Krannert Center Announces 50th Anniversary Season

The University of Illinois' Krannert Center for the Performing Arts began its life as an artistic venue in April 1969, after a gift of 16 million dollars from Herman and Ellnora Krannert.

As Krannert Center press materials frame it, the Krannerts' "belief in the intrinsic value of the arts, their bold vision for the future, and their passionate loyalty to the University of Illinois helped bring into being what is widely considered the nation’s leading university-based performing arts center."

To spotlight its 50th anniversary, Krannert Center is launching a two-season celebration that will include "friends, colleagues, artists, and patrons past and present" along with projects from music, theater and dance units under the College of Fine and Applied Arts.

What's in store? "Patrons can expect boundary-pushing commissioning projects and new works, beloved familiar faces alongside new rising stars, invigorating performances from university faculty and students, and time for reflection, inspiration, and merriment—including a special April 2019 weekend that will mark the 50-year anniversary of Krannert Center’s opening."

An opening party on Friday September 7 launches the celebration, with "a high-energy gathering five decades in the making that will feature a musical lineup of Ranky Tanky, Baracutanga, AJ Ghent, Mucca Pazza, and CU’s own New Orleans Jazz Machine. Food and beverage sales, a vintage car display on Goodwin Avenue, and an invitation to dress from a decade of choice—1960s to the future—will round out this annual favorite, made even better by a free admission price."

They've also announced that the 2018-19 season will include events like the Los Angeles Master Chorale performing the Lagrime di San Pietro (Tears of St. Peter), living legend Itzhak Perlman, mezzo-soprano Susan Graham, San Francisco Symphony under Michael Tilson Thomas, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in the Great Hall, as well as many other events and artists, from The Builders Association presenting the Krannert Center-supported Strange Window: The Turn of the Screw to Ann Hampton Callaway and Susan Werner, two cirque troupes and Ballet Folklórico de México and Russian National Ballet Theatre. You can browse all those options here.

If you're interested in Illinois Theatre, the producing arm of the University of Illinois Department of Theatre, they will open their season on October 4 with Wendy Wasserstein's An American Daughter, directed by Tom Mitchell for the Studio Theatre. Wasserstein's play deals with a woman descended from Ulysses S. Grant who is being considered for the position of Surgeon General.

Next up is the musical A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, with performances from October 18 to 28 in the Colwell Playhouse. That will be directed by J.W. Morrissette, who took on Stephen Sondheim's Assassins at Krannert last year. Sondheim wrote the music and lyrics for Forum, while Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart wrote the book for this farce based on the work of Plautus. Sondheim's lyrics promise "comedy tonight" as a slave named Pseudolus, played by the likes of Zero Mostel (on Broadway and in the film), Nathan Lane and Whoopi Goldberg (both in the late 90s Broadway revival), wheels and deals to try to win his (or her) freedom.

November will see The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade, Peter Weiss' 1966 Tony winning play about revolution and class struggle, both in the theater and in the world. Directed by Laura Hackman for the Studio Theatre, Marat/Sade is scheduled to play from November 1 to 11, 2018.

Ike Holter's Hit the Wall opens the new year in the Studio Theatre, with performances set for January 31 to February 10, 2019. Robert G. Anderson directs Holter's "sweaty, messy, sexy" take on the Stonewall Riots in 1969, which includes a live band and a "multivoiced narrative."

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Simon Stephen's award-winning play based on the best-selling book by Mark Haddon,will play in the Colwell Playhouse from February 28 to March 10. Haddon's book offers the story of an autistic boy who goes on a journey to find out who really killed his neighbor's dog, with the stage production using all the tools of drama, from lights and set pieces to sound and choreography, to create the world as the boy experiences it. Latrelle Bright directs for Illinois Theatre.

The season finishes with Because I Am Your Queen, a devised "feminist fantasia in one act" created by Mina Samuels, that imagines a collection of dramatic women, like Hermione from Shakespeare's A Winter's Tale, Victor Hugo's Lucretia Borgia, Friedrich Schiller's Mary Stuart and Euripides' Medea, spending a day together at a spa. Samuels will work with Tectonic Theatre Project founding member Barbara McAdams, who will direct, using Moment Work to further develop the piece in conjunction with U of I theater students. Because I Am Your Queen reigns in the Studio Theatre from March 28 to April 7, 2019.

