'The Showtune Mosh Pit' for March 13th, 2013

THE LATEST IN UNAUTHORIZED GOSSIP AND BUZZ

FROM THE HEART OF CHICAGO'S SHOWTUNE VIDEO BARS,

AND MUSICAL THEATER NEWS FROM CHICAGO TO BROADWAY

by Paul W. Thompson

Overheard last weekend under the showtune

video screens at Sidetrack and The Call:

So that new production of "Fiddler On The Roof" in Aurora is a hit, even with an understudy Tevye! Of course, when that understudy is David Girolmo, a journeyman character actor well known in Chicago and across the country, there was never really cause for alarm. Peter Kevoian was taken ill last week, in time for a press release to go out, explaining that Girolmo (originally cast as Lazar Wolf, natch) would perform all of the shows last week, and that Girolmo would be appearing in all the production photographs released to the media. I believe he is performing both shows today as well. Of course, the rest of the production, directed by Jim Corti for his Paramount Theatre, seems to have been on the road to greatness all along, needing one Tevye or another to give it its center, sure, but to hardly be the factor that makes or break this particular gem of the American musical theater. With Chicago legends like Iris Lieberman and Renee Matthews on hand as Golde and Yente, and a whole slough of hot young talents giving life to the younger generation (not to mention those "L'Chaim" and bottle dancing chorus boys), this one sounds pretty remarkable. It runs through March 24. And just look at these photos!

Photo-Flash-First-Look-at-FIDDLER-ON-THE-ROOF

And that's not all the news from Aurora! The theater has announced its 2013-14 season, which will begin in September with the Chicagoland professional premiere of the Tony-winning musical, "In The Heights," surely a savvy choice given Aurora's large Hispanic population. Rachel Rockwell will direct (September 11-October 6). Jim Corti will direct "Miss Saigon" (October 30-November 24). Then Rockwell will return for "42nd Street" (January 15-February 9, 2014), and Corti will be back with "Rent" (March 12-April 6, 2014). Four epic shows for the epic-sized, 1,888-seat Paramount. See you there?

Paramount-Theatre-Announces-2013-2014-Season

The Paramount is not our only big Equity theater to make a season announcement lately. Oh, no. The Chicago Shakespeare Theater on Navy Pier, a major player in musicals as well as in other forms of Stage Entertainment, has announced that Gary Griffin, on the heels of his high caliber productions of "Follies" in 2011 and "Sunday In The Park With George" in 2012, will direct not one, but two Stephen Sondheim musicals in the late winter of 2014. They are "Gypsy," the last Sondheim show on Broadway (1959) for which Sondheim did not write the music (Jule Styne did), and "Road Show," the last New York musical (2008) for which Sondheim did write the music (seen in Chicago as "Bounce" at the Goodman Theatre in the summer of 2003). "Gypsy" will be in the mainstage "courtyard" theater space February 6-March 23, 2014, and "Road Show," with probable revisions (the press release says "re-imagined by Griffin"), will be in the upstairs smaller space, March 13-May 4, 2014. That's awesome. And Sondheim will be honored by Chicago Shakes, along with former mayor Richard M. Daley, at the theater's annual gala on June 17, 2013, receiving the Spirit of Shakespeare Award.

Chicago-Shakespeare-Theater-Announces-201314-Season

There've actually been a whole lot of season announcements recently, so many that we'll have even more of them in the Mosh Pit next week! But we are intrigued by the announcement by the American Blues Theater that it has programmed "Hank Williams: Lost Highway," by Randal Myler and Mark Harelik, to be performed September 5-October 6 and directed by Damon Kiely. The press release says this will be the Chicago professional premiere of the work. However, there was a very well-received, Jeff-recommended production that ran last summer at the Athaneaum Theatre, produced by the Filament Theatre Ensemble and starring Peter Oyloe as the legendary Country-Western star. Hm. Wonder they think about ABT's announcement?

