After a 12 year run at Bailiwick Repertory, The Christmas Schooner sails again in a wonderfully revamped form at The Mercury Theater.

The Christmas Schooner relates the true story of German immigrants who risked their lives on the freezing waters of wintry Lake Michigan to bring Christmas trees to Chicago back in the 1880's.

The entire cast is excellent with lovely voices. 12 year old, Daniel Coonley (Karl Stossel) is very good in his role and not too saccharine sweet as some child actors can be.

Jim Sherman, (Gustav Stossel, Karl's grandfather) holds down the fort with his solid character study and really choked me up during the scene when he laments his dead son with a strangled cry of

“I miss him!”

Cory Goodrich (Ana Stossel, Karl's Mother) has a really rich, beautiful singing voice. Goodrich performs the role with grace and a great sense of humor.  Goodrich’s character Ana Stossel, really is the heart and center of the entire production, the schooner, if you will, that propels her son, husband, and father in law to become a part of history by attempting these dangerous but much lauded heroic voyages to Chicago.

This is a really lovely holiday production to bring your family to, as it makes you feel a part of the true history of Christmas in Chicago.  The Christmas Schooner also elucidates the history and magic of the Christmas tree itself as one of the things that helped families get through the long cold Chicago winters inspiring well wishes with it's beautiful shining lights and hopeful meaning.

At the end of the show the cast passes a branch of a Christmas tree hand to hand, right into the audience who continued to pass it along with the wish that each who touches it find love this holiday season.

The theater space at Mercury is really perfect for this show, as it is both intimate and expansive at the same time. I also loved that they served cookies, hot chocolate and Peppermint Schnapps in the lobby at intermission and that you can step straight out of the play and slip straight into the cozy confines of Cullin's Pub without going out in the cold.

I highly recommend making The Christmas Schooner at The Mercury Theater a new tradition in

Christmas Theater going for the entire family to enjoy together. For more information, visit www.mercurytheater.com.

Comedians Scott Thompson and Kevin MacDonald Live at Mayne Stage in Chicago

I really enjoyed the dueling comedy sets by “Kids in The Hall” cast members, Scott Thompson and Kevin MacDonald.  There is a certain type of ripple effect laughter that really great comics can get out of an audience that I think of as a “bouncy wave” or “bouncy ball” where the audience continues to laugh and giggle to themselves in between the jokes about the last joke. Then the laughter just continues to and build and bounce like a rubber ball even when the comedian isn't saying anything!

Thompson and MacDonald really got that bouncy ball of laughter going to the point where I was actually wiping tears from my eyes.

Scott Thompson was over the top raunchy with a great story about how autographing a fan's penis turned into a full-blown sex romp and another great bit about his search for a genuine “Unicorn- the uncircumcised Jewish male.”

Thompson also covered some interesting ground when he described how bizarre it was to be a man diagnosed and treated for breast cancer- “The hospital elevators and even the medical forms are all PINK!!”

Kevin MacDonald's comedy was a little bit more tame but also very funny when he came out and told the audience that he is not really a stand-up comic that his jokes only have “middles” not beginnings or ends.

Kevin and Scott alternated sets and shared the stage three times, making for a generous, very funny, satisfying and balanced night of comedy.

Kids in the Hall' alumna, Dave Foley, happened to be in Chicago performing at the Improv and joined Thompson and MacDonald on stage at the end of the night for a little bit of funnin' around that involved Scott Thompson's' hand in Dave's pants. Foley also stuck around after the show with Scott Thompson to meet the audience.

Thompson recalls meeting a young Uma Thurman backstage early in the groups' career.

"Uma Thurman at the time was the sexiest woman in the world," he says. "We had never met a celebrity before. We all thought she wanted to sleep with us. It really was a big launching pad for us. It made us think that wow; we're in the big leagues. She was the first responder."

if you are a Kids in the Hall fan,  Thompson and MacDonald live  is a real treat , you must check out “Two Kids in the Hall” while they are on tour.

Yuri Lane was a child actor, almost cast as Doogie Howser until the producer decided to go blond.