For more information on these shows as well as the entire 2018-19 lineup at Krannert Center, visit the site here. Tickets for the new season will go on sale Saturday, July 14, at 10 am, and you may purchase them at KrannertCenter.com, call 217-333-6280 or by visiting the box office at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts on South Goodwin Avenue in Urbana.

ASSASSINS Is a Misfire at U of I

In Look, I Made a Hat, Stephen Sondheim's book that collects and discusses lyrics he wrote from 1981 to 2011, he talks about the genesis of the show Assassins, which he describes as a "book musical masquerading as a revue, featuring nine of the thirteen assassins who have attempted to kill the president of the United States."

It's an odd idea for a musical, perhaps, to look at the infamous assassins who have slithered around the underbelly of America, but no stranger than murderous women in Chicago in the 20s or the midlife  crisis of an Italian director or Sondheim's own forays into loony bin inmates and a barber consumed with razor-sharp revenge. But perhaps because its subject matter seemed "a little wrong," Assassins was produced off-Broadway first, at Playwrights Horizon, in 1990, with a cast that included Victor Garber, Terrence Mann and Debra Monk among its assassins. It's been steadily produced since then, with a very strong production at Urbana's Station Theater all the way back in 1992, and a splashy revival on Broadway in 2004 that earned a Tony for Michael Cerveris. Along the way, through London and San Jose and St. Louis, Assassins has been adjusted a bit here and there, including the addition of a song, but its basic structure, that book musical masquerading as a revue, remains constant.

Sondheim called John Weidman's book "a collage," and that's as accurate as anything, mixing people from different times in American history, working within its own time and space, overlapping pointy, sharp-edged pieces of the American Dream with gunpowder and fried chicken, with a sense of the theatrical infusing its grimy deeds. At its heart, it's a small musical, one that works just fine in a black box theater. (See: Station Theater production mentioned above.) That means it should be fine in the University of Illinois Studio Theatre in Krannert Center for the Performing Arts. And yet... It isn't.

Director J.W. Morrissette and scenic designer Daniela Cabrera rely on thin candy-cane-striped scaffolding and a circular stair set against the east side of their black box, with seating on the other three sides. There are signs and ephemera scattered here and there, with big dollar signs or "the right to bear arms" or other evocative phrases painted on set pieces, strings of twinkly lights, and a nine-piece orchestra tucked under the narrow platform that spans the top of the scaffolding. Unfortunately, Morrissette has chosen to play significant scenes on that gallery, up there next to the ceiling, which is hard to light and hard to see from major portions of the audience. And the orchestra is pitched too loud and too close, often drowning out singers valiantly trying to negotiate Sondheim's lyrics. Since this is a show that tells its story through its lyrics, that's a big problem.

Morrissette has the benefit of MFA actor Jordan Coughtry as John Wilkes Booth; Coughtry has the vocal and acting skills to make his part of the narrative really sing. Yvon Streacker is also good as Guiseppe Zangara, the man who tried to kill FDR, and the other members of the ensemble have good moments, but they are too often hampered by staging that leaves them isolated and distant from their fellow players and choreography that seems chaotic and messy. As a result, the pace and the individual characterizations suffer.

I saw the show on opening night and it may be that the pieces will gel as it continues its run, that everyone will settle in and find the truth instead of indicating the drama in their characters. I hope so. Assassins is too good a show for missed opportunities.

Assassins continues through February 11 at the Studio Theatre at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts in Urbana. Although there is currently a waiting list for every performance, there were quite a few empty seats on the night I saw the show, which should mean there's a chance you'll get in from that waiting list.

It's TRAVESTIES Time Tonight at U of I

Tom Stoppard's Travesties is a whirl, even a whirligig, envisioning what might have happened if Vladimir Lenin, James Joyce and Tristan Tzara had run into each other while they were all in Zurich in 1917. They really were all in Zurich, but this fantasic meet-up in a library is pure Stoppard.

Stoppard didn't choose Zurich in 1917 just because they were all there, but because it was a seminal moment for each of them. Lenin was headed for revolution, Joyce was in the midst of writing Ulysses and Tzara was getting Dada off the ground. It's no surprise a play about their intersection would involve high-flying wordplay and razzmatazz to get at issues of politics, art, revolution, freedom of speech and freedom of the press.

