Displaying items by tag: Paramount

Paramount Theatre’s White Christmas unfolds like a living snow globe - bursting with holiday sparkle, sweeping dance numbers, and the timeless melodies of Irving Berlin. From the first notes to the final snowfall, the production wraps audiences in a nostalgic embrace, blending old-fashioned charm with Broadway-sized spectacle. Each scene glitters with warmth and wit, inviting theatergoers to laugh, swoon, and hum along as romance blossoms and friendships deepen against a backdrop of wintry wonder. By curtain call, the joy is infectious - sending audiences out into the night with hearts lightened, spirits lifted and smiles as bright as the marquee.

Paramount Theatre’s White Christmas sparkles like a holiday jewel box - both warmly intimate and magnificently grand. The theater’s historic stage transforms into a canvas of sweeping spectacle with majestic sets, while the lush resonance of a full orchestra directed by Korey Danielson gives Berlin’s timeless score a cinematic glow.

White Christmas tells the story of army buddies Bob Wallace and Phil Davis, who, after serving in World War II, reinvent themselves as a wildly successful song-and-dance duo. Their path crosses with the enchanting Haynes sisters, Betty and Judy, sparking a mix of romance, comedy, and showbiz sparkle. The foursome’s journey leads them to a cozy Vermont inn, only to discover it’s owned by their former commanding officer, General Waverly, now facing financial hardship. With loyalty and holiday spirit driving them, Bob and Phil rally their entertainment world connections to mount a spectacular Christmas show - one that not only saves the inn but restores the General’s faith in community and camaraderie. The tale blends laughter, love, and nostalgia, culminating in a finale where snow drifts from above and Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas” envelops the theater in timeless magic.

Phil Davis (Evan C. Dolan, left) and Judy Haynes (Jessie J. Potter, right) tap dance atop a piano, surrounded by fellow talented ensemble hoofers, in the popular tap number “I Love a Piano” in Irving Berlin’s White Christmas. Nostalgia, pageantry and spectacle come to life in Paramount Theatre’s 14th Broadway Series holiday season blockbuster. Stephen Schellhardt directs.

At the heart of the production, Alex Syiek embodies Bob Wallace with a commanding gravitas that instantly draws every eye to him. His stage presence is nothing short of magnetic - effortlessly blending charm, authority, and vulnerability in a way that makes the character pulse with life. When he launches into “How Deep is the Ocean,” the moment transcends performance and becomes pure artistry: his voice, rich and resonant, soars across the theater, wrapping the audience in waves of emotion. Each note seems to shimmer with sincerity, sending goosebumps rippling through the crowd and holding them in rapt silence. Syiek crafts an experience, a breathtaking highlight that lingers long after the curtain falls.

Evan C. Dolan and Jessie J. Potter electrify the evening as Phil Davis and Judy Haynes with tap-driven brilliance in “I Love a Piano,” their infectious energy matched by glowing precision. Sophie Grimm as Betty Haynes weaves glamour and wit into every scene, balancing romance with sharp comedic sparkle. Grimm’s voice flows with velvety smoothness, matched by a striking blend of power and precision. And grounding the story with gravitas is David Girolmo’s General Waverly, whose gruff exterior masks a deep well of tenderness, reminding us that the season’s true gifts are selflessness, community, and enduring bonds. Together, this ensemble stitches a holiday tapestry that flashes with spectacle yet pulses with heart - an experience as joyous as it is unforgettable.

Abby C. Smith also shines brilliantly as Martha Watson, the inn’s warm-hearted concierge, infusing the role with wit, vitality, and irresistible charm. She commands the stage with a natural ease, and when given the chance to unleash her powerhouse vocals in “Let Me Sing and Be Happy,” the theater practically vibrates with joy. Her voice radiates strength and exuberance, turning the number into a jubilant showstopper that leaves the audience grinning and applauding with unrestrained delight.

Beyond its iconic title tune, White Christmas offers a treasure trove of Irving Berlin gems that keep audiences humming long after the curtain falls. “Blue Skies” bursts with optimism and ensemble flair, while “Sisters” delights with playful charm and comic timing. “Count Your Blessings Instead of Sheep” slows the pace with tender intimacy, reminding us of the quiet joys of gratitude, and Alex Syiek’s soaring “How Deep is the Ocean” delivers a moment of pure vocal power that ripples through the house. The show’s choreography shines brightest in its showstoppers: “Snow” sparkles with ensemble energy and frosty whimsy, while “I Love a Piano” erupts into tap-driven brilliance, its infectious rhythm impossible to resist. And of course, the finale - Berlin’s timeless “White Christmas” - arrives like a gift, wrapping the evening in nostalgia and emotional payoff as snow drifts from above. More than a holiday musical, Paramount’s White Christmas is a glittering celebration of romance, comedy, and community spirit, stitched together with dazzling choreography and songs that linger like cherished memories of the season.

