Entries associated with the tag "Goodman Theatre":

The rock musical Million Dollar Quartet will transfer to the Apollo Theater after it winds up its run at the Goodman on 10/26. Performances begin 10/31, with an official opening set for 11/6. No closing date has been announced, but you can expect the show to run through the potentially lucrative winter holiday season.

The Apollo should be hospitable to MDQ, which recreates a 1956 jam session involving Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, and Jerry Lee Lewis. Not only has the venue enjoyed success over the years with musicals celebrating the likes of Patsy Cline, Buddy Holly, and Harry Chapin, it also allows patrons to bring drinks into the auditorium--if they buy them at the theater's lobby bar, that is. That's definitely going to enhance the party atmosphere of a show like MDQ.

Check out Deanna Isaacs's posting on the decibel level at MDQ. 

The Goodman Theatre closes its fourth biennial Latino Theatre Festival this weekend with a family-oriented puppet theater piece, De la oreja al corazon. The Mexican production, performed in Spanish with English subtitles, concerns a young orphan who discovers that he has a gift for music. With the guidance of an elderly friend, the boy pursues his dream of becoming an orchestral conductor. Written by Mercedes Gomez Benet and directed by Emmanuel Marquez, De la oreja al corazon is meant to celebrate music's power to transform people's lives. 8/22-8/24: Fri 7 PM, Sat-Sun 3 PM, 170 N. Dearborn, 312-443-3800, $5-$15.

The show is complemented by a puppetry workshop, Sat 9 AM. Participants in the bilingual session can purchase discount tickets to that afternoon's performance and meet the cast after the show.

Also this weekend: Spanish dancer and performance artist Marta Carrasco and her ensemble perform J'arrive...! Fri-Sat 8 PM, Sun 7:30 PM, $15. The show, described as "an exhilarating expression of obsession and seduction," features selections from the last 10 years of Carrasco's stage career. Friday's performance is followed by live music in the Goodman lobby.

The Goodman Theatre's Latino Theatre Festival 08 starts its final week with professional actors reading winning plays from The 10-Minute Play Competition--a contest for writers aged 12 to 23, working in Spanish or English, that addressed "what it’s like to be both a Latino/a and an American." Mon 8/18, 7:30 PM, free.

The fest continues with performances by two local professional groups: Aguijon Theater Company and Luna Negra Dance Theatre. Aguijon's Hasta los gorriones dejan su nido, written by Raul Dorantes and directed by Marcela Munoz, is a Spanish-language adaptation of Tennessee Williams's The Strangest Kind of Romance. Williams's Depression-era portrait of a transient laborer has been updated to reflect the situation of contemporary undocumented migrant workers. Tue 8/19, 7:30 PM, $15. Luna Negra's Antojito (Sampling of New Works) features a new piece by emerging Mexican choreographer Francisco Avina, Eduardo Vilaro's Deshar Alhat (Leave Sunday), and excerpts from the great Jose Limon's There Is a Time. Wed 8/20, 7:30 PM, $15.

And Barcelona-based dancer/choreographer Marta Carrasco opens the four-day run of J'arrive...!--a sampler of her work over the last ten years. Thu 8/21 and Sun 8/24 7:30 PM, Fri-Sat 8/22-23, 8 PM. $25.

The United States is a nation of immigrants and their descendants, who often challenge and compete with each other along arbitrary ethnic, religious, sexual, and class lines. If that's news to you, Culture Clash in AmeriCCa might be an eye-opener. To me, the show--performed by the California-based Latino trio Culture Clash as part of Goodman Theatre's Latino Theatre Festival 08--smacked of preaching to the converted.

The opening night audience appreciated the ironic humor in this evening of monologues and sketches, but the people whose closed minds might be opened by Culture Clash's wry critique of prejudice probably won't be buying tickets for the production, which runs through this weekend (Fri-Sat 8/15-16 8 PM, Sun 8/17, 7:30 PM, $25-$35). That's too bad, because there's no questioning the accuracy of their vision of America's cultural diversity, and the performances are extraordinary.