Travesties isn't just about Lenin, Joyce and Tzara, however. There's another man, someone named Henry Carr, who forms the center of the play. Carr was a real person, also in Zurich in 1917, and he really did play a role in a production of The Importance of Being Earnest, directed by James Joyce. And after some disputes arose in that production, Carr and Joyce traded lawsuits.

In Stoppard's play, Carr is confused and fuzzy, moving back and forth between his older years and his memory of 1917. Carr's Swiss-cheese memories give the play its structure, as the characters throw limericks, sonnets and even a taste of vaudeville. ("Positively, Mr. Gallagher!" becomes "Positively, Gwendolen!" but it's vaudeville just the same) into the mix. Tom Hollander, who plays Carr in the current British production which will be transferring to Broadway next year, described the Travesties experience as being "bombarded by a glitter ball of different thoughts."

Director Laura Hackman brings Travesties to the Colwell Playhouse at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts in Urbana with Equity actor Christopher Sheard in the role of Henry Carr. Sheard is an alum of the University of Illinois theatre MFA program, and he brings a maturity to the cast that should work well for Old Carr and Young Carr.

Sheard will be joined by MFA actors Jessica Kadish as Gwendolen and Mark Tyler Miller as Joyce and undergrads Kevin Blair as Tzara, Katelin Dirr as Cecily, Diana Gardner as Nadya, Jordan Gleaves as Bennett and Patrick Weber as Lenin.

Travesties opens tonight with a 7:30 pm performance and runs through October 29. For performance information or to order tickets, click here. Illinois Theatre also makes the programs for its events available online, and if you want to see the director's or dramaturg's notes or read actor and design team bios, that's all right here.

IN THE BLOOD Opens Tonight at U of I

Did you read The Scarlet Letter in school? In my memory, my junior high English class wasn't all that thrilled about the assignment, but we slogged our way through, thinking ourselves so much more enlightened than the characters in the book who made poor Hester Prynne wear a scarlet A. Playwright Suzan-Lori Parks found something of contemporary significance in Hawthorne's story about illicit love between a hypocritical Puritan minister and the woman who had his baby out-of-wedlock in 17th century Massachusetts, enough to write a modern adaptation in play form. Parks' play In the Blood, based on A Scarlet Letter, was a finalist for the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

The main character in the play is also named Hester, but Parks' modern-day Hester has five illegitimate children by five different fathers, instead of just one, although one is a minister called Reverend D, not unlike Reverend Dimmesdale in the book. Hester and her kids are living in abject poverty, but she has no way of making it better. Used and abused by the system and the very people who should be helping her, Hester is trapped by her own past and the harsh judgments made about her. She's just an irresponsible slut, right? Not so different from Hester Prynne, blamed all by herself for the baby it took two to create.

Lisa Gaye Dixon directs In the Blood for the University of Illinois's Illinois Theatre series, part of a season devoted to works that explore free expression and censorship. The Scarlet Letter has been banned regularly, making In the Blood a perfect part of the dialogue on free expression

Dixon's production of the play opens tonight in the Studio Theatre, a small black box theater inside Krannert Center for the Performing Arts on the U of I campus, with performances continuing through April 10. Click here to see the performance schedule and here for ticket information.

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!

All About March: PITY, PREJUDICE, SCOUNDRELS and TOMBSTONES

As we open our March schedule, note that several fine local shows are continuing this week, with performances of Moliere's School for Wives, directed by Jonathan Hunt Sell for Illinois State University's Westhoff Theatre, finishing up Friday night with a 7:30 pm performance, and the cave-in musical Floyd Collins playing at the Station Theatre in Urbana through Saturday the 7th. Hostage, a world premiere of a drama by Kim Pereira for New Route Theatre, runs until Sunday March 8.  You'll find all the details for each show at the link under its title.

Out in Goodfield, the Barn II is giving top billing to actor Don Challacombe in a "comic thriller" called Tiptoe Through the Tombstones, playing from tonight through April 19. Also in the cast: April Bieschke, Tamra Challacombe, Pat Gaik, John Johnson, Bob Lane Jr., Nancy Nickerson, Mary Simon, Lana Warner and Terri Whisenhut. For Tiptoe info, click here for the Barn II's website or here for their Facebook page.