(Center L-R) Evan C. Dolan, Jessie J. Potter, Alex Syiek and Sophie Grimm with cast in White Christmas at Paramount Theatre through January 11th.

Tiffany Krause’s choreography in this production of White Christmas is simply breathtaking. This ensemble doesn’t just sing - they ignite the stage with dance that radiates brilliance and energy. From sharp, exhilarating tap sequences to sweeping partner and swing routines, the performers elevate the show to dazzling new heights. The number “Everything Good Happens When You’re Dancing” embodies the very spirit of the production, showing how romance flourishes and multiplies through the cast’s sheer joy, elegance, and remarkable artistry.

A timeless holiday favorite, White Christmas weaves together romance, comedy, and twinkling song-and-dance spectacle as two veterans-turned-entertainers join forces with a captivating sister act. Their journey to a snow-dusted Vermont inn blossoms into a story of love, laughter, and loyalty, culminating in a heartfelt mission to save their former general’s struggling lodge. Along the way, Irving Berlin’s melodies and dazzling choreography transform the stage into a celebration of community, generosity, and the enduring magic of the season.

Recommended for big holiday fun!

White Christmas is being performed at Paramount Theatre through January 11^th. For tickets and/or more information, visit https://paramountaurora.com/events/irving-berlins-white-christmas/.

Sugar, butter, flour…beneath the flaky layers and buttery crusts of pies lay these three simple ingredients. They’re mixed and blended together to form the foundation of endless possibilities to what it could become, pecan, blueberry, or apple pies, cutie pies, sweetie pies, or humble pies. It’s nice to remember that it’s often the simplest things that can bring us so much joy. Like a simple story of a humble pie maker dreaming of a better life, like the story of Waitress, now playing at Paramount Theatre.

Sugar, butter, flour. These aren’t the only ingredients Jenna, a waitress and expert pie maker, uses to make her famous pies. Stuck in a small town and a loveless marriage, Jenna unexpectedly becomes pregnant and then finds acceptance and love in the most unexpected place. Hoping to bake her way out of her troubles, she puts her heart and soul into her unique pies, winning over anyone who tastes them. But while battling expectations and self-esteem issues, Jenna’s delicious pies reflect her state of mind with names like I Don’t Want Earl’s Baby Pie and Where There’s A Whisk There’s A Way Pie. Each of us will find something relatable in Jenna’s struggles and triumphs. Full of romance and the joy of an uninhibited fling, Waitress challenges the story of a pregnant woman trapped in a small town between the life she’s living and the life she wants. Her customers, co-workers, and the town’s handsome new doctor may all offer her conflicting recipes for happiness, but only Jenna can do the soul-searching to decide for herself what the right ingredients are for her own happiness.

Story, talent, heart…those are the three ingredients at the heart of Paramount’s production of Waitress. The musical is based on the 2007 film of the same name with lyrics and music by Grammy Award winner and Tony Award nominee (and millennial icon) Sara Bareilles. Waitress made its debut in 2016, garnering four Tony Awards including Best Musical and Best Original Score with a playlist that includes “Sugar, Butter, Flour,” “What Baking Can Do,” “Club Knocked Up” and romantic tunes such as “It Only Takes a Taste” and “When He Sees Me.”

Within moments of the musical’s Chicagoland debut, it was clear why Waitress is such a cult classic. Like a pie, the storyline has multiple sweet and wholesome layers, but also rocky layers that, for some, are difficult to digest. Like life, sometimes the messiest things are the sweetest at its core. Despite some of the more sensitive material of the play, the incredible talent of the Paramount cast members balanced the sweet and the messy through their portrayal of hard working, tired dreamers. Featuring Michelle Lauto as Jenna, Teressa LaGamba as Becky, and Kelly Felthous as Dawn, the three performers are the production’s sugar, butter, and flour, the heart and soul of the musical blending humor with heart and soul. Jackson Evans as Ogie Jonah D. Winston as Cal, and David Moreland as Dr. Pomatter add flavor and spice to the mix to make this a delectable musical. In an era of movie and film dominated by wealth and flash and big-action, it’s refreshing to know there are productions that still center on the simple things in life. At its core, Waitress is about heart. It kneads, and rolls, and blends the simplest ingredients into a story that is both relatable and sweet, however messy the appearance might be. It’s no surprise to this theatre lover why Paramount theatre was sold out on a Friday evening.

