Start the Countdown! MAD MEN Is Back in 25 Days!

AMC's Mad Men is coming back, baby! They're scheduled for a two-hour season premiere, as you can see from the banner above, and they've released new artwork to tease the new season. The illustrations were done by a British artist named Brian Sanders, who just happened to have done that kind of work back in the period Mad Men is set in, giving it an Ad World of the late 60s verisimilitude.

Here's a different version of that poster art, with a better look at Jon Hamm's two Don Drapers (one the gray-flanneled-suit ad exec with briefcase and the other hanging onto the hang of a woman wearing a filmy dress. I'm not sure what that's meant to connote, except maybe that Don Draper and his new wife, Megan, are turning away from the gray-flannel world he used to inhabit, even as there are still two sides to Don Draper. Whatever the message in the poster, Don is echoing Cary Grant in North by Northwest, especially the scenes at the United Nations, when it seemed New York was looming ominously over our hero.

From other pictures floating out there, we know that Megan is back and looking even more 60s-ish with frosted lipstick and high hair, that ex-wife Betty and her husband Henry are still around, with all three Draper kids in tow, and Roger, Joan, Pete and even Bert Cooper are in the mix at the ad agency. It looks like everybody has gone to a fancy dress party, including Peggy, who left Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, and junior staff, with Stan now sporting a beard and Ginsberg in a string tie.

It's tantalizing trying to figure out why we're seeing what we're seeing and how everyone has changed (or not -- Don and Joan, I'm looking at you) since last we saw them.

Ah, Mad Men. How fast can April 7 get here?

Can You Spell A-U-D-I-T-I-O-N?

Community Players and directed Brett Cottone have announced auditions for their upcoming production of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, the musical comedy about kids trying to spell well enough to win a trophy with music and lyrics by William Finn and book by Rachel Sheinkin.

The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee was a huge hit in New York and it's been popping up all over on tour and in regional theaters. It's an adorable show with a little bite, as we see sweet kids and Bee personnel -- all with some eccentricities -- who are maybe a little too wrapped up in winning for all the wrong reasons. Parental interaction (and lack thereof) plays a big part in The Bee's plotlines, as does audience interaction, when lucky volunteer spellers get to share the stage to compete against the cast (in character, of course).

So here's the scoop on Community Players' production and how you can audition to be a part of it, courtesy director Brett Cottone:

THE 25th ANNUAL PUTNAM COUNTY SPELLING BEE

William Finn–Composer/Lyricist

Rachael Sheinkin–Book

Auditions: March 17-19, 2013

Preview: May 9, 2013

Performances: May 10-12, 16-19, 23-26, 2013.

Director: Brett Cottone
Producer: Chris Strupek
Music Director: Dennis Gotkowski
Choreographer: Wendy Baugh
Assistant Director: Tony Smith
Lighting: Dan Virtue
Sound: Rich Plotkin
Set Design: Jeremy Stiller
Costumes: Opal Virtue and Sherry Bradshaw
Props: Dorothy Mundy and Carol Plotkin
Stage Manager: Hannah Kerns

The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee is a hilarious tale of six adolescent outsiders vying for the spelling championship of a lifetime. The show's Tony Award winning creative team has created the unlikeliest of hit musicals about the unlikeliest of heroes: a quirky yet charming cast of outsiders for whom a spelling bee is the one place where they can stand out and fit in at the same time.

For Mature Audiences - Casting limited to 18 and older.

Please prepare 16 - 32 bars of music to be played by piano accompaniment. No pre-recorded accompaniment allowed. Please dress appropriately for a dance audition. You will also be asked to read selected passages from the script.