Tonight also marks opening night for 'Tis Pity She's a Whore, John Ford's rip-roaring 17th century revenge tragedy about incest, adultery, betrayal, tempestuous passion and unspeakable violence, at the University of Illinois. 'Tis Pity is playing in the Colwell Playhouse in the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, with performances through March 15. Guest director William Brown, who comes to Urbana from Chicago's Writers' Theatre, directs his own adaptation of Ford's play set in contemporary Italy. For Illinois Theatre, David Monahan and Clara Byczkowski play brother and sister Giovanni and Annabella, whose forbidden love fuels the tragedy, with MFA actor Thom Miller as Soranzo, Annabella's wrathful suitor and professor Robert G. Anderson as Donado, one of the many people seeking revenge in this dark and diabolical tale.

Community Players is open for business in March with Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, the Broadway musical version of the 1964 movie Bedtime Story, starring David Niven and Marlon Brando as a pair of con men with decidedly different styles fleecing wealthy women on the Riviera, and 1988's Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, with Michael Caine and Steve Martin in the roles. On Broadway, it was John Lithgow and Norbert Leo Butz as the rival swindlers, with Butz taking home the Tony for his performance. Alan Wilson directed Dirty Rotten Scoundrels the musical for Community Players, with Dave Montague and Nick Benson taking on sophisticated Lawrence and pitiful Freddy respectively. Dirty Rotten Scoundrels opens with a preview on March 12, followed by weekend performances through the 29th.

It's interesting that the Normal Theatre is showing To Catch a Thief, the stylish 1955 Hitchcock film with Cary Grant as a famous (but retired) jewel thief on the Riviera, at the same time Dirty Rotten Scoundrels hits Players Theatre. Cary's John Robie, AKA "The Cat," is elegant and debonair as he dashes across rooftops and romances Grace Kelly, an heiress who seems to be trying to snare him a lot more aggressively than he's trying to grab her mother's jewels. It's all in good fun with some beautiful scenery, and I'm not just talking Grant and Kelly. They're pretty spectacular, though. To Catch a Thief will be on screen at the Normal Theatre from March 12 to 15, with 7 pm screenings all four nights.

It's a different locale -- the English countryside -- and era -- the Regency period of the early 19th century -- when Pride and Prejudice comes to Illinois State University's Center for the Performing Arts from March 26 to April 4.  The best known dramatic adaptation of Jane Austen's book is probably the 1995 mini-series that featured Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle. But Keira Knightley also took on Elizabeth Bennet, the young woman who comes from a rather havey-cavey family full of daughters, all of whom who need to be married off. When Eliza Bennet meets the very eligible but rather stuffy Mr. Darcy, it's not long before both pride and prejudice come into play. If you read or saw Bridget Jones' Diary, you know the basic plotline. Lori Adams directs all eight of ISU's MFA actors in this production, where Natalie Blackman will play Elizabeth and Robert Johnson her Darcy. This version of Pride and Prejudice was adapted by Joseph Hanreddy and J.R. Sullivan from the Austen novel.

Station Theatre Artistic Director Rick Orr will be at the helm of the new Terrence McNally play Mothers and Sons when it opens March 26 at the small black box theater in Urbana. Barbara Ridenour will play Katharine Gerard, the mother in the title, whose son died years ago. Katharine comes to the apartment where her son once lived with his partner, barging into the life of that partner, who has now moved on, married a younger man and adopted a child. Cal, who once loved her son, has not only moved on, he has lived on, which her son did not. As Chris Jones noted in his Chicago Tribune review of the New York production, this is a play of reconciliation. The image above is from that Broadway production, which starred Tyne Daly as Catherine.

And, of course, there's lots more happening on area stages, from Peoria to Bloomington and farther afield.

OH WHAT A LOVELY WAR Is Back, Gas Mask and All, at U of I Starting Tomorrow

Everything World War I is new again. In addition to recent screenings of Wings -- a 1927 movie starring Buddy Rogers and Richard Arlen as WWI flying aces as well as the first film to win an Academy Award as Best Picture -- and the 1930 version of All Quiet on the Western Front, there is Heartland Theatre's current production of Heroes, a Tom Stoppard translation of a French play by Gerald Sibleyras about three veterans put out to pasture in the French countryside. And Oh What a Lovely War is back for a another round of performances in the Studio Theatre in University of Illinois's Krannert Center for the Performing Arts.