Waitress is now playing at Paramount Theatre in Aurora (23 East Galena Boulevard Aurora, IL) through March 30^th, 2025. So grab your tickets and be sure to snag a seat in Joe’s diner before all the good slices (seats) are gone!

*You can also find this review featured on https://www.theatreinchicago.com/.

Throughout our busy lives we often seek out the new. It is easy to see the allure. Beginnings offer a bit of magic, a clean slate, a chance to start anew. The opportunity brings with it a sense of hope and optimism that maybe this time we’ll be lucky, maybe this time things will change. But there is also just as much magic in endings as there are beginnings, sometimes moreso. The end of a bad relationship, the final day at a toxic job, the final chapter of a good book, the end of a chaotic and disappointing year, endings provide us a rare opportunity beginnings cannot, the opportunity to let it go. And what more fitting way to let it all go and end 2024 than with a bit of magic and a bit of nostalgia with Disney’s Frozen: The Broadway Musical, now playing at Paramount Theatre.

Nominated for a Tony Award for Best Musical, this sparkling Disney fairytale has been reimagined for the stage. The theatrical production of Frozen brings Disney’s beloved animated film to life and fills the stage with winter magic. Set in the magical kingdom of Arendelle, the story follows two royal sisters, Elsa and Anna, as they navigate love, loyalty, and magic. In her struggle to understand her identity, Elsa questions her talents, confusing them for character flaws but ultimately finds strength in her identity and gifts, looking both inward and to those she loves to let it go and be who she was born to be.

Emily Kristen Morris plays Elsa in Paramount Theatre’s Midwest Regional Premiere of Disney’s Frozen the Broadway Musical.

The stage adaptation of the beloved movie brings Disney magic to the stage. The musical has breathtaking scenic designs that transport us to the kingdom of Arendelle, lighting and sound and stage designs that bring magic to life, and an incredible cast of performers to include, but not limited to, Young Anna played by Avelyn Choi, Hans played by Jake DiMaggio Lopez, and Anna played by Beth Stafford Laird. Audiences young and old will feel a sense of nostalgia as the musical is filled with popular songs like “Love Is an Open Door” and “Do You Want to Build a Snowman?” and older audiences will appreciate songs that showcase internal monologues to move the musical forward like “Hans of the Southern Isles” and “I Can’t Lose You,” and all audiences will love the fun musical numbers like “Hygge” and revel at the iconic earworms like “Let It Go.”

It was fitting that the first act of the 2 hour musical ends with “Let It Go.” The audience needed the breather to the climactic beauty of the number helmed by the breathtaking Elsa played by Emily Kristen Morris. The staying power of “Let It Go” lasted long after the curtain calls and final bows. The magic lingered, the message more profound, communicating wordlessly what Director Trent Stork wanted the audience to take away from the performance. “I hope our show gives you the courage to be as bold as Elsa,” says Stork. “I hope you find a renewed sense of bravery from Anna…I hope you remember that love means putting others above yourself.”

Beth Stafford Laird (left) plays Anna and Emily Kristen Morris is Elsa in Paramount Theatre’s Midwest Regional Premiere of Disney’s Frozen the Broadway Musical.

As the year comes to an end, be bold, be courageous, and above all be kind to others and to yourself and let it all go. Good or bad, things inevitably come to an end, a close, a final curtain close. It is not weakness to let something go that no longer serves us or things that are beyond our power to control, it is kindness, and at the heart of it is love. Love yourself and love your neighbors to simply let it go. And if you need a little help to let it go, let Elsa and some incredible theatre magic help you do just that. Frozen: The Broadway Musical is now playing at Paramount Theatre (23 E. Galena Blvd. Aurora, IL) and runs through Jan 19, 2025, tickets are available at https://paramountaurora.com/.