Lane has performed on the stage with Matt Damon and has many commercials under his belt but fame eluded him until one of his videos showing his amazing beat box skills went viral on YouTube with a million hits. Yuri was flown around the country by Google, Yahoo and many other corporations came calling with offers, some paid, some not. After a while he says he “kind of lost himself” in the process of trying to make the phenomenon of his number one YouTube video profitable at 1/20^th of a penny per hit.

Lane has made an interesting and funny one man show about his wild run with YouTube, which showcases his unbelievable vocal skills as a beat box artist as well as his sense of humor.

Yuri plays his own father by projecting himself as his dad on a video screen above his head and it was a very effective and funny way to illustrate their relationship. Yuri's recollection of his own Jewish artist father, a painter who is living precariously on Social Security, is revealing. Yuri's dad tries   to help by making suggestions like “Just walk into advertising agencies and sell yourself!”  The way Lane's father constantly plies Yuri with guilt trips about why Yuri isn't making more money to help support him and questions about how much “art “Yuri is creating in the meantime, really hit home with me.

Lane brings up many interesting points about the process of becoming a star on YouTube and also how very difficult it is to make any money on YouTube even with a video that gets over 2 million hits.

“MeTube” also shows that a performer like Lane who is obviously multi talented as a vocalist and writer/ producer but in such a unique and unusual ways that it sometimes it is very difficult to get a lasting break in Hollywood.

I am always amazed by experiencing Sting performing live in concert. Sting has an incredible knack for creating an infinite number of new and compelling variations on his rich 25-year catalog of hit music. He never just rehashes his hits or performs them by wrote, he actively uses the fantastic musicians around him and his own life experience to innovate hip new arrangements that take each song to a whole new, truly new, level of intensity and meaning.

Sting appears on the stage for his Back to Bass Tour casually stripped down, with shaved head, zero body fat and wearing sheer gray T-Shirt and jeans. Sting appears relaxed yet energetic and completely in command of his band and the audience.

Sting has chosen such a small and an interesting group of players for this tour. Sting's right hand man, longtime guitarist, Dominic Miller, is on this tour, as well as Dominic's' 26 year old son, Rufus Miller. Rufus is a very good rhythm guitarist and already displays some of the handsome, pouty, nonchalant stage presence of a more seasoned player like his dad.

Drummer, Vinnie Colaiuta, is dynamite on the sticks, serving up some really great and tricked out yet solid rhythms for these arrangements.  On backing vocals Jo Lawry, has a rich, dramatic vocal presence, and also provided fiddle and additional percussion, which is doubly impressive. The show stealer is another young musician, Peter Tickell, who brought our house to a roaring standing ovation with his fiddle solo during “Love is Stronger than Justice”. Tickell really is an amazing player, like a Stevie Ray Vaughn on the violin. I've seen other young people solo with great skill like Peter, but in that boring, cold and speedy,  “music school” showing off sort of way. Tickell has the soul and rhythm to really feel out the emotional crescendo of his solo and it's catharsis and is a surprisingly mature, dead on rockin' and passionate player for his age.

I love that the Back to Bass Tour is utilizing smaller more intimate venues this time around. Sting has no difficulty projecting a great performance to a roaring outdoor crowd of 40,000, like with the Police Reunion Tour at Wrigley Field. However, I personally find that enjoying the superior quality of his voice and intricacies of his arrangements is so much more affecting in a smaller indoor venue.

Sting really is a master of transforming- or  “trance- forming”- musical performance. The combination of his detailed, lyric story telling, ultra-rhythmic bass lines and intensive Yogic training over the years   come together perfectly in a shaman like fashion, drawing the willing listener into a musical “trance” that is both entertaining and healing at the same time. I enjoy walking around after his concerts seeing the relaxed, happy, meditative looks on the faces of his satisfied audience members after the show.

Sting mentioned that he enjoys a great sense of “continuity when playing in Chicago, that it always feels like coming home to perform here.”

I feel a sense of continuity when Sting plays here as well because I have so many great memories of his concerts, meeting him and interviewing his band mates Dominic Miller and Chris Botti over the years.

In a way, Sting and Dominic gave me one of my very first breaks as a journalist when they allowed me to come backstage to do a live interview just 15 minutes before they ran out on stage in front of over 10,000 excited fans during the Sacred Love Tour.

