MIRA, CYCLE 1 The prospect of describing Mira, Cycle 1 fills me with the same despair I feel looking at my basement, which is cluttered with mostly useless objects that need to be sorted and put away or–more likely–thrown out. What a mess. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Mira equates the self with the world–an important aspect of its gigantism, but not exactly a new idea....
Sun-Times Picks a Critic As soon as Ruth’s beat opened up ten staffers asked about it, and eight of them went on to fight for the position. The Sun-Times set up a competition in which writing played a smaller part than you might think. Features editor Steve Duke asked everyone to review the 200th Cheers show and a new sitcom, The Fanelli Boys, and to write a memo telling how the job should be done....
Maybe no one will want the Sears Tower. “It seems curious to us that the downtown office-building boom continues at breakneck pace,” write Edward Keegan and Paul Krieger in Chicago (January 1989). “Everywhere we look, there’s evidence that people don’t seem to need their offices any more. At least half the phone calls we receive seem to be from someone in a car–and any builder can tell you that cars are cheaper than buildings....
The Disappearance of Sheena Easton Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Rumor has it that more than Easton’s health could have kept her out of the last two weeks of the Chicago run. Savvy theatergoing sources who saw Easton in the week she did manage to appear, the preview performances November 7 through 13, said she was clearly having a tough time capturing the earthier aspects of Aldonza and her Scottish accent sometimes popped up inappropriately....
Two Staffers Exit Stage Left Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Such circumstances might have done in less determined theater companies, but for now Michael Troccoli, the organization’s last remaining founding member, and former associate artistic director Sandra Verthein are stepping in as artistic directors to try and keep Stage Left’s torch lit. “We’ve got a big job ahead of us,” said Troccoli, “but we’re aiming to get to the point where we can sustain ourselves....
THE BIRTHDAY PARTY Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » The Birthday Party is no exception. The elderly Petey and his wife, Meg, live by a seaside resort where he works as a deck-chair attendant and she rents rooms to boarders. They have just one boarder at present: Stanley, formerly a semisuccessful pianist, now a lethargic recluse, neglectful of his person, uninterested in any social activity, and resentful of any attempt to spark his interest....
Friday 10 If you’re convinced that your teddy bear is better than their teddy bears, the Brookfield Zoo’s Teddy Bear Contest is just for you. Bears will be judged in five categories: largest, most snuggled, best dressed, most original, and most resembling its owner (the last category seems a bit of a dubious honor). It’s all a part of the zoo’s Teddy Bear Picnic today and tomorrow, which includes (both days) breakfast at 9 AM (all you can eat, $9....
COUP/CLUCKS First produced in 1982 at the Actors Theatre of Louisville, Coup/Clucks depicts a day in the life of Brine, Alabama, a small town whose innate dreariness is exacerbated by a financial depression that’s driving most of its work force west in search of jobs. The two plays (which can be produced separately or together–Coup was presented on its own during last season’s Off Off Loop Theater Festival) are set on July 4–the day of the annual “Tara Parade and Ball,” a charity event to raise funds for the local Daughters of the Confederacy....
To the editors: Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » What is unsound is Ms. Molzahn’s amateurish attempt at reviewing a work that is evidently over her head. Hence her “confusion” about the fundamental connection between the dance and the architecture that was clearly recognized by the audience, and her “boredom” with the original music and the work as a whole–even though the “Magic Spaces” part of the project won the Ruth Page Award for Artistic Achievement when it premiered in 1985....
Mike’s hair is slick and spiked. He slides out of his front-row seat and sits cross-legged on the floor, nearly touching the stage. The house lights go out and footsteps cross the floorboards. Then the floodlights come on, glaring. After the first few raucous lines of the play, Mike quietly slips back into his seat in the row he shares with five other Southeast Asian teenagers. Best of Chicago voting is live now....
To the editors: Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Taoism is the 5000+ year old foundation of Chinese philosophy, science, and medicine. One of the basic principles of Taoism is the view that health, rejuvenation, and spiritual attainment can be achieved thru living in harmony with nature. In the Taoist view, harmony and balance are essential for health. The body is seen as a whole system; therefore stress or injury to one organ or gland weakens the entire body....