Spelling Bee Character Breakdown

CHIP TOLENTINO - A boy scout and champion of the Twenty-Fourth Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, he returns to defend his title, but he finds puberty hitting at an inopportune moment. C3 - B4 Tenor

DOUGLAS PANCH - The Vice Principal. After five years' absence from the Bee, Panch returns as judge. There was an "incident" at the Twentieth Annual Bee, but he claims to be in "a better place" now, thanks to a high-fiber diet and Jungian analysis. He is infatuated with Rona Lisa Peretti, but she does not return his affections. (non-singing)

LEAF CONEYBEAR - The second runner-up in his district, Leaf gets into the competition on a lark: the winner and first runner-up had to go to the winner’s Bat Mitzvah. Leaf comes from a large family of former hippies and makes his own clothes. He spells words correctly while in a trance. In his song, "I'm Not That Smart", he sings that his family thinks he is "not that smart," but he insinuates that he is merely easily distracted. Most of the words that he is assigned are South American rodents with amusing names. A2 - G4 Baritone or Tenor

LOGAINNE SCHWARZANDGRUBENIERE (SCHWARTZY) - Logainne is the youngest and most politically-aware speller, often making comments about current political figures, with two overbearing homosexual fathers. She is somewhat of a neat freak, speaks with a lisp, and will be back next year. C4 - D5 Soprano

MARCY PARK - A recent transfer from Virginia, Marcy placed ninth in last year’s nationals. She speaks six languages, is a member of all-American hockey, a championship rugby player, plays Chopin and Mozart on multiple instruments, sleeps only three hours a night, hides in the bathroom cabinet, and is getting very tired of always winning. She is the poster child for the Over-Achieving Asian, and attends a Catholic school called "Our Lady of Intermittent Sorrows." She is also not allowed to cry. B3 - E5 Soprano/Mezzo-Soprano

MITCH MAHONEY - The Official Comfort Counselor. An ex-convict, Mitch is performing his community service with the bee, and hands out juice boxes to losing students. E3 - A4 (B4) Tenor

OLIVE OSTROVSKY - A young newcomer to competitive spelling. Her mother is in an ashram in India, and her father is working late, as usual, but he is trying to come sometime during the bee. She made friends with her dictionary at a very young age, helping her to make it to the competition. B3 - F#5 Soprano

RONA LISA PERETTI - The number-one realtor in Putnam County, a former Putnam County Spelling Bee Champion herself, and returning moderator. She is a sweet woman who loves children, but she can be very stern when it comes to dealing with Vice Principal Panch, who has feelings for her that she most likely does not return. Her favorite moment of the Bee is in the minutes before it starts, when all the children are filled with the joy of competition, before they begin to resent each other. Ms. Peretti herself won the Third Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee by spelling "syzygy," which she recounts at the very beginning of the opening number. C#4 - Ab5 Soprano

WILLIAM BARFEE - A Putnam County Spelling Bee finalist last year, he was eliminated because of an allergic reaction to peanuts. His famous “Magic Foot” method of spelling has boosted him to spelling glory, even though he only has one working nostril and a touchy personality. He has an often-mispronounced last name: it is Bar-FAY, not BARF-ee ("there's an accent aigu," he explains with some hostility). He develops a crush on Olive. Eb3 - Bb4 Tenor

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Please note that Leaf Coneybear is my personal favorite character and I don't like Monsieur Barfee at all. Him and his fancy foot spelling technique! Harumph! But your mileage will certainly vary, and you can pick your own favorite to root for at The Bee when Players puts it on in May. Until then, if you have a hankering to spell (and sing) words like hankering, you'll want to show up to audition for The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.

For more information, you can visit the Community Players website or email brett.cottone@gmail.com 

Goodman Theatre Announces 2013-14 Slate of Performances

Chicago's Goodman Theatre has announced its 2013-14 "Dream Season," with an emphasis on women directors and playwrights. The Goodman is billing this season as "Eight exquisite productions that offer you a magical, unparalleled theater experience."

Three of the five shows slated for the Albert Theatre space were created by women, from Cheryl L. West's Pullman Porter Blues to Rebecca Gilman's Luna Gale and Mary Zimmerman's The White Snake.

West is a University of Illinois alum whose early work premiered in Champaign-Urbana. Her play Jar the Floor was one of the first things I reviewed for the Champaign News-Gazette back in 1989. It was fabulous. Pullman Porter Blues premiered last year at the Seattle Repertory Theatre, where it was described as a "captivating coming of age story...woven with iconic blues music." Chuck Smith, who is celebrating twenty years of working with the Goodman Theatre, will direct Pullman Porter Blues, which is scheduled to begin September 18, 2013 in the Albert.