I did not have my own Chicago magazine or PR firm established. Back then, I was writing for a teeny,  tiny newspaper in Brookfield Illinois. My cameraman and I drove six hours from Chicago to Grand Rapids but we were a full hour late for the scheduled interview because we forgot about the time change in Michigan, but they still had the ushers lead me back into the dressing area to conduct the interview with only minutes to spare before curtain.

I remember I had undergone a disastrous tanning booth experience the day before hoping to look good for the meeting wherein the entire back of my body ended up with 3^rd degree burns from double exposure and my front remained untouched and completely white. Now, I always make a point of giving my celebrity interview guests a big hug when we finish and I remember thinking, I don't care if it hurts- I am hugging Sting and Dominic for doing this interview- no matter what!

Then there was the wonderful, encouraging, 50 minute plus, phone interview that Chris Botti gave me just moments before taking the stage that night at Carnegie Hall. Chris Botti called me for the interview from Stings' condo in Manhattan, which Chris had just purchased from Sting and had barely moved into.

There are many wonderful and synchronistic events that I have experienced seeing Sting but the best has to be when he provided two wonderful seats to a rehearsal concert in Miami for my mother and I.  My mother was having major health problems at that moment and I flew to Miami to help her.

For my mom, attending Sting's concert that night turned out to be a miraculous, healing, dream-like, turning point for her and I really am indebted to him on a soul level for reviving her.  After that concert, Danny Quatrochi, Sting's personal bass assistant since The Police, hung out with my mom and I in the hotel bar and made her feel like the Belle of the Ball at the age of 73. The entire evening was amazingly generous and sweet.

Well, I could wax rhapsodic about more of my Sting-chronicity's over the years but I am sure with the shape Sting is in, there will be many more great concerts and mysterious dreams come to life in years to come.

I'll leave you with this about the show last night. Sting has a great practice of really allowing his players to shine and temporarily take the spotlight away from him on stage, but just in case you were starting to get distracted by all the bells and whistles of his band, Sting takes his last of three encores alone, with only his voice and an acoustic guitar filling the excited space.

When he does this, the energy in the room stays strong and climbs even higher, proving without a doubt that Sting's voice and compositions alone are the reason we have congregated here and that Sting's magnificent voice and songs really need no adornment whatsoever.

I highly recommend seeing the Sting, Back to Bass Tour. When it comes to your city in 2011.

The performance of Back to Bass that I attended here in Chicago at The Rosemont Theater was sheer concert perfection, a “must see” concert event of this season for any Sting fan.

For Tour dates through December of 2011 visit www.Sting.com.

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www.kimberlykatzpr.com

I actually started cutting my teeth as a booking agent 20 years ago. by booking my own band into nightclubs. It seemed straightforward at first, there was a contact name and number and process for submitting your band's music but then I found out each club had a huge stack of unopened music and it was difficult to get the manager on the phone. If the manager wasn't a friend or at least a friend of a friend who liked your band you may get the runaround for months or wind up being given an opening slot at 6:30 PM on a Tuesday night that you can't possibly get your fans to show up at, let alone make any money playing. After a few rounds of this time wasting futility, I learned that by booking other bands along with my own for a whole night of music or a festival, I could get a lot more respect from the club, and more control over the split of funds from the door and which band got the prime slot- mine.

 *(above) Kimberly Katz with Taylor Negron

Theatrical booking by comparison is about 100 times more selective, complex, political, and cliquish than club/musical booking.

For ease of explanation, I group theatrical bookings in three tiers, based on length of run, not size of venue. For example a Tier One booking is for one or two nights max including speaking engagements. It doesn't matter if the theater is 300 hundred seats or 3000. A Tier Two engagement is a week or longer up to two weeks max. A Tier Three is the most intensive booking logistically; it lasts for two weeks or longer and may include a run extension of several months in the same venue.

After 25 years in the New York and Chicago theater scene, I know exactly what each theater or venue is like to see a show in from top to bottom. I know what type of experience theater goers and my productions' members will have right down to the restrooms, bar area, parking options, and disabled access. I am aware of the general age and personality of the theaters' subscriber audience as a whole and I am aware of the success or failure of each of their past productions season to season.  The artistic directors and general managers who decide which productions to run, know me from reviewing their shows for Buzz and are friends from college or just respect my taste in theater and talent.