Last November, U of I staged a full array of concerts and other events to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the Great War last year. That array included a production of Oh What a Lovely War, a musical play created in 1963 by Joan Littlewood and her Theatre Workshop in London to explore the 50th anniversary of WWI.  The first Oh What a Lovely War combined popular songs from the period -- pieces like "It's a Long Way to Tipperary," "Belgium Put the Kibosh on the Kaiser" and "Roses of Picardy" -- against a backdrop of stark, devastating facts and figures about the ravages of a terrible war. When it was revived at Theatre Workshop last year, The Guardian's Michael Billington called it a restored "classic for a new generation," with its emotional toll intact.

Littlewood's original production eschewed military uniforms in favor of Pierrot costumes as a way to show the absurdity of war, but director Robert G. Anderson and his costume designer, Amy Chmielewski, pulled uniforms out of the closet for their Krannert Center production last year. Still, "Belguim Put the Kibosh on the Kaiser" and the iconic scene in which British and German soldiers exchange Christmas gifts were still there, still packing a punch.

Oh What a Lovely War starts its second run tomorrow, Wednesday, February 18, at 7:30 pm in Krannert Center's Studio Theatre. Evening performances continue on the 19th, 20th and 21st at 7:30 pm, followed by a 3 pm matinee on the 22nd. For ticket information, visit Krannert's website here. To see the show's program with complete cast and crew details, click here.

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.

THE SULLIVAN PROJECT Blends Daniel Sullivan, David Auburn and Jake Weber

Daniel Sullivan

Illinois Theatre, a producing arm of the University of Illinois Department of Theatre, is shedding some light on "The Sullivan Project," a theater event scheduled for a week of performances in early February.

The Department of Theatre at U of I had previously announced that this would be the inaugural year of the Sullivan Project, named for Daniel Sullivan, who is the Swanlund Endowed Chair and a Professor of Theatre at U of I Urbana-Champaign. He is also a one of New York's most in-demand directors, a Tony Award winner for his direction of Proof, by David Auburn, and a Tony nominee for directing plays like Rabbit Hole by David Lindsay-Abaire, The Sisters Rosensweig by Wendy Wasserstein, and a 2011 production of The Merchant of Venice. Other than the fact that Sullivan would be at the helm, details were scant. All we knew was that this Sullivan Project would "gather professional artists from across the country to produce a new play."

Now we know that the new play in question is called Lost Lake and it was written by David Auburn. A press release sent out today tells us, "The latest work from the author of Proof, which received both the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and Broadway’s Tony Award, Lost Lake was developed by the author in a residency funded by Eugene O’Neill Theater Center’s National Playwrights Conference in the summer of 2013 (Preston Whiteway, Executive Director; Wendy C. Goldberg, Artistic Director).

"In Lost Lake, Veronica, who lives in New York City, finds herself at a crossroads in life and decides to offer her children a respite from city life in a ramshackle cabin far from the distractions of her urban milieu. When she leases a vacation home, she meets Hogan, the property owner who is facing challenges of his own—challenges that will have an impact on Veronica’s chances of time away from it all."

Jake Weber

We also have some excellent casting news. Jake Weber, someone I saw turn in a terrific performance in a terrific production of Tom Stoppard's Hapgood at the Williamstown Theater Festival last summer, who is perhaps better known for playing the hot husband in TV's Medium, will play Hogan, the challenged "property owner," while Opal Alladin will take the role of Veronica. Alladin appeared in the movie United 93 as well as an October episode of The Michael J. Fox Show, and she has extensive stage credits, including Romeo and Juliet for New York's Public Theater, Sarah Ruhl's In the Next Room or the Vibrator Play at the Wilma Theater in Philadelphia and Anne Marie Healy's What Once We Felt as part of a new play initiative from Lincoln Center.

Opal Alladin

Weber and Alladin share an Alan Ayckbourn connection, since she was in Ayckbourn's My Wonderful Day in Philadelphia, and he played all five Rivetti brothers in a Broadway production of A Small Family Business at the Music Box Theatre.

Scenic designer J. Michael Griggs joins costume designer James Berton Harris, a longtime U of I professor as well as a prominent costume designer with credits on both coasts, lighting designer Robert Perry and Bradford Chapin, a sound designer and audio engineer who has designed several productions with Illinois Theatre, on the design team.