Next up is Gilman's Luna Gale, which opens January 18, 2014 and will be directed by Goodman Artistic Director Robert Falls. Gilman is probably best known for The Glory of Living, Boy Gets Girl and Spinning Into Butter, all three of which received the Joseph Jefferson Award for Best New Play. Gilman is a multi-award winning playwright as well as an artistic associate at the Goodman. Her new work, Luna Gale, looks at a social worker who places a baby with the mother of a teen couple with addiction problems and how that decision spirals into terrible choices and possibly terrifying consequences.

Also in the Albert, David Ives' Broadway hit Venus in Fur starts March 8, 2014, in a production directed by Joanie Schultz. Ives plays off Leopold von Sacher-Masoch's "Venus in Furs," an 1870 novella about a man who fantasizes about being the sexual slave of the woman he desires. In Ives' updated version, we see a director confronted with (and fascinated by) a strange young actress who arrives to audition for him. Because it's David Ives, you know it's funny, but Venus in Fur also becomes dark and a little dangerous as the director and actress play cat and mouse with dominance and submission.

Mary Zimmerman's The White Snake, another in a series of Zimmerman's dazzling visual adaptations of classic stories, spins off from a Chinese fable about a snake who takes on human form and falls in love. Our snake heroine wants nothing more than to stay a woman forever, but her true reptile identity is discovered, threatening her happy human life. This "ravishing theatrical spectacle" opens May 3, 2014, with Zimmerman once again at the helm of her unique, amazing work.

Lerner and Loewe's Brigadoon, a musical fairytale about a Scottish town that appears for one day and then disappears for a hundred years, will close out the Albert season with performances from June 27 to August 3, 2014. The original 1947 Broadway production starred David Brooks as Tommy, the 20th century hero who stumbles onto Brigadoon, while the movie version in 1954 put Gene Kelly in the role. Brigadoon was revived for a one-night concert version in 2010 starring Jason Danieley, who just appeared at Chicago Shakes as George in Sunday in the Park with George, and Melissa Errico as the lovers separated by the vanishing village. Can we hope to get Danieley back for the Goodman's Brigadoon? I have no idea, but a girl can dream. Rachel Rockwell will direct.

The more intimate Owen Theatre will host Noah Haidle's Smokefall, a poetic exploration of family love and loss directed by Anne Kaufman, set to open October 5; Buzzer, a provocative and funny new piece about race and romance from Tracey Scott Wilson, author of The Good Negro, to be directed by Jessica Thebus in performances beginning February 8, 2014; and Ask Aunt Susan, Seth Bockley's comic take on a man who gets sucked into pretending to be a female self-help guru on the internet. Deception, deception, deception... Ask Aunt Susan is scheduled for May, 2014, with Henry Wishcamper directing.

For information about all of these shows as well as subscriptions and tickets, you can visit the Goodman Theatre site here. It's worth it just for the beautiful images they've chosen to represent this dreamy season!

A New Ten-Minute Play Contest Just for High School Students

Eureka College Theatre and the Peoria Live Theatre League are working together on a new project to find and produce short plays written by high school students. The brand-new contest, called the Illinois High School 10-Minute Play Festival, is looking for new, original, unproduced, unpublished scripts written by students currently enrolled at Illinois high schools.

The reading panel will choose six winning scripts to be produced at Eureka College in November, 2013. Their intention is to choose one script written by a freshman, one by a sophomore, one by a junior and one by a senior, with two "at-large" scripts chosen from any class to round out the production.

They are asking for scripts that last ten minutes, which should be in the range of six to ten actual pages, depending on how the dialogue plays out. They also have a specific style sheet detailing their requirements for what a script should look like.

The deadline for submissions is July 1, 2013, which means students have the rest of the semester and a month or so to fine-tune their scripts, and they will accept either print or email entries.

Click here to see all the details or email Marty Lynch at martyl@eureka.edu with questions.