Booking a theater for a production is a lot like hosting an important party. I have to find the best room with the best vibe for that style and size party, with all the right amenities, ample parking and bar/restaurant foot traffic in the right neighborhood.  Then if there is competition for that venue, and those dates, I have to really sell my production to a number of company heads based on what I project will be it's success and get the best deal financially for my clients.

Of the three aspects, the vision, the budget and the schedule, the schedule is actually the most pivotal. The vision for a show changes and evolves. The budget or lack thereof, also changes over time and alters the execution of the vision but not necessarily in a bad way.  You may have a large budget and pump a lot of money into a play with big sets, lighting design, and costumes but it doesn't mean the show will be successful in proportion to the money you have spent. Bigger isn't always better, in fact, it may gild the lily to the point where the show is ruined.  For example, actor, writer, Jeff Garlin from Curb Your Enthusiasm did a successful two-week run at Steppenwolf this past summer with no set at all. Garlin performed his piece “No Sugar Tonight” with just an old ladder, some scaffolding strewn about and a plastic pumpkin with ladle full of water and a ukulele he said he would not play but was there for visual suspense. Garlin said he thought the ladder, etc. would indicate that this was a “work in progress” and that he did not even have a name for the show until the theater pressed him for one.

When I look at the calendar as a booking agent I see years flying by, not weeks or days because in a sense the best dates of the theatrical calendar year are already booked well before it begins.

Imagine the entire theater community on a big Monopoly board of the United States.  On the board there is a fixed number of major theaters in each of the major cities. Every agent or producer already knows which venues and which dates they need for their production’s tour schedule that year.

The in- house subscriber series are locked in a full year in advance.  Major Holidays like Christmas are always in the same place and have either a good effect on your particular show (A Christmas Carol) or a dead zone effect that you want to avoid, etc.  Booking is done as far in advance as possible to get the best slots and have ample time to promote the show and fill seats.

For more information visit www.KimberlyKatzPR.com   

Carrie Fishers' one woman show is a delightful piece of theater and makes you feel you are spending an evening with this witty, intelligent star in the cozy comfort of her own posh living room. I don't always make note of set design, but this set by David Korins, was a warmly lit, richly colorful, multidimensional representation of a southwestern styled den and screening room which really drew me in and showcased Carrie's casual, energetic style of storytelling perfectly.

When Fisher puffs on her electronic cigarette speaking excitedly about her days as cultural icon, Princess Leia, while perched on the edge of a comfy leather sofa or tiptoes right off the proscenium into the audience to hand out free drink coupons to the front row, you feel that she has actually brought her home to you. You feel that Carrie wants you to join her for some Hollywood gossip and a cup of tea - well not tea exactly, maybe some Vicodin and a tumbler of martinis.

Carrie Fisher has a laugh at her own unique childhood growing up as the daughter of stars Eddie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds. She has a fantastic line about when Elizabeth Taylor’s husband, Mike Todd, died in a plane crash, Carrie's father “Eddie rushed to Elizabeth's' side to comfort her in her grief ...and eventually worked his way around to Elizabeth Taylor's front.”

Carrie tells the younger audiences members who might not know the history of her superstar parents that the huge amount of publicity from this dramatic love triangle would be cast today with Brad Pitt, Jennifer Anniston and Angelina Jolie.

Carrie Fisher pokes fun at and tries to come to terms with the supper massive success of her character Princess Leia and the Star Wars Trilogy at age 19, describing how George Lucas convinced her not to wear a bra under her Princess costume stating that it was necessary for realism because “there is no underwear in outer space”. She also has fun onstage with some of the seemingly endless series of toys, memorabilia and merchandise that came out of the role including a life size Princess Leia' Love Doll,

a “Mr. Potato Head Princess Leia” and a PEZ dispenser. My prayer for Carrie Fisher is that she got a piece of the billion dollars in merchandising that is still being earned on all these licenses written into her contract at some point.

