The Color Purple. Photo by Paul Kolnik____________
One of our town's favorite directors, Gary Griffin ( he's also one of our best ) , already is thinking about his vacation next summer since he's just about booked solid right through the spring. Griffin's next production is the Stephen Sondheim/James Lapine musical, Passion, now in rehearsal at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater ( plays Oct. 2-Nov. 11 ) , where Griffin remains associate artistic director. Following that, Griffin will stage Neil Simon's The Goodbye Girl at the Drury Lane Oakbrook Terrace Theatre ( plays Dec. 27-March 2, 2008 ) . Now that Griffin is an established Broadway and London director, the choice of a play at west suburban Drury Lane may seem odd, but you may chalk it up to old loyalty. The late Drury Lane founder and producer Tony DeSantis gave Griffin an early break by naming him artistic director of the Oakbrook Terrace operation.
As winter ends, Griffin will be back in New York to stage the Off-Broadway world premiere of a new musical, Saved, at the influential Playwrights Horizons ( begins previews May 9, opens June 3 ) . Co-authored by J. Michael Friedman ( music ) , Rinne Groff ( lyrics ) and John Dempsey ( book ) , Saved is a show about late-adolescents at a Christian school, and features a coming-out story and teen pregnancy among its plot lines. Sounds a bit like the current Tony Award-winning hit, Spring Awakening.
FYI: Griffin's big, beautiful staging of The Color Purple ends its six-month Chicago run at the Cadillac Palace Theatre on Sept. 30.
There's more to the female warrior game than Amazons and Xena, as Columbia College Chicago is set to demonstrate with its Fourth Biennial Women Warrior Festival, Oct. 1-31, a program of the Center for Asian Arts and Media. Under the umbrella title of Generations before Us, the month of exhibits, book discussions, film screenings and special events will chronicle and examine the Asian and Asian-American experience across several generations.
Among entertainment-related events is the photo exhibit Asian Women on Screen: The Joy Luck Club and Beyond, which illustrates characters and performers from silent era star Anna May Wong to Nancy Kwan in Flower Drum Song ( the co-star of which, Miyosho Umeki, died two weeks ago ) to the mothers and daughters in The Joy Luck Club. The exhibit will run all October at the Columbia College Library ( 624 S. Michigan Avenue ) , kicked off by panel discussion and opening reception from 5-7 p.m. on Oct. 4; free.
The final festival program is a forum, 'Same Sex Parents: Mothers & Daughters,' at 2 p.m. on Oct. 28 at the Center on Halsted; it's free. For complete information on all events of the Fourth Women Warrior Festival, call 312-344-8213 or see www.colum.edu .
Those attending Lynda Carter's solo show last week at the Apollo Theater, and those who will be seeing The Sparrow at the Apollo ( which begins Sept. 26 ) are among those enjoyed the venue's new lobby exhibit ( through Nov. 11 ) , All the World's a Stage.
Presented by the visual arts organization Anatomically Correct, the collection of photos and paintings by Chicago-area artists chronicles nearly 120 years of Chicago theater architecture with views of the Auditorium Theatre, the Fine Arts Building, the Palace ( now the Cadillac Palace ) , the Uptown, the Esquire, the Nortown, the Coronado ( in Rockford ) , the Rialto Square ( in Joliet ) and the famous and infamous Century Theatre. The latter, located on Clark Street at Diversey, started life as a glorious Balaban and Katz vaudeville and movie palace that became by the 1970s a popular gay cruising ground. Now only the elaborate facade remains as the front to the Century mall, and no cruising at all ever goes on at the Bally's Fitness Club and the Landmark Cinema multiplex within its historic walls. As they say online, LOL.
Jonny can't leave you without an update about Luke Grimaldi-Snyder, the young gay hero of CBS soaper As the World Turns, son of forever-heroine Lily Walsh Snyder Grimaldi Santana Snyder. Still a virginal college boy, Luke at last has been kissed by his best friend, Noah, who's used their mutual gal pal as a beard, even sleeping with her. Luke recognized the truth, however, and without seducing Noah has slowly and painfully brought him out of the closet by the strength of verbal arguments alone and his truly disarming cute-boy smile. Problem is Noah's father, although attractive, is a homophobic retired military officer who doesn't want to know the truth about his son and blames it all on Luke. The week's previews indicate that Luke will end up in the trunk of the Colonel's car!! Jonny is breathless and can't wait for his next lunch of fat-free cottage cheese and bananas in front of the TV.