Everybody Ought to Know SWEET LITTLE DEVIL

I've had a copy of the PS Classics studio cast recording of Sweet Little Devil, a long-lost Gershwin musical comedy from 1924, since last summer. I've been listening to it like crazy ever since. It's been the one cd in my car since I first got it, so I listen to it every time I drive anywhere. About once a month, my friend Jon asks if I'm ever going to write about it. And I say, yes, yes, I totally am, but... Not yet.

Why not? I don't know. I've tried to peer into the murky depths of my psyche to figure out why I don't write about this charming little piece of musical theater history. I think the answer is that I love it too much. I haven't wanted to share. As it happens, I have become a little obsessed with it. For me, it's a perfect slice of Broadway in 1924. That's always been my go-to place and date for time travel, but I was expecting to pop in on Fred and Adele Astaire in Lady, Be Good! in December 1924. Now I have to set up my timetable and get there by May to see Sweet Little Devil first.

My obsession may seem strange for a lighter-than-air confection that sounds kind of like Gershwin but also kind of doesn't, that wraps its story around chorus girls with their eye on the main chance and the dopey swains who are smitten with them. But what's great about Sweet Little Devil is that pretty much everybody has a wicked streak. That's where the "devil" in the title comes in. Chorines Joyce and May are trying to take poor Tom and Fred, engineers just back from Peru with a big paycheck from the New York Central Railroad, for every fur coat and diamond ring they can get, and Joyce's manager, Sam, is the one plotting the worst schemes. Even our ingenue, Virginia, who is Joyce's younger cousin, has been less than honest. After all, she sets the plot in motion by intercepting and responding to Joyce's fan mail, including exchanging love letters with Tom in Joyce's name. Is Tom in love with Joyce, the face he saw in the pictures, or Virginia, the would-be romance writer behind the wonderful letters? You probably already know the answer to that, but it doesn't affect the breezy fun in the show, fueled by the infectious melodies of George Gershwin's score and Buddy DeSylva's delightful (and snarky) lyrics.

Early on, there's the saucy duet "You're Mighty Lucky," where Sam and Joyce boast about how fortunate the other should feel to have a guy or gal this cool. "Lots of nifty dames were after me, babe," sings Sam, including Gloria Swanson, Mary Pickford, and both the Gishes, who think he's delicious. Joyce makes "every fellow prove he's more than a star in movies," which is why she danced with the Prince of Wales but rebuffed Charlie Chaplin. On this restored version, real-life spouses Rebecca Luker and Danny Burstein are absolutely adorable singing this "Lucky" tune. It was my favorite at first listen, and it's still taking top honors for me.

I wasn't as crazy about "Virginia," where our heroine continues to push down the temptation to be bad, or "The Jijibo," the obligatory dance craze number given a bouncy ragtime beat. This one is supposed to serve as both a weight-loss and face-plumping charm. Everybody ought to know the Jijibo! Both songs have grown on me, with Sara Jean Ford's lovely voice infusing "Virginia" with appeal, and the blend of voices building "The Jijibo" into something special. I can't help but wonder what this dance would look like, especially if the dancers are referring to a copy of the choreography pasted in their hats, as the lyrics instruct.

Second couple May and Fred, sung here by Sally Wilfert and Jason Graae, lead "The Jijibo" as well as "Under a One-Man Top," for my money the prettiest love song in the score. Still, "Just Supposing," a pretend-we're-in-love ditty sung by Ford and Philip Chaffin, as Tom, who is Mr. Right even if he isn't that bright about women, is pretty darn cute.

Just enough of the show's book (from Frank Mandel and Lawrence Scwab) is included here to make the plotlines clear, and also to give us amusing line readings, especially from Burstein, Chaffin, Luker and Bethe Austin, whose squeaky Betty Boopy makes Joyce's long-suffering maid stand out.

So why was Sweet Little Devil forgotten? Why did George Gershwin's earliest surviving score fall off the map?