I remember standing in a long line to see the first Star Wars with my family as an impressionable eleven-year-old and although I had a crush on Harrison Ford, I was deeply impressed by the appearance of a feisty, brown eyed, brown-haired royal princess who was pensive instead of bubbly and a little bit smarter than she was pretty.

I think Carrie Fisher’s casting as Princess Leia back in 1976 was one of the first times I remember seeing a young, powerful woman cast as a lead in her own right and not just as the lead males' love interest. In other words Carrie Fisher's character at age 19, was written with enough meat and intelligence to be placed in the center of the giant Star Wars movie poster, not just working her cleavage “off to the left”.

I also remember first hand when Carrie Fishers' best selling book “Postcards from the Edge” came out and was made into a hit movie that Fisher also wrote the screenplay for starring Meryl Streep and Shirley Maclaine. At the time I was so inspired and influenced by her candor and acerbic wit regarding the entertainment industry at large and that she was able to parlay an acting career into a writing career with huge success.

Like Karen Carpenter who first made the disease of anorexia a household term, or Rita Hayworth, whose public illness pioneered the way for Alzheimer's patients, I also remember firsthand how important and groundbreaking it was when Carrie Fisher came out in the press about being Bi- Polar.

There is a great moment in the show when Carrie talks about the new electro shock treatment and her

“invitation” to stay in a mental hospital. She asks the audience if any of them have ever been “invited” to stay at a mental hospital, and only one brave soul raised his hand.  My grandmother Lillian was a classic Bi Polar, with very high highs and predictable plunging lows in her thinking patterns and speech.. I grew up knowing that she was undergoing the early form of electro-shock treatment, which erases several months of memory and watching her succumb in misery to the various heavy-duty drugs available at the time like Lithium. It was very difficult to witness let alone explain to my friends what she was going through partly because at that time very few public figures, if any, had spoken openly about their struggles with manic depression in the press.

Fisher has since appeared on the Senate floor to urge state legislators to increase government funding on medication for people living with mental health issues. Carrie is very courageous to have written openly about her own illness and drug dependencies because through her wonderful and witty sense of humor she has helped pave the way to removing the stigma still associated with mental illness in our society.

Of course, Carrie's show has some interesting tidbits about her marriage and divorce from singer Paul

Simon, including some of the lyrics he wrote about her describing her “cold coffee eyes” and from Hearts and Bones “One and one-half wandering Jews, (Carrie being the “half Jew”) returned to their natural coasts...to speculate who had been damaged the most.”

Carrie Fishers casting as the fictional Princess Leia in the Star Wars Trilogy may have both

“made her” and broken her at the same time, but as an activist, and an accomplished writer - a  Critics Circle' Award winning, New York Times best-selling , Grammy and Emmy nominated author in her own right, Carrie Fishers'  identity as genuine Hollywood royalty is not a work of fiction.

I only wish I had watched the film “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” the night before seeing this hilarious and touching send up because “Pussy on the House”, written by Ryan Landry, really hit the parody right on the head with huge laughs scene by scene and line for line.

In “Pussy on the House”, the failed ex-TV star Brick Pollup, and his stunningly gorgeous, sexually frustrated wife, Maggie Pollup, emotionally battle it out around the bed Maggie has dragged up to the roof where she is finally gratified when the full truth comes out about recent tragic events in the family.

Jeremy Myers in Elizabeth Taylor's role as “Maggie the Cat”, was absolutely beautiful to look at, very sexy and convincing. I loved that Jeremy achieved a strikingly natural resemblance to Taylor in his costume and makeup because his interpretation of her was as multi layered and dramatically rich as it was funny.

David Cerda as the very pregnant, money hungry sister-in-law and house-frau, Mae Pollup, was hysterical, often bringing the full house to a stop with laughter with just a single word or a smirking spot on look from under his false eyelashes.

The whole cast was dynamite and Honey West as Big Mama Pollup, “the richest, butchest lesbian in six counties who built the biggest polyester plantation the South has ever seen” gave the show some drama and weight with a rich voice and straight delivery that lifted this piece above great parody and into great melodrama.