SUSANNE LINKE At the core of Linke’s great art is a great humility, the kind that leads an artist to perfectionism: because it’s so easy for things to go wrong, no detail can be left to chance. Linke not only choreographed and performed the four solos on her program last weekend at the Harold Washington Library Theatre (presented by the Dance Center of Columbia College and the Morrison-Shearer Foundation), she also designed the costumes and collaborated on the lighting (with Johan Delaere)....
“We don’t want you to cry,” says stand-up humorist Caryn Bark as she introduces this program of monologues. “You can do that at men’s plays.” And comedy is indeed the dominant mode of this collection of women’s monologues–though it’s comedy with a savage bite. Adapted by director Sarah Tucker from a 1985 performance piece written by Italian radical satirist Dario Fo and actress Franca Rame, this series of soliloquies appropriates the forms of kitchen-sink drama, fairy tale, and Greek tragedy–genres used over the centuries to perpetuate the image of women as stoic sufferers somehow ennobled by powerlessness....
OZMA OF OZ Of course, given the fact that MGM’s The Wizard of Oz is more deeply ingrained in the American psyche than the Constitution, it takes a certain courage to adapt any of Baum’s 14 Oz books. Every Dorothy will be compared to Garland’s Dorothy, every Oz compared to MGM’s Technicolor Oz, and few theater companies have the resources or pool of talent to compete with our fond memories of Bert Lahr, Ray Bolger, Margaret Hamilton, and the rest....
To the editors: Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » I was appalled by the inflammatory and obscene letter which appeared in your July 7 edition of the Reader, allegedly written by a “longtime employee of the Diocese of Chicago.” The fact that you would print an anonymous letter is, in my mind, a dubious editorial practice. Let me suggest that the real motive of your correspondent was to foster misunderstanding and hostility within the Diocese by portraying the Staff and the Bishop as contemptuous of those who hold traditional views with respect to liturgy and church order....
“Don’t nobody bring me no bad news,” growls the wicked witch Evillene in this all-black, street-smart version of The Wizard of Oz. Happily, there’s no bad news to bring: this extravagant touring revival of the 1975 Broadway hit is a joy to watch and listen to. William F. Brown’s alternately tender and wisecracking script and the high-energy gospel-funk score by Charlie Smalls and Luther Vandross celebrate and contemporize L. Frank Baum’s fabulous fable about friendship and self-affirmation....
ENSEMBLE D’ACCORD Chamber-music groups made up of full-time instrumentalists (like Chicago Symphony members) can sometimes beat a dedicated part-time outfit in terms of technical achievement. But very seldom does one find in them the commitment to the music that is the rule with part-time players like Ensemble d’Accord; such commitment often produces dynamic, intensely personal music. Ensemble d’Accord has generally been both dynamic and personal right from the start; but in the past some members were technically weaker than others, and some acted like soloists, not always working together with their colleagues....
CSO’s New Era of Uncertainty At last week’s annual meeting of the Orchestral Association, the governing body behind the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the board of trustees tried hard to put a happy face on the current state of the orchestra. In his brief financial report to the board, Orchestral Association trustee Frank A. Rossi said he wished to focus on “the good things” and went on to talk about the orchestra’s finances in fairly rosy terms....
DREAM HOUSE That Dream House was a script rather than improv is significant, not only because that approach distinguishes it from most Chicago ensemble comedy, but also because it doesn’t leave much room for rationalizing the pathetic outcome. The show’s flat lines were not the result of just a bad night onstage–they were written down, ostensibly read and talked about among the writers and actors, and rehearsed. The writers and performers lived with this material for weeks!...
After the 1986 referendum, Evanston officials figured the fuss over the Northwestern University/Evanston Research Park had ended. Four years ago, Evanstonians proved so enthusiastic about the 24-acre mixed-use development that they voted by a two-to-one margin to break ground on the site without delay, not even for an environmental-impact study. “Destroying Levy means spending another four to six million in tax dollars to build another center in an out-of-the-way location, and it doesn’t make any sense,” says Sidney Zwick, leader of a group called the Independent Senior Citizens of Evanston....