Tommy Krasker, the man behind PS Classics, who also produced the album and wrote the liner notes, has some thoughts about that and also how and why he pulled it out of obscurity for this recording. It's a fascinating read about a fascinating footnote in American musical theater. Now all we need is for someone to take this studio cast, the original Robert Russell Bennett orchestrations created for the touring version of Sweet Little Devil that Krasker uses to such good advantage here, and put the show on stage. Put this show on stage! Now!

And buy the cd while you're at it. Maybe if it is a runaway hit, somebody will get the idea it needs to be staged.

TIME STANDS STILL Is Shattering and Unforgettable at Heartland Theatre

Just into Act II of Donald Margulies' Time Stands Still, the characters are discussing a hot new play that two of them, James and Sarah, saw recently.

It's clear that James, a journalist, did not like the play, even though its subject matter -- Middle Eastern atrocities -- is exactly what he and Sarah, a photojournalist, have spent their professional lives covering.

Richard, their editor, asks why they went to see it in the first place. Sarah notes that it got an "incredible review."

JAMES: "Shattering!" "Unforgettable!"

SARAH: Place was packed.

JAMES: People are dying to be shattered. They'll pay a hundred bucks to be shattered.

And then Richard's much younger girlfriend, sweet, naive Mandy, offers that she prefers musicals and can't understand why people would pay so much to see shows that depress them. "I'm with you, kid," says James.

Part of the beauty of Time Stands Still is that Margulies gives equal time to both viewpoints, not just in terms of entertainment, but also in career and work. Is it better to spend your life in the midst of chaos, adrenaline, tragedy, to feel that you are doing important work and using your time on earth on important principles? Or is it okay to look for something calmer, gentler, safer, to surround yourself with beauty and love and comfort instead of just pain?

So if Margulies, through James and Mandy, is suggesting that it's fine to reject theater that is "Shattering!" and "Unforgettable!," he's also written a play that is both. And Heartland Theatre's production of Time Stands Still, directed by Sandra Zielinski, succeeds amazingly well as a "Shattering!" and "Unforgettable!" piece of theater. There are no easy answers here, no easy characters. Instead, we see people who truly believe in where they are at this moment, who want to connect emotionally, who do love each other, but can't get past the divide between them. James has grown past needing to feel shattered to know he's alive. But Sarah... She fiercely believes in the power of reporting. She can't change the world or its horrors. But that's not her job. "I'm there to take pictures," she tells us.

On paper, Sarah may seem unsympathetic and unreasonable at times. But on stage at Heartland, Cristen Susong gives her the touches of warmth and humor that help us understand why James tries so hard to save her, to love her, to keep her in his life. Dave Krostal also offers a 3-D portrait of James, with a little panic and instability under the Nice Guy surface, reminding us that he, too, has his demons. Together, they seem like the kind of couple who's been together forever, who can read each other, who just click. And that's what makes their troubles so moving. Kudos to both Susong and Krostal for terrific work, and to director Zielinski for choreographing their scenes perfectly.

If Margulies has created valid arguments for both sides of his central conflict, he has also mixed enough humor into the play to temper the angst. Zielinski and her actors navigate those shifts in mood and tone without a hitch, as the entrance of Richard and Mandy, his inappropriate girlfriend, takes the action in a completely different direction, one that exposes the "women" side of "women's work" along with an exploration of compassion versus objectivity. It helps that Harold Chapman, who gives Richard a gruff sweetness, and Colleen Longo, a lively and engaging Mandy, invest as fully in their characters as Susong and Krostal, making them worthy adversaries and friends as the issues in the play develop.

Kenneth P. Johnson's spartan Brooklyn loft setting provides a neutral battleground at the same time it neatly defines Sarah and James and their lack of roots, showing once again that the intimate space at Heartland is exactly the right place for thoughtful, personal drama.

There are only two performances left of this shattering, unforgettable piece of theater. You are well-advised to pack the place tonight at 7:30 pm or tomorrow at 2 pm.

TIME STANDS STILL
by Donald Margulies

Heartland Theatre Company

Director: Sandra Zielinski
Assistant Director: Noga Ashkenazi
Scenic Designer/Tech Director: Kenneth P. Johnson
Lighting Designer: Anita McDaniel
Stage Manager/Board Operator: Kirsten Turner
Costume Designer: Brittany Powers

Cast: Cristen Susong, Dave Krostal, Harold Chapman and Colleen Longo

Running time: 2 hours, with one 15-minute intermission

Remaining performances: March 2 at 7:30 pm and March 3 at 2 pm.