Director Matthew Gunnels, who previously did such a smash up job directing “POSEIDON: An Upside Down Musical” stated about “Pussy on the House”, “Tennessee Williams is one of my favorite all-time playwrights and I have a special place in my heart for Cat. Mr. Landry’s play is clearly a love letter to the original material, but adds tons of campy fun and touches upon current events such as gay marriage, the effects of cancer on family members and same-sex adoption. Since being diagnosed with cancer this spring, it has changed the way I view characters in the play and has added importance and a sense of urgency to present this amazing script to Chicago.”

What I loved about this play and see in every play that David Cerda produces for his company, Hell in a Handbag, is a strong passion and devotion for keeping truly great drag alive. Great drag doesn't make fun of women, or make clowns of men, it elucidates and glamorously celebrates women’s' social condition in life and relationships.

Great drag, which Hell in a Handbag consistently delivers, makes you laugh and sympathize with grand dames like Elizabeth Taylor and Joan Crawford. A great drag performer uses humor and compassion to also celebrate the men who would like to embody great women.

“Pussy on the House” is playing at The Atheneum Theatre through October 30^th. For more information visit www.hellinahandbag.org.

I remember reading about the turn of the century medical trend that attempted to cure “hysteria” in women (and men) by stimulating them to orgasm or “paroxysm” by a doctor using manual or electrical (vibrator) stimulation and thinking that this would make a fascinating subject for film or stage. 

The reason I found this subject matter so important to explore and rediscover is because at the turn of the century the only other treatment options for mental illness, depression, and actual hysteria in women involved, toxic drugs like laudanum, the barbaric practice of partial lobotomy, ice baths, shock therapy and routine involuntary committal to an insane asylum.
Playwright, Sarah Ruhl, has brought out all of the many facets of this important subject and time period in a funny, touching, and liberating way right down to the restrictive nature of the clothes the women had to wear including bustles, steel corsets, and heavy high necked dresses tightly secured with a multitude of tiny buttons.

In the play, the appropriately named, Dr. Givings, a well to do physician in a spa town in New York, is pioneering the intimate new therapy in his home “operating theater”, which along with his parlor room has just had the magical glow of electricity installed for the first time.

Dr. Givings' young wife, Catherine, has recently given birth and is unable to nurse her own child. As she sees patient after patient leave smiling and glowing, she feels more and more lonely and neglected and becomes curious about the treatment. While her husband is at a convention watching the experimental electrocution of dogs, she secretly tries the therapy on herself with the help of a female patient, Sabrina Daldry.

Sarah Ruhl makes many wonderful feminist points in this play without ever losing the light, airy sense of humor, playfulness and poetic wonder that she is so good at infusing into her plays. 
It is interesting that even though Dr. Givings is a forward thinking pioneer, at first he refuses to give the therapy to the one person in his life who most obviously needs it, his own wife. He refuses her the treatment on the basis that it might make her “ more excitable” as he fears that this will empower her sexual nature too much. Dr Givings fears that he personally will be unable to satisfy her normal sexual urges and the resulting emotional desires once they are restored.  The first time he relents and begins applying the vibrator treatment to his wife, Catherine, she begs and cries out for him to kiss her as she builds towards “paroxysm” but he vehemently refuses, as he is unwilling to combine natural sexuality with sympathetic emotionality. Her angry response is a simple, “YOU are inadequate.”

Ruhl also brings up many fascinating points about the restorative effect of the orgasm on men and women alike in terms of releasing creativity in their lives through music and art.  The character of Leo Irving, a painter from Paris, who is experiencing depression and inability to create new art, i.e. “painters block” finds his inspiration and enthusiasm for life completely restored after just one treatment.  

Ruhl also plays up to great effect the natural improvement in one's general sense of humor and well being that having sufficient orgasmic release causes in the human nervous system. Ruhl's characters show the orgasm triggers the release of psychological repression and frustration through tears and the loud cries of the breath.  I like how Ruhl shows that this “induced release” causes increased emotional flexibility and stability in female and male conscious awareness equally.

