packages, with the Sondheim/Lapine musical "Sunday in the Park with George," directed by Gary Griffin, scheduled for September 26 to November 4; "The School for Lies," the David Ives adaptation of Moliere's Misanthrope, directed by Chicago Shakes Artistic Director Barbara Gaines, from December 4 to January 20; Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar," directed by Jonathan Munby, from February 5 to March 24, thereby including the Ides of March; and the seldom-produced "Henry VIII," also directed by Barbara Gaines, from April 30 to June 16.

"Sunday in the Park" is Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's Pulitzer-Prize-winning look at French Post-Impressionist painter George Seurat and his pointillist painting, "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte," which hangs in the Art Institute of Chicago. It also looks at his fictional mistress and great-grandson and some of the character represented in the painting, as it ponders questions of art, creativity and how community and connections affect them. Griffin directed an earlier (and much-lauded) production of the show in the smaller theater upstairs, but this one will be in the main Courtyard Theatre.

"The School for Lies" appeared Off-Broadway at the Classic Stage Company in 2011, still set in France, still using period costumes, but with a guy named Frank instead of Moliere's original misanthrope and snappy swipes at people who say LOL or wear flip flops. Ives goes big and bawdy with his rhyming couplets, taking aim at the follies of mankind just as Moliere did.

You still have a few chances to see "Julius Caesar" at Illinois State University if you want to contrast and compare with the Chicago Shakes production next winter. Shakespeare's story of political ambition, loyalty, power and conspiracies never goes out of style.

Shakespeare's "Henry VIII" is usually a dryer affair, but let's give credit to Chicago Shakes for taking on some of the lesser-known plays in the canon. (See "Timon of Athens," coming up in April.) "Henry VIII" is all about Henry's marital problems and the religious and political storms that creates, as he tosses out Katherine of Aragon, takes up with Anne Boleyn, and battles the double-dealing Cardinal Wolsey over matters of finance and power. With Barbara Gaines at the helm, this "Henry" may turn out as brash and bold as the old king himself.

The first of the scheduled extras comes from the National Theatre of Scotland, who'll be bringing "The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart," created by David Greig and directed by Wils Wilson, to the theater Upstairs at Chicago Shakespeare. "Prudence," which involves a prim academic on a voyage of self-discovery, is described as "a Faustian tale" as well as a "music-filled romp of rhyming couplets and wild karaoke."

The National Theatre of Scotland is also behind "Black Watch," which will be presented off-site at the Chicago Park District's Broadway Armory. This is a return visit for "Black Watch," which combines Scottish folk music and military anthems (and lots of bagpipes) to tell its story of a Scotsmen fighting in Iraq. Playwright Gregory Burke conducted interviews with soldiers back from Iraq to get the real story of what it means to fight and whether it's ever possible to come back home. If you click here, you can see an interview with Burke, director John Tiffany, and associate directors Steven Hoggett, who was in charge of movement, and Davey Anderson, who handled the music. "Black Watch" will be presented in a limited engagement October 10 to 21, 2012.

For information on all of those shows, subscriptions, or tickets to Simon Callow's "Being Shakespeare," "Timon of Athens," or "The History of Everything," still to be performed this season, you can visit the Chicago Shakes site here.