Rehearsals begin next week in Urbana, with performances of Lost Lake scheduled for February 5-9 at 7:30 pm and 2 pm matinees on the 8th and 9th. For ticket information, click here.

Krannert Center/Illinois Theatre/Opera and Lots More on Sale August 10

Tickets go on sale August 10 for the 2013-14 slate of events at the University of Illinois Krannert Center for the Performing Arts. Whether you're into music, opera, theater, dance or something in between, there are options available for you in Krannert's "captivating, fresh, life-affirming, restorative, unexpected, whimsical, and uplifting" season.

The Illinois Theatre Series begins with 9 Parts of Desire, written and directed by Heather Raffo, which looks at the lives of nine Iraqui and Iraqui-American women during the Persian Gulf Wars, presented October 3 to 13; and moves on to William Shakespeare's The Tempest, the story of magical Prospero and his exile on an island, directed by Robert G. Anderson, with performances October 25 to November 3; and Clybourne Park, Bruce Norris's sort-of-sequel to A Raisin in the Sun, on stage in the Studio Theatre from November 7 to 27, directed by Lisa Gaye Dixon.

In 2014, you can look for a new collaborative work called The Sullivan Project with theatre artists from across the country coming together under the artistic leadership of Daniel Sullivan, the Tony Award winning director, with performances scheduled from February 5 to 9; Theresa Rebeck's O Beautiful, about where American teenagers find themselves right now, including issues like guns, date rape, abortion and bullies, directed by Gina Rattan from April 3 to 13; and finally, a second Shakespeare piece, this time Much Ado About Nothing, directed by Kathleen Conlin for the Colwell Playhouse, with performances beginning April 10 and ending April 19.

The School of Music Opera Program Series has one choice in the fall -- Verdi's Falstaff in November -- and one in the spring, in Orpheus in the Underworld, with music by Jaques Offenbach, in March.

Other highlights of the schedule include An Evening with Audra McDonald on September 21, featuring the Tony, Emmy and Grammy Award winning singer performing songs by Stephen Sondheim, Irving Berlin, Rodgers and Hammerstein and other favorite composers; the Irish Chamber Orchestra, with "living legend" Sir James Galway and Lady Jeanne Galway, on November 7; a theatre piece called Chocolate Woman Dreams the Milky Way, from First Nations playwright and performer Monique Mojica, on November 20 and 21; the Moscow Festival Ballet bringing Giselle, Cinderella and Swan Lake to the Tryon Festival Theatre in January; a semi-staged version of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado on March 14 with conductor Ian Hobson and Sinfonia da Camera; pianist Peter Nero bringing the American Songbook to the Foellinger Great Hall on April 12, and Nathan and Julie Gunn and Friends, with star baritone Nathan Gunn, his wife Julie at the piano, mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard and violinist Stefan Milenkovich.

But those are just my choices. You can peruse the calendar yourself, choose by category of performances, or look at the different series that make up the season. Lots to see and choose from!

And you can order all the tickets you want on Saturday, August 10, starting at 10 am. The box office number is 217-333-6280 if you prefer to chat with someone about the options.

THE PIANO LESSON (with Double Dirden Power) Extended Off-Broadway

August Wilson's The Piano Lesson has been playing to great reviews at New York's Signature Theatre, with a cast that includes Brandon J. Dirden and Jason Dirden as Boy Willie and Lymon. Both Dirdens earned MFAs in acting from the University of Illinois, and Brandon Dirden is married to Crystal A. Dickinson, another U of I theatre alum who recently starred on Broadway in Clybourne Park. You can read a quick interview with the three of them here.

And The Piano Lesson with its double Dirden power has been such a success for Signature that they are extending the run to January 13.

This production is directed by Ruben Santiago-Hudson, an actor and playwright who was in the original cast of Jelly's Last Jam and the Broadway production of Wilson's Seven Guitars, for which he won a Tony Award. He also played Captain Montgomery on TV's Castle for three seasons.

Critic Charles Isherwood wrote in The New York Times that this revival "brings a timely reminder of how consoling, how restorative, how emotionally sustaining great theater can be." Isherwood continued, "As portrayed with heat-generating intensity by Mr. Dirden, Boy Willie seems filled to bursting with ambition, excitement, heedless hope." and he called Jason Dirden "wonderfully funny and touching" as Lymon.