There is also an interesting sub plot that develops between one of the patients and the doctors nurse, Annie, in the play, regarding the homo erotic feelings that may come to surface between individuals when orgasm is achieved without the additional onus or burden at the time of actual sexual contact, especially during such a repressed Victorian time period. 
There is also a very funny and poignant scene where the doctor's wife and patient are describing the sensations of an orgasm to their black nursemaid, they mention the feelings of hot coals illuminating their feet, colored light flashing behind their eyelids etc, and when the maid suggests that they are possibly describing what occurs during “relations with their husbands” they both scream in laughter and disbelief that they have never experienced anything like the miraculous sensations they experienced  in the medical treatment. One tells that she has experienced nothing but physical pain and emotional distance during relations with her husband.

In the end, the women help each other and their husbands in some degree, to rediscover the power of friendship, and the giddy joyful freedom that comes when one is enabled to rule ones own sexual life and infuse it with the romance and healthy emotions of warmth and equality.

Ruhl also does not show the cure to be a “cure all”, that is, the vibrator' assisted orgasm as the answer to all marital misunderstanding.  Instead she shows how the satisfaction of the most basic and natural urge particularly in women is a first stepping point, that leads the women and their husbands right back into touch with the blocked love and emotional needs that they are unable to satisfy in each other without first releasing their own “excess” sexual energy or “fluids”.

I must say, I have never seen so many orgasms acted out on stage with such realism and humor. 

I enjoyed the entire cast in this piece, including the very funny, Kate Fry as Catherine Givings, Patricia Kane as Nurse Annie, the poignant, Tamberla Perry as Nursemaid Elizabeth and Lawrence Grimm as the hapless husband of Sabrina Daldrey.  

Polly Noonan as the patient, Sabrina Daldry, was very funny and really embodied the process of the path from depression and over sensitivity to healthy affection for life and sex. Joel Gross as Leo Irving, the inspiration blocked artist, resembles a young Robert Downey Jr. in his energy and presentation.  Gross has a great natural stage presence and stole many of the scenes he was in. 

I highly recommend seeing Tony nominated “In the Next Room, or The Vibrator Play” as it is a funny and surprisingly important piece on a par with “The Vagina Monologues”. It includes some personally empowering messages for men and women alike in a humorous, light hearted and poetic way.

“In the Next Room” is playing at Victory Gardens Theatre through October 9th. For more information visit www.victorygardens.org.

The performance of Momix latest work, "Botanica", under the stars at Ravinia Festival in Highland Park was absolutely breathtaking, beautiful and inspiring, everything a modern dance company aspires to achieve. 

"Botanica" is a tribute to the rhythms of nature and the unfolding of the seasons. The piece is underscored by a lush and pounding soundtrack that includes modern drum/dance tracks, natural birdsong and Vivaldi and also has some of the most astounding costumes, props and puppets I've ever seen. The perfectly trained and energetic Momix dancers play and contort their bodies into the shapes and very essence of flowers, bumblebees, horses, sun and wind. 
Some people feel inspired to work out or play sports after seeing great athletes play football or basketball but having trained as a dancer in my youth, I feel that way after seeing great athletes like the Momix dancers. 

Every member of this superior troupe was not only expressive and dynamic as an ensemble; they also each managed to convey an individual sense of humor, flair and savoir-faire that mesmerized me number by number.

There is also a very distinct and uplifting spiritual message underlying the rich and complex choreography. For example, during one segment a single female dancer spins with a silvery, translucent, circular veil around her neck, 12 feet wide. As she is spinning, the veil undulates and shimmers like a living thing, like the wings of a manta ray. 

The dancer's hands barely moving, as they transition from one mudra, or "prayer position" after another. Just as you begin to think she is not "doing" anything but spinning on point, you realize that she is spinning on point not six or even ten times but hundreds of times, without stopping, without dizzying, a compassionate, angelic portrayal of moonbeams and starlight, endless, infinite in variation with a dazzling, seemingly effortless, clocklike precision, much like nature herself. 

During another piece the dancers link together to portray the mating rituals of centaur like creatures, half human half horse and each taut flip of their tail or toss of the head sends out an instantaneous and electric response in the others, creating a delicious and suspenseful sense of sexual tension and fulfillment as the centaurs find their mates and begin to dance in pairs.

Another striking number involves four female dancers dressed as full blooming orange and red carnations, upon whose seated entrance all that is visible beyond the flowers "petals" are their faces and toes. As the dance continues the dresses are pushed down a little bit at a time until the arms and legs of the dancers are revealed and standing they become human flamenco dancers and flowers in motion at the same time.

