It's nearly impossible to see each and every single live stage show playing in and around the Windy City. So when it comes to year-end lists naming the best of the Chicago-area theater scene, you'll only get highly selective answers based upon what an individual critic was physically capable of catching during the 2015 calendar year.
With that in mind, the three primary Windy City Times theater critics offer up their personal top picks for 2015, while we also look back at some of the year's theater news.
Top 2015 favorites from Mary Shen Barnidge:
The Curious Case of the Watson Intelligence: Theater Wit continued to demonstrate its uncanny talent for play selection with Madeleine George's smart and timely romantic comedy exploring the limits of technology in rendering us happy.
The Hammer Trinity: Most multi-chapter theatrical epics tend to rely on short cuts as they approach their conclusion, but authors Nathan Allen and Chris Mathews kept the intrigue, intelligence and excitement of House Theatre's three-years-in-the-making project all the way home.
Brilliant Adventures and How the World Began. Playwrights Alistair McDowell and Catherine Trieschmann both look to have a long and successful future, but Steep Theatre and Rivendell Ensemble's respective productions were most noteworthy for introducing an impressive young actor named Curtis Edward Jackson.
Top 2015 favorites ranked
by Jonathan Abarbanel:
Dramas:
The Apple Family Plays cycle, by TimeLine Theatre
The Project( s ), at American Theatre Company ( world premiere )
Good for Otto, at Gift Theatre ( world premiere )
Musicals:
City of Angels, at the Marriott Theatre in Lincolnshire
American Idiot, by The Hypocrites
Tie: October Sky and Ride the Cyclone, new musicals respectively at the Marriott Theatre in Lincolnshire and Chicago Shakespeare Theater.
Top 2015 favorites from Scott C. Morgan:
The Royal Society of Antarctica: Gift Theatre did an amazing job realizing the vast expanse of Antarctica in its tiny storefront theater space for Mat Smart's ambitious Jeff Award-winning world-premiere drama. Although it featured three acts, The Royal Society of Antarctica sped by thanks to Smart's involving plotting and intriguing characters who all had their own reasons for living and working at the bottom of the earth.
Charm: Skokie's Northlight Theatre showed it was moving with the pulse of transgender culture by commissioning Philip Dawkins to write a play inspired by Miss Gloria Allen and her etiquette classes at the Center on Halsted in Chicago. BJ Jones' moving production at the Steppenwolf Garage felt very relevant, especially since it was staged just down the street from its source of inspiration.
Bad Jews: Theater Wit's Chicago premiere of Joshua Harmon's 2013 off-Broadway comedy proved to be very durable as it saw a series of extensions and venue shifts to run through most of the year. Harmon's scathing comedy brings up plenty of questions on what it means to be Jewish for millennials as three cousins argue over a prized family heirloom.
Honorable 2015 mentions: Wozzeck and The Passenger, at the Lyric Opera of Chicago; City of Angels, at the Marriott Theatre in Lincolnshire.
And now the news:
Hey New York, we saw it here first
Chicago continued to prove its importance as the incubator of many world premieres—particularly those that landed in, or with aspirations for, New York.
After his Chicago-to-Broadway triumph with Kinky Boots, Tony-winning director/choreographer Jerry Mitchell returned to the Windy City in 2015 for the world-premiere musical tryouts of On Your Feet! and Gotta Dance.
Although no New York productions have been announced, the Marriott Theatre in Lincolnshire presented the well-received world premiere of the musical October Sky, while Drury Lane Theatre in Oakbrook Terrace made its Broadway-aimed intentions known with musical productions of Beaches this year and Hazel planned for the next.
Bruce Norris' The Qualms played off-Broadway in 2015 after premiering at Steppenwolf Theatre the previous year, as did Stephen Karam's The Humans after it bowed at American Theater Company in 2014 ( The Humans in fact is transferring to Broadway in 2016 ). Ike Holter's acclaimed 2014 drama Exit Strategy about a Chicago school closure staged by Jackalope Theatre is also headed off-Broadway next year in a co-production by Primary Stages and the Philadelphia Theatre Company.
Notable Jeff Awards
The Paramount Theatre became eligible for Jeff Awards in 2015, so all the Broadway-caliber work being done in Aurora finally got to be acknowledged. Also, there was a bit of a mix-up when The Hypocrites' marathon production of Sean Graney's All Our Tragic was switched from the non-Equity categories to the professional ones.
Moving houses?
Northlight Theatre in Skokie and Chicago's TimeLine Theatre raised eyebrows when it was announced that both might be relocated to new spaces. Northlight wants extra fly space in a potential new building development in Evanston, while TimeLine looks likely to be a part of the condo conversion of the shuttered Trumbull Elementary School in Andersonville.
Writers Theatre in Glencoe is saying goodbye to its intimate Books on Vernon space with its current production of Marjorie Prime in anticipation of moving into its multi-million dollar new home next year. The Griffin Theatre is also still fundraising to move into its converted police station home on Foster Avenue.
Closing shop
Chicago's longest-running Broadway musical, Million Dollar Quartet, announced that it will close in January after a run of more than 3,000 performances. Also giving a closing notice are Mary-Arrchie Theatre Company and Signal Ensemble Theatre—both will cease operations after their current seasons. At least Mary-Arrchie and Signal offered some advance notice, since Fox Valley Repertory in St. Charles abruptly shuttered in the middle of its run of the comedy Maybe Baby, It's You.
In passing
The Chicago theater community suffered some painful artistic losses in 2015. Former eta Creative Arts Foundation president Abena Joan Brown passed away in July. American Theater Company artistic director PJ Paparelli died in May following a car accident while he was on vacation in Scotland. That same month, Chicago Dramatists Emeritus Artistic Director Russ Tutterow died of cancer, as did Chicago actress Erin Myers.