Broadway.com has some very nice production photos of this Piano Lesson, showing off both Dirdens and the rest of the cast, while the Signature Theatre site offers Joan Marcus's official photos and video teasers, as well.

U of I's Jon Michael Hill Will Join "Elementary" on CBS This Fall

TV Line is reporting that Jon Michael Hill, who went straight from the University of Illinois Department of Theatre to the Steppenwolf ensemble, has been cast in the new Sherlock Holmes show, "Elementary," set for CBS this fall.

Hill did undergraduate acting work in "King Lear," "A Chorus Line" and "Gint" at Krannert Center, and then, after graduation, he earned a Jeff nomination for "The Tempest" and a Tony nomination for "Superior Donuts" before appearing in "Detroit 1-8-7" and "Eastbound and Down" on the telly.

Although the news about Hill being added to the "Elementary" cast doesn't have a lot of detail, TV Line says he will be "a detective working alongside the pair." Will he be the Lestrade in the mix? I dunno. Nobody else in the cast has that name yet, anyway. Or perhaps he can be Athelney Jones, another Scotland Yard detective who appears in Arthur Conan Doyle's stories. Or perhaps not. Athelney Jones is a way cool name, even if he is "an imbecile," according to Sherlock Holmes, and not as prominent as several other inspectors and detectives in the canon.

In the "Elementary" take on Sherlock, Mr. Holmes is a Brit living now (like, 2012) in New York City, and he returns to sleuthing after a stint in rehab. Jonny Lee Miller, Angelina Jolie's first husband and the guy who alternated with Benedict Cumberbatch as Dr. Frankenstein and his reanimated Creature in the National Theatre's "Frankenstein," plays Sherlock, while Lucy Liu is a feminine Watson. (She's Joan, instead of John. And she is apparently a former doctor now filling in as Holmes's sobriety helper. Or something like that.)

Aidan Quinn's Captain Gregson is also a part of the tableau, and you will see Miller, Liu and Quinn in the long preview CBS has provided to sneak the show. From that preview, the show looks pretty fun, and even though there are a whole lot of Sherlocks running around right now (what with Robert Downey Jr. going Victorian in the movies and that same Benedict Cumberbatch mentioned above playing another modern Holmes for the BBC and PBS), this one looks sufficiently different and Miller is charming and quirky enough (without being quite as snooty or chilly as Cumberbatch) that I think "Elementary" make stake out its own space.

NBC is scheduling "Elementary" in the prime slot at 9 pm Central on Thursday nights, so they appear to have some faith in the show, as well.

The 2012-13 Theatrical Season at U of I

It's fitting that I was over in Champaign-Urbana yesterday*, only a stone's throw from Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, just as they were sending out emails to announce their 2012-13 schedule of programs to fill all four (five? six?) of the lovely performance spaces inside the Krannert Center.

That schedule includes dance, opera, visiting artists, bands, companies, quartets and orchestras, and a good deal of theater, including the University of Illinois Department of Theatre productions in both the "black box" Studio Theatre and the more expansive Colwell Playhouse. My focus is on theater, of course, and here's what you have to look forward to if you're inclined to give Krannert Center a look:

The University begins its theater season October 4 with "44 Plays for 44 Presidents," a two-hour look at each and every American president, showcased through short biographical scenes. Those scenes include comedy, tragedy, music and theatrical razzmatazz, as we see things like Ben Franklin hosting a Borscht-Belt "roast" of Thomas Jefferson and a "Nixon-praising dance number" as the company of performers passes on a star-spangled coat to represent the mantle of the presidency.

Whether this is intentional irony I don't know, but "Dracula" follows the presidents, opening October 14. There are a number of scripts that tell the "Dracula" story, and so far, Krannert's materials aren't telling which one U of I is using. Still, we can expect vampires, pale maidens, bloodlust and probably a few caskets on stage for any "Dracula."

Squeezing one last drama into October, "A Dream Play" opens on October 25. I'm assuming this is the 1901 Strindberg play, a surreal and symbolic piece that moves a man through a melancholy dreamscape filled with issues of gender, class, capitalism, philosophy, theology and the illusory, painful nature of human life.

The Department of Theatre opens the new year with "No Child..." on February 13. In New York, "No Child..." was a one-woman show for actress Nilaja Sun, as well as a "tour-de-force exploration of the New York City public school system," with Sun playing kids, parents, teachers, administrators, and even the school janitor. I'm guessing that U of I will open it up to an ensemble, but we'll have to see what happens in February.