For reservation information, click here.

March Comes Roaring in on Area Stages and Screens

The weather may not be getting any warmer, but our entertainment options continue to heat up.

Time Stands Still continues at Heartland Theatre this weekend, with its last performance on Sunday at 2:30 pm, with J.B. and Oklahoma! also finishing at Illinois State University's Westhoff Theatre and Center for the Performing Arts and As You Like It taking its last bow at Illinois Wesleyan's McPherson Theatre. J.B., Oklahoma! and AYLI all run through March 2.

Paddy Moloney and the Chieftains are coming to the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts for a 3 pm show on Sunday, March 3, in plenty of time to boost your Irish spirits before St. Patrick's Day. This traditional Irish band has won six Grammys in an illustrious 50-year career. Their new album Voice of Ages celebrates that 50-year anniversary with contributions from Bon Iver, the Civil Wars, the Decembrists, Imelda May and Paolo Nutini, among others. You can see a teaser for that album here. For ticket information regarding the March 3 concert at the BCPA, click here.

Heartland Theatre will hold auditions on March 6, 7 and 8 from 7 to 9:30 pm for its April production of Will Eno's Middletown. Director John Kirk will be looking for an ensemble of 9-10 actors to play all 26 roles that make up the small burg called Middletown. Kirk has provided audition information here for prospective actors.

For one night only on March 7, Champaign's Art Theater will offer F.W. Murnau's classic vampire thriller Nosferatu, a silent from 1920. The Andrew Alden Ensemble will provide live musical accompaniment to Nosferatu for this screening, using piano, strings, synthesizers, percussion and electric guitars to bring a spontaneity and immediacy to Murnau's story of the creepy count. This is not the dark, elegant lord of later vampire films, but a strange and hideous pale creature with pointy teeth and ears. He's so much scarier this way!

The Art is also looking for entries into its New Art Film Festival, which takes place in April.They're looking for films by anyone in Illinois, but especially central Illinois, and they'll take features, shorts or "webisodes," preferably made within the last three years. The deadline is March 8, and you'll need to get a DVD to the Art by then. You'll find details here and updates here.

To Kill a Mockingbird is the March show for Community Players, with a preview performance on March 14 and "regular" performances continuing March 15-17 and 21-24. The play, based on the much beloved novel by Harper Lee, tells the story of a Depression-era Southern lawyer named Atticus Finch and his children, Scout and Jem, as the family is caught up in a trial involving a black man falsely accused of a crime. Finch is defending Tom Robinson on rape charges, and the injustice of that trial casts a deep shadow over the entire town, but especially on Scout, who grows up fast as events proceed around her. Marcia Weiss directs for Community Players, with a cast that includes Maggie McHale as Scout, Haani Ansari as Jem, John Bowen as Atticus, Ryan Rembert as Tom Robinson and Bruce Parrish as the mysterious Boo Radley.

Tales of the Lost Formicans, Constance Congdon's exploration of American society seen through the eyes of aliens from the future, opens at Illinois State University on March 28. Deb Alley directs this eccentric comedy for Centennial West 207, with Michelle Stine as a mother forced to move home with her own mom and dad, who will be played by Jacki Dellamano and Joseph Faifer, while her unhappy son, played by Carlos Kmet, acts out. There's also a strange neighbor who happens to be a conspiracy nut, with Hannaniah Wiggins in that role.

March 28 is also opening night for Larry Kramer's The Normal Heart, directed by Henson Keys for the University of Illinois's Department of Theatre. This fiery account of the first reaction to the AIDS epidemic from within New York's gay community has the potential to break your heart. It has every time I've seen it. It will play within the cozy confines of the Studio Theatre at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts.

Click here for information on The Normal Heart and all the other music and dance pieces coming up at Krannert Center.

As always, I will keep you updated with more events as they appear on my radar. Stay tuned!