HANK-WILLIAMS-LOST-HIGHWAY-Set-for-American-Blues-Theaters-2013-14-Season

Commercial producer Scot T. Kokandy has announced a two-show season for 2013, building on his success with "The Great American Trailer Park Musical" last summer. The musical he will bring to us is "The Last Five Years," the popular show by Jason Robert Brown. John D. Glover will direct the production (August 2-25, 2013 at Theater Wit), which will star Jim DeSelm (currently Perchik in the Paramount "Fiddler," btw) and Allison Hendrix as the two-hander cast. Interestingly, there was a production of the show last September, next door at Stage 773, produced by Another Production Company. It's popular.

Kokandy-Productions-Announces-First-Two-Show-Season

The guy who starred as Jamie in that production 2012, Rob Riddle, is about to appear in "Forever Plaid" at the Fox Valley Repertory at the Pheasant Run Resort in St. Charles, directed by Brandon Bruce. The production's dates are March 28-May 19, 2013, and the rest of the cast includes Robert Deason, Andres Enriquez and Ryan Naimy, choreographed by Brigitte Ditmars. The celebration of the boy bands of the 1950s doesn't ever seem to be gone long, does it?

Fox-Valley-Rep-Announces-FOREVER-PLAID

And speaking of Jason Robert Brown, his Tony-winning score for "Parade" can be heard for the next two weekends (March 15-24) at Harper College in Palatine, courtesy of the Harper Ensemble Theatre Company. If you haven't seen a show there, I can attest to the fact that the facility is amazing, and it sounds like Harper has filled it with some top talent, directed by Kevin Long and choreographed by Linda Fortunato, with musical direction by Aaron Benham. David Pfenninger stars as Leo Frank, the Jewish man accused of the sensational 1913 murder of young Mary Phagan in Atlanta, and Katy Harth is Lucille. It's a great big cast of professionals and students.

http://calendar.harpercollege.edu/cal/event/showEventMore.rdo

On the borderline of showtune music is Gilbert and Sullivan's 1879 comic opera "The Pirates Of Penzance," which is another show never far from another mounting. And this weekend (March 15-17) is the time! The Gilbert And Sullivan Opera Company once again will join forces with the University Of Chicago's Chamber Orchestra to produce the perennial crowd please as a U of C Department Of Music fundraiser. Thrisa Hodits directs, and Robert Whalen conducts, in Mandel Hall on East 57th Street. Did you say, "Orphan?" "Yes, often!"

the-pirates-are-coming/HYDE PARK PIRATES OF PENZANCE

Let's not forget that other Victorian crowdpleaser, though it debuted everywhere long after that namesake queen had vanished into the realm of true legend. I'm talking about "Jekyll And Hyde," which plays at the Cadillac Palace Theatre this week and next in a pre-Broadway engagement (very soon to hit the main stem) starring Constantine Maroulis and Deborah Cox. It seems that some of the show has been rewritten (again), and there is already a cast album out. This show, love it or not, was indeed one of the ones to usher in what I believe is the current era of Broadway musicals, which we've been in for almost 20 years now. Hit me up sometime, and I'll give you all my theories. Or maybe I'll write that book I keep threatening to pen. At any rate, crowds worldwide love these Frank Wildhorn melodies (lyrics by Leslie Bricusse), and now is your chance to see how they've been staged by Jeff Calhoun for this new incarnation.

http://www.broadwayinchicago.com/J&H

And the surprise of March may be turning out to be the mostly superb critical response to a unique show written by and starring a unique talent, one that evokes the Victorian era on this side of the Atlantic. I'm talking about Hershey Felder in "An American Story For Actor and Orchestra," playing through April 14 at the Royal George Theatre. Felder, he of the stage biographies of Gershwin, Beethoven and Chopin (he's a highly accomplished concert pianist), has written a one-man show in which he takes the persona of Dr. Charles Augustus Leale, the young army doctor who treated the fatally wounded Abraham Lincoln. An onstage orchestra plays the music of Stephen Foster, and the show evokes nineteenth century American culture in a way that some reviewers are finding compelling. It just goes to show you that if you believe in an artistic product, and have the resources and talent to see it through, other folks will see what you've been aiming at all along. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

an-american-story-for-actor-and-orchestra

So how was your clock change? Fun, hunh? Well, it's only once a year. In the fall, we get an extra hour, and all too soon that will be here! In the meantime, smell the first flower you see, and start hanging out in showtune places,... perhaps under the video screens.....-PWT

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