Voting in the recent Illinois primary elections produced plenty of drama. And now Bailiwick Chicago is hoping its audiences will help them do the same.
The Bailiwick musical revue Show Us Your Love is playing Sundays at 7:30 p.m. through Feb. 28 at Mary's Attic, 5400 N. Clark. It consists of songs from musicals the company is auditioning for a future season.
On the ballot are shows like Barnum, Floyd Collins, Brooklyn, Songs from an Unmade Bed and more. Audiences then get to have a say in Bailiwick's programming by voting on which shows they would like to see in full-fledged form. This is a promising reboot to the former Bailiwick Repertory Theatre, which was recently re-branded under new executive director Kevin Mayes ( who is currently starring in a revival of Joel Drake Johnson's gay drama The End of the Tour through March 6 at 16th Street Theater in Berwyn ) . Many were worried that Bailiwick would disappear after it moved out of its Belmont Avenue home ( and especially when its former artistic director David Zak stepped down ) .
But as evidenced by Show Us Your Love, the Bailiwick shows how it can still attract plenty of top-notch talent. Even more encouraging is the news that plans are already in place for Bailiwick to team up with the modern dance troupe Deeply Rooted Productions for a production of Tim Rice and Elton John's Aida in July at the American Theater Company. Let's hope that this frequently gay-friendly theater continues to stick around. For more information, visit www. bailiwickchicago.com .
Courting controversy
The freelance theater critics of the Windy City Times aren't always able to review every show that we'd like to due to space, time and budgetary constrains. But there are always intriguingsounding shows that still demand some attention thanks to the controversial issues they bring up. Here are a few plays this month that run the gamut:
The conflict between Israel and Palestine gets an intensely personal examination in the world premiere of Return to Haifa at Next Theatre in Evanston, running through March 7.
Next's artistic director, Jason Southerland, approached Evanston playwright M.E.H. Lewis to adapt Ghassan Kanafani's 1968 novella, which is about a young Jewish couple newly arrived in Israel in 1948 after their recent liberation from Auschwitz concentration camp and a Palestinian couple with a newborn child.
Twenty years later the two couples meet following the Six Day War, and the recriminations fly. For more information, visit www.nexttheatre.org or call 847-475-1875.
Playwright Lewis is on a roll with another one of her plays having a world premiere this month.
Here Where It's Safe is set to be the final production by Stage Left Theatre in its Wrigleyville space before it moves into the renovated Theater Wit space on Belmont Ave.
Here Where It's Safe focuses on an American couple who are desperate to have a child.
Thanks to financial pressures, the couple essentially "outsources" their problem by hiring a struggling woman in a bad marriage in India to be their surrogate.
For more information on this production which runs through April 3, visit www.stagelefttheatre. com.
Quest Theatre Ensemble wades into the whole science versus creation debate with its world premiere of Andrew Park's Evolution/Creation, which runs from Feb. 19 through March 28. Using puppetry, music, dance and spoken word, the show aims to present both perspectives on creationism and evolution fairly ( we wish them plenty of luck ) . For more information on this free run of performances, call 312-458-0895 or visit questensemble.org .
With a title like I Killed My Mother, Theatre Y immediately lets you know that it's out to shock with the world premiere drama by Eastern European playwright Andras Visky. Yet the killing turns out to be more metaphorical than literal in this fictional drama based upon the lives of thousands of Romanian orphans who grew up in appalling orphanages during the Communist era under the Ceausescu dictatorship when abortion and contraception were outlawed.
Theatre Y presents I Killed My Mother under the direction of Chicago director Karin Coonrod at the Greenhouse Theater Center from Feb. 19 through March 14. Call 773-404-7336 or visit Theatre-Y.com for more information.
Being Joan Allen
Of all the famed ensemble members of Steppenwolf Theatre, one of the most elusive to the company's home stage is Joan Allen. Though the frequent Academy Award nominee returned to Broadway recently in the critically drubbed drama Impressionism, she hasn't appeared in Chicago for a long sustained theatrical run.
But Allen appears locally as the inaugural honoree of the new Steppenwolf Salutes Women in the Arts: an annual luncheon forum at noon on Tuesday, Feb. 23, at the Chicago Cultural Center, 78 E. Washington.
Steppenwolf artistic director and ensemble member Martha Lavey is set to interview Allen in a format similar to Inside the Actors Studio. Proceeds go to benefit Steppenwolf's Professional Leadership Program, which is a training program for young professionals pursuing a career in arts administration.
Since the ticket prices weren't announced in the press release for the luncheon, it's probably safe to assume that it's going to be one of those situations where if you have to ask how much it costs, then you probably can't afford it. But if you want to try anyway, call Steppenwolf's Special Events Department at 312-654-5632 or e-mail specialevents@steppenwolf.org .
Please pass along theater news and other related tidbits to scottishplayscott@yahoo.com and Andrew@windycitymediagroup.com .