Growing up our radio dial was tuned to one channel, K-Earth 101. In Southern California that station was the oldies, the classics, belting out hits from the 1950s and 60s; Sam Cooke, Buddy Hall, Mel Carter, Peggy Lee, The Ronettes, and so many more artists’ melodies and lyrics that are permanently tattooed on my brain. That music knowledge didn’t particularly help during middle school dances where 13 years olds grinded to The Bad Touch by The Bloodhound Gang but it did provide a solid foundation for an eclectic music playlist I continue to grow and curate today. Thanks to modern music apps we can now not only know the song but who sang it, and more astonishingly who wrote the music and lyrics. It is fascinating to find your favorite artists often wrote and composed songs for other artists, or your favorite songs are written by the same composer or produced by the same producer. It’s another level to musical appreciation that gets to the very heart and soul of the music. Music afficiandos loving to discover the artists behind the music will simply love Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, now playing at The Paramount Theatre. 

Beautiful: The Carole King Musical tells the story of Carole King, played by Tiffany Topol, and her musical journey and career. Starting out in Brookly we meet a 16-year-old aspiring songwriter in Carolee and journey through her early career composing music at 1650 Broadway for music publisher Donnie Kirshner, played by Ian Paul Custer. When she meets her future husband and lyricist Gerry Goffin, played by C.J. Blaine Eldred, we follow their early marriage and burgeoning careers as they team up to write some of the most iconic and lasting melodies and lyrics from huge 1960s artists like The Drifters and The Shirelles. Carole King’s career was filled with playful rivalries, endearing classics and emotional heartbreak but through it all she managed to see the beauty around her and become an era defining musician and artist and go on to become one of the most successful singer, songwriter and musicians in popular music history. 

First premiering in 2013, this modern musical is unlike any that you have ever seen. Synopsis and summaries about the play and captured in reviews are, in my humble opinion, purposely vague. The beauty of this musical is that it doesn’t have any original numbers nor does it sing-tell the story. Instead the writer Douglas McGrath uses King’s life story along with the music she wrote to show us her life, not tell us. He cleverly teases the music out, not immediately revealing the song, but having King or Goffin's characters slowly unveil the song to us. More satisfying than an unboxing video, the moment the first lyrics are sung or the melody tinkled on the piano keys, there is a collective and satisfying flutter of your heart, a spark in your brain at the recollection of the familiar song. It is made only more incredible as mini concerts within the play are performed by an incredible ensemble cast; The Righteous Brothers, performed by Luke Nowakowski, Matt Thinnes, The Shirelles performed by Marta Bady, Lydia Burke, Ariana Burks, Shelbi Voss, The Drifters, performed by Averis I. Anderson, Corey Barrow, Jared David Michael Grant, Calvin Scott Roberts, the incredibly talented ensemble cast embody the musical legends and perform just as they would have in the 1960s, fully immersing you into the heart and soul of King’s craft and talent. There is also a deep appreciation and respect for Carole King and how much influence she truly had on an entire generation of music, not counting her residual influence throughout her career with other artists. The satisfying, gratifying, and inspiring aspects of King’s life and influence is slowly unveiled to you as the audience and at times you’ll hardly be able to stay seated you’ll want to sing and dance along with the cast. The story telling is superb. It’s a love letter not only to King’s contribution to music but her rivals as well, Cythnia Weil and Barry Mann, played by Rebecca Hurd and Christopher Kale Jones respectively, and the music they all wrote that defined an era. You’ve never seen anything quite like Beautiful: The Carole King Musical. 

Going into this show I did not research Carole King's life story nor her songbook collection. I wanted to go in blind, knowing of the singer-songwriter but not being able to name many of her songs from memory. I had many people tell me what the musical was about and provide a brief summary of what it was about. All of their words failed to truly capture the magic and beauty of this show. I’m afraid my review will also fail to articulate and capture the true essence of the story. This Musical is like a song I must share with you but like a good song you cannot appreciate it until you hear it for yourself, experience it for yourself. If you see one show this summer, take a drive and enjoy the charming city of Aurora. Paramount Theatre is a gorgeous hidden gem nestled within the walkable and charming downtown community. It’s a perfect date night opportunity complete with theatre and live concerts mixed in. Theatre lovers will love the storytelling of the musical and music lovers will rejoice at the familiar melodies, only needing to resist singing along with the timeless classics. One fine day you’re gonna want to check off this musical from your list, don’t miss your chance to do so in 2024.

 Beautiful: The Carole King Musical is now playing at The Paramount Theatre in Aurora, Illinois and runs through June 16^th. Tickets are available at www.paramountaurora.com.