King Lear at the Goodman Theatre. Raisin at Court Theatre and Hamlet at Chicago Shakespeare Theater.________
The 2006-2007 Chicago theater season is off to an enormous start: nearly 60 primetime shows are opening this month alone, and close to 50 will follow in October. That doesn't count sketch comedy, improv, kids' shows, late-night shows or opera. Perhaps you understand now why so many theater critics sleep with actors: it reduces the time needed to review their performances. Just kidding!
The season not only offers multiples of something-for-everyone, but any number of newsworthy special events. Chicago Shakespeare Theater, for example, is marking its 20th anniversary. Beginning in a Lincoln Avenue pub's beer garden on $5,000, the troupe now has an annual budget of $13 million, 23,000 subscribers and a gorgeous $24 million theater complex on Navy Pier. Chicago Shakes already has opened its anniversary season with a vigorous production of Hamlet, running through Nov. 18.
There's another remarkable 20th anniversary going on at the Goodman Theatre, where Robert Falls marks two decades as artistic director. In those 20 years, he's taken both the Goodman and his own directing career to new heights of Broadway-related, national and international acclaim. Both the Goodman Theatre and Falls personally are Tony Award winners. Falls has opened his anniversary season with King Lear, starring Stacy Keach, running through Oct. 15.
Perhaps the most festive event of the early season will be the Oct. 14-15 gala opening of Victory Gardens Theater at the Biograph. In a two-year process, Victory Gardens ( also a Tony Award-winning troupe ) has purchased the legendary movie theater where baddie John Dillinger was shot, gutted it and turned it into a state-of-the-art new playhouse with a 299-seat main stage. ( Later, they will add a studio theater. ) Meanwhile, Victory Gardens retains ownership of its longtime home two blocks south of the Biograph. The Victory Gardens Greenhouse, as it now is called, will be home for five resident theater companies this season, among them the GLBT About Face Theatre. Victory Gardens at the Biograph opens with the world premiere of Denmark, by Charles Smith; Oct. 14-Nov. 12.
If the cast size of a show is an indication of a healthy theater industry, then Chicago is very healthy, indeed. We expect large casts at big troupes doing musicals and Shakespeare, but the autumn schedule also features smaller Off-Loop companies squeezing casts of a dozen or 20 or more into theaters of 150 seats or less ( sometimes a lot less ) . The Vitalist Theatre is doing Brecht's anti-war drama Mother Courage and Her Children at Theatre Building Chicago through Oct. 22. The second-floor Strawdog Theatre Company is staging June Havoc's rarely-produced Marathon '33, based on her own experiences as a Depression Era dance marathon competitor, through Oct. 28. Remy Bumppo Theatre is dusting off Gore Vidal's 1960's political potboiler, The Best Man, with a cast of 14 at Victory Gardens Greenhouse through Nov. 5.
Topping them all, Griffin Theatre, which hasn't staged a primetime show in two years, roars back with a cast of 28 in Sidney Kingsley's gritty 1930's play, Dead End, the original that spawned the Dead End Kids of movie fame at Theatre Building Chicago, Oct. 1-Nov. 12. Other large ensembles will be featured at Northlight Theatre for the still-popular courtroom drama Inherit the Wind, Oct. 11-Nov. 12; and at Lookingglass Theatre for the world premiere of Mary Zimmerman's tale of Jason and the Golden Fleece, Argonautika, Oct. 28-Dec. 23.
Here are a dozen other hot prospects—at least on paper—for autumn theater-going.
Fat Pig, the latest play from edgy Neil Labute, pairs a svelte guy with a plus-size woman in a happy romance, until his buddies spoil it all; Profiles Theatre, through Oct. 29. Hatfield and McCoy, a world premiere about America's most famous family feud, as conceived by Chicago's hottest troupe of twentysomething theater artists, who always season shows with original rock and let you drink at your seat; the House Theatre of Chicago at The Viaduct, through Nov. 4. The African Company presents Richard III, a social drama based on historical fact that deals with the first American Negro theater troupe performing Shakespeare when slavery still ruled much of the land; staged by Chicago's most admired African-American company, Congo Square Theatre, at the Duncan YMCA, through Oct. 15.
Raisin is the seldom-seen Broadway musical version of the groundbreaking Black drama, A Raisin in the Sun. This new 'reimagining'—as Court Theatre calls it—will reduce the size of chorus and orchestra; eliminate dance and production numbers; and squeeze all the scenes into a single apartment setting, as in the original play; at Court Theatre, through Oct. 22. The Pirate Queen, based on a novel about historic Irish female pirate captain Grace O'Malley, is a Broadway-bound musical certain to be a vast spectacle if nothing else. It is produced by the creators of Riverdance and written by the authors of Les Mis—but vast spectacle doesn't necessarily equal good. At the Cadillac Palace Theatre, Oct. 3-Nov. 26. Shakespeare's The Two Noble Kinsman, classified as a comedy, is a rarely-produced final work for the stage that is a collaboration with John Fletcher concerning two cousins who love the same lady; at Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Oct. 4-Dec. 17.
The Decline and Fall of the Entire World as Seen Through the Eyes of Cole Porter is, perhaps, the ultimate revue of the ultimate witty gay composer as presented originally by the ultimate fey producer, the late Ben Bagley; revived by Light Opera Work, Oct. 6-Nov. 5. Madame X, set in France at the turn of the last century, tells the tale of a mysterious woman on trial for murder stemming from a love scandal. The original 1906 play caused a sensation and there have been several screen versions. This one is a world premiere musical, at the Chicago Center for the Performing Arts; Oct. 7-Nov. 18. Sonia Flew, a new play by Melinda Lopez about a mixed marriage in which Christmas meets Hanukah meets memories of a Cuba one fled from long ago, with a contemporary war thrown in; Steppenwolf Theatre Upstairs, Oct. 9-Feb. 4.
Caravaggio tells the tale of the lusty, brawling, spiritually tormented Italian Renaissance artist who managed to inject personal violence of his brief life ( dying at 37 in 1610 ) , even into his use of light in his paintings; a new work from the Silk Road Theatre Project, Oct. 14-Nov. 26. Boy Gets Girl is, arguably, the best play by Chicago writer Rebecca Gilman—a tough-as-nails look at stalkers, pornographers and woman-on-woman cruelty; at Eclipse Theatre at Victory Gardens Greenhouse, Nov. 5-Dec. 17. Don't Shed a Tear won't be a great drama but it's bound to have great music—it's a biography of the legendary Lady Day, Billie Holiday; at Black Ensemble Theater, open run from Nov. 12.
Follow links below for more stories in this special theater issue. Also see www.windycitymediagroup.com/theateropenings.html for extensive listings of opening dates and www.windycitymediagroup.com/theatershowings.html for ongoing shows. Look for the **** for special GLBTQ interest.