Founded in 1984 in San Francisco's Mission District, Culture Clash consists of writer-performers Richard Montoya, Ric Salinas, and Herbert Siguenza. Each brilliantly and fully inhabits a wide range of roles, expertly fusing stand-up comedy with nuanced acting. Among the characters: an Arab-American cab driver recounting his friendship with a Jewish deli owner, a Cuban furniture store owner who uses a fake Fidel Castro in his commercials, a Filipino and a Ghanaian sharing the experience of being sworn in as U.S. citizens, a Salvadoran refugee startled by the disconnect between the reality of American life and the image portrayed in 1970s sitcoms, an African-American preacher mocking the stereotype of a blue-eyed Jesus, a transgendered Latina who explains in clinical detail the surgery that will transform her from male to female, and a Boston Irish-American Catholic who finds the real meaning of Christianity by forgiving the priest who molested him as a boy.

The show's been tweaked for its run here, with crowd-pleasing allusions to the Cubs, the Sox, and Bernie Mac--as well as to John Edwards and Barack Obama. Indeed, Culture Clash's take on the foolishness of prejudice is especially timely now, as right wing rumormongers wage war against America's first multiracial presidential candidate by attacking his patriotism and faith. But it's doubtful that Culture Clash in AmeriCCa will reach the audience that most need it. The evening's second half--a reading of Chavez Ravine, the ensemble's new drama about the displacement of Latino families by land developers in 1950s Los Angeles--was underrehearsed on opening night, but it's probably tighter now.

Also this weekend at Latino Fest: Taking Flight, an autobiographical solo performance by Adriana Sevan that won a 2007 San Diego Critics Circle Award (Fri-Sat 8/15-8/16 8 PM, and Sun 8/17 3 PM, $15), plus free staged readings of three plays: Our Dad Is in Atlantis (Sat 8/16 12:30 PM), Walk Into the Sea (Sat 8/16 3 PM), and Little Certainties (Sun 8/17 7:30 PM).

The second week of Goodman Theatre's Latino Theatre Festival 08 features one-nighters by two Chicago troupes and a four-night run by a California company.

The Albany Park Theater Project, a youth ensemble, peforms Aquí Estoy (I Am Here), a company-created work about the immigrant experience in Chicago over the past 150 years. Tue 8/12, 7:30 PM, $15.

Teatro Luna gives a staged reading of Jarred, described as "a Santeria, Brujeria, Hoodoo comedy" by Tanya Saracho. Wed 8/13, 7:30 PM, $15. 

The California-based Chicano/Latino performance troupe Culture Clash presents AmeriCCa, its satirical look at ethnicity, illegal immigration, and gender roles and sexuality in the post-9/11 U.S. 8/14-17: Fri-Sat 8 PM, Thu and Sun 7:30 PM, $25-$35.

All three shows are performed in English.

The Goodman Theatre's Latino Theatre Festival 08 continues next week with a free event: "From the Streets to the Stage," by Chicago's UrbanTheater Company. This Humboldt Park troupe has carved a niche for itself by producing seldom-seen works by Latinos, notably including Nuyorican poet-playwright Miguel Pinero (Short Eyes, The Sun Always Shines for the Cool). Selections from both those plays will be performed Mon 8/11, along with excerpts from Elizabeth Swados's musical "Runaways" and "The King of Cans" by Tato Laviera. The program, which also includes spoken-word performances by members of the youth-run Batey Urbano community center, begins at 7:30 PM in the Goodman lobby.

Here's a previous post with what's going on at the fest this weekend.

The Goodman's fourth biennial Latino Theatre Festival opens this weekend with an adaptation of Lorca's Blood Wedding. The 1933 Spanish drama about a tragic love triangle has been reset in Veracruz, Mexico, by Mexican-born, Chicago-based writer-composer-performer-director Laura Crotte in her new music-theater spectacle Al son que me toques, Lorca, which features a 25-person ensemble. The Friday show (at 7:30) is followed by free live music in the Goodman lobby); also 8 PM Sat, and 3 and 7 PM Sun; tickets are $15.

The festival's opening weekend also includes the final performances of the Chicago Children's Theatre's production Esperanza Rising. Directed by Latino Fest curator Henry Godinez, it tells of a wealthy Mexican girl whose family flees to California, where they're forced to work in a migrant labor camp. It's showing at 11 AM and 3 PM Sat 8/9 and 10:30 AM Sun 8/10; tickets run $20-$38.

The festival continues through 8/24 with performances by Chicago's Teatro Vista, Aguijon Theatre Company, Albany Park Theatre Project, and Luna Negra Dance Theater as well as visiting artists, including the California-based Culture Clash and Spanish performance artist Marta Carrasco.