That's followed by Larry Kramer's "The Normal Heart," a call to arms about AIDS in America that was recently revived on Broadway in a very well-regarded production. "The Normal Heart" will run from March 28 to April 7.

And the Theatre Department season ends with another call to arms in "Spring Awakening," which offers a dire warning as to what happens when you keep kids completely ignorant on issues of sex and what's happening to their bodies. The original play was written by German playwright Frank Wedekind in about 1890, with a rock musical version (music by Duncan Sheik) hitting Broadway (as well as winning a slew of Tony Awards and launching the careers of Lea Michele, Jonathan Groff and John Gallagher, Jr.) in 2007. Are they doing the straight play or the musical? If I had to guess, I would say the musical. But who knows, really? Potential ticket-buyers should know that there is sex (awkward, adolescent sex) all over "Spring Awakening," which might be either a plus or a minus for you, considering your taste in theater.

Some highlights from elsewhere on the schedule:

Anne Bogart and her SITI Company bring their "Café Variations" to Krannert November 8 to 10, the U of I Opera Program performs Daniel Catán's "Florencia en el Amazonas" November 8 to 11, and "The Nutcracker," an annual holiday treat, runs November 30 to December 9. As 2013 opens, the Russian National Ballet Theatre brings "Don Quixote," "Chopiniana/Romeo and Juliet," and "Swan Lake" to Champaign in January, The Black Watch and the Band of the Scots Guards perform in February, Ann Hampton Callaway and Liz Callaway bring their sister act called "Boom!" to town February 20 to 22, and the U of I Opera Program does a concert version of "My Fair Lady" February 28 through March 3 and brings back "The Threepenny Opera" April 25 to 28.

To see the complete schedule, click here. The season brochure will be available July 20, with tickets on sale for the entire season on August 11.

*I was in Urbana yesterday to do a radio interview with Kevin Kelly at WILL for his "Live and Local" program, along with Ron Emmons, Alyssa Ratkovich and Kent Nusbaum,who are the director and cast of the play "Missed Connections," by Marj O'Neill-Butler, which is part of Heartland's 10-Minute Play Festival. Kent and Alyssa performed a piece of the play, while Ron and I talked about Heartland's contest and process. If you'd like to hear our interview, click here. Always nice to be back in C-U! 

U of I Alum Update: Nick Offerman, American Ham

U of I alum Nick Offerman (Class of 93), perhaps better known as Ron Swanson on TV's "Parks and Recreation," will be part of the Just For Laughs Chicago comedy festival, along with people like Vince Vaughn, Patton Oswalt, Janeane Garafolo and Bill Engvall, and coinciding with Conan O'Brien bringing his show to Chicago June 11 to 14.

Offerman will offer "Nick Offerman: American Ham," in which he promises to bring his "honey-glazed hindquarters" onstage for "a humorous entree called American Ham, which features a veritable smorgasbord of cautionary tales, tunes and tips for prosperity (with minor nudity).

I don't remember the name of the play he and his U of I cohorts performed at the Armory Free Theatre way back when, but it definitely involved more than minor nudity. He was a burglar and the boy of the house (played by Jimmy Slonina, who is now a clown touring with the Handsome Devils after finishing a stint with Cirque du Soleil in Las Vegas) turned the tables on him, making Mr. Offerman's character strip and put on Mom's scanty black undies and then stick his arm down the garbage disposal. So, yeah, there was Nick Offerman, starkers in the Armory Free Theatre.

I think he was also at least partially nude when he did "A Clockwork Orange" at Steppenwolf. Didn't see the show, but those were the reports coming back, that he was on a swing over the audience, with his bare bottom to the four winds.

In any event, it does not appear that "American Ham" is predicated upon nudity in its two shows at the Vic Theatre on the evening of June 16th. But I guess you'll have to go to find out for sure.

Offerman has a lot of friends in the Chicago theater community from his years with the Defiant Theater and roles at the Goodman, Wisdom Bridge and Steppenwolf Theatres, so tickets are sure to sell briskly. You can buy tickets yourself if you click here and drop down to one of the two green boxes offering tickets for the 7:30 pm or 10 pm shows on June 16th.