I'll leave you with one last striking and deeply moving image from "Botanica" choreographed by the immensely gifted Moses Pendleton.

As the curtain parts, a single white rose twenty feet high is cast on the screen behind the stage and all the dancers in nude body stockings stand intertwined in front of it with their beautiful muscular backs to the audience. As they gently bend and sway, the color of the projected rose changes from black and white to sepia to a full blooming red and the audience realizes that the human back and arms linked together in this way absolutely and dynamically reflect the beauty, complexity and magnificence one of God's most delightful and artful creations, the rose, in full bloom.

The curtain fell on Momix' dancers reluctantly as we audience members gave them a standing ovation and called out "Brava!" and "Encore!". Momix' "Botanica" on closing weekend of the Ravinia Park Summer Festival was a genuinely exhilarating performance we were all privileged to have witnessed.

I highly recommend seeing the enormously innovative and spiritually uplifting Momix dance troupe in performance and taking along every little dancer in your family to inspire them with the vision of what a life in dance can be.

I really enjoyed the Stone temple Pilots concert tonight at The Venue in Hammond, Indiana.

I hadn’t seen singer/frontman Scott Weiland in a few years and I was worried that he might be looking disturbingly thin or strung out, but at this weekend’s show, Scott looked very healthy and fit. Scott’s face and entire physique looked filled out, muscular, robust and youthful again. Weiland impressed us with his fantastic pitch perfect rock voice and it was a pleasure to see and hear him sing.

Especially after the recent loss of musician, Amy Winehouse, it is never pleasant to witness the descent of someone with so much depth of emotion and real talent self-destructing over time and in front of you on the stage.

Tonight’s performance was just the opposite as Weiland, a childhood abuse survivor, with bipolar disorder, and a great dancer, moved sinuously and with flowing ease through the band’s hit list.

Scott referred to his drug dependency in his memoir, "Not Dead and Not for Sale",

"I was running wild during the second Velvet Revolver tour [in 2007]... At the beginning of the tour, I was okay, but then a single line of coke in England did the trick. I snorted it. And soon the demons were back. Thus began another decline... I was out there again, going to dangerous places to buy substances. All this was done in secret; the guys in Velvet Revolver didn't know I was using. When I told the guys that we'd have to miss a couple of gigs because I needed treatment, their reaction shocked me. They told me I'd have to pay them for those cancellations - in full. I reminded them that when they had relapsed and needed rehab, I had supported them completely. It made no difference to them.... It didn't matter that Velvet Revolver had sold some five or six million records. I was out."

It really disturbs me to hear stories like this where truly gifted musical artists like Weiland and Winehouse are pushed past the limits of their own physical and psychological endurance, whatever that level of endurance may be at the time, in order to fulfill financial obligations.

The lyrics from their hit song "Trippin’ on a Hole in a Paper Heart" … "I’m not dead and I’m not for sale…" "So keep your bankroll lottery eat your salad day deathbed motorcade" flashed on the big screen behind the band and as Scott encouraged the crowd to sing along with him. I thought that those lyrics were a perfect mantra that all gifted and often over-worked musicians should think about to remind themselves of their personal intrinsic value each night.

I loved the heavy, rolling, bass lines, Robert DeLeo, puts down as well as his brother, Dean DeLeo’s rich, crunchy, growling, psychedelic guitar sounds. Along with super solid drummer Eric Kretz, this seasoned rock band really holds it all down and lays out one of my favorite bouncing drum beats and guitar riffs in the song "Big Bang Baby".

STP touched on many favorites throughout the night including, "Vaseline", "Plush", and "Interstate Love Song" that Scott said moved him the very first time he heard it and went on to say how the band had written it in less than fifteen minutes.

Scott Weiland seriously looks ten years younger and healthier than he did in 2008 and if he keeps up whatever he’s doing healthwise, Grammy Award winning Stone Temple Pilots will be recording creative new albums and touring successfully for many, many years to come.

Stone Temple Pilots are now touring with their 2011 self-titled release and I highly recommend catching them when they come to your town.

For more information on tour dates check out their website at www.Stonetemplepilots.com.