Displaying items by tag: Northlight

Do we ever really know what someone is going through? We devour what people create, savoring the beauty in their art; we read the words they write, feel the emotions they convey, listen to the music they play, but do we really know what is just beneath the surface? One is left asking this question after viewing the masterpiece that is Twisted Melodies now playing at Northlight Theatre.

Flashback to 1979, when singer and composer Donny Hathaway was a soul music icon, known for R&B hits and his duets with Roberta Flack. Twisted Melodies is a mesmerizing one-man show that immerses us in a day with the brilliant artist, who seeks solace in the music that has always been his salvation. Powerful renditions of songs like “More Than You’ll Ever Know,” “The Ghetto,” and “The Closer I Get to You,” illuminate the enduring power of this talent. Torn between inspiration and his ongoing inner struggle, Hathaway grapples with his life in a gripping performance by Kelvin Roston Jr.

Unlike jukebox musicals that celebrate the life and music of the artist it portrays (think Jersey Boys about the Four Seasons or Just In Time about Bobby Darin), Twisted Melodies offers a new approach to viewing Hathaway’s life and career. We’re with Donny as he isolates in a hotel room, recording music. We learn about his life through captivating stories told from the first-person perspective. We hear his music sung by Hathaway as he recalls the people or events in his life that inspired the songs. We experience, even momentarily, what Donny must have experienced in his life, living with schizophrenia with visual distortions and haunting voices. The first-person storytelling of Hathaway’s life reveals the man behind the artist we know, his personality, his solace, and his demons. The play is not only an homage to the singer-songwriter’s life. “Twisted Melodies is a labor of love,” says playwright and performer Kelvin Roston Jr. “It’s much more than a solo jukebox musical. I chose Donny Hathaway as my muse for his amazing music and musicianship, yes, but also because of his struggle with paranoid schizophrenia. We generally ignore, make excuses for, hide, or even make fun of those dealing with mental illness. Donny Hathaway left an incredible amount of himself and his struggles in the lyrics he wrote, the notes he played, and the tones he bent and swelled with as he sang.”

Twisted Melodies perfectly captures the beauty and struggle of the late artist, and Roston Jr. belts Hathaway’s ballads with such reverence and respect, creating beautiful harmonies and scales that tickle your brain as beautifully as Roston Jr. tickles the ivory, playing throughout the one-man show. Roston Jr.’s tones and range capture the fire and the fury of Hathaway’s genius, challenging the audience to see beyond the notes and see what the artist was going through on that fateful night in 1979. Donny Hathaway tragically passed away at only 33 years old in a rumored solo exit performance of his own. The Chicago-born artist left behind a legacy that influenced or inspired dozens of modern-day artists, including Elton John and Amy Winehouse. Hathaway was even named the 49^th-greatest singer of all time in a 2010 list published by Rolling Stone Magazine.

It's tragic how we often don’t know what someone is going through until after the person is no longer with us, particularly when it comes to something like mental health. But what a blessing it is to know that a story like Twisted Melodies can help to remind us that we’re all going through something. Like Donny Hathaway, we can find our solace, our stories, and ourselves in the things we create, using our art to help others understand what we are going through. Twisted Melodies runs through August 10^th at Northlight Theatre (9501 Skokie Blvd, Skokie). Tickets for Twisted Melodies are available at www.northlight.org

On a rather ordinary winter day, I settled in to binge-watch Big Little Lies on HBO. In the show, the community of upper-class suburbia signs a petition to ban a musical from performing in the local theater. The play was against the community values, they argued, handling issues of racism, porn, and most dreadfully sex. The bit of the whole thing was that the play had puppets and those puppets simulated sex (gasp!). Watching the outrage of the characters in the show and the eye-rolling of the show’s protagonist of her narrow minded community members, I promised myself if the show ever came to Chicago I would be front row center. Luckily this fool’s spring, that show has officially come to Chicagoland; that show was Avenue Q.

Avenue Q can best be summed up as a satirical parody of PBS’s Sesame Street. The musical comedy features puppets and human actors with upbeat, clever, and catchy music and lyrics exploring adult themes. It won Best Musical, Book, and Score at the 2004 Tony Awards.

We arrive on Avenue Q with Princeton, a bright-eyed recent puppet college grad questioning the very thing I did after graduation with the song “What Do You Do with a B.A. in English?”. Princeton, like most of us, wonders what happens now in his life, how can he afford rent? What will he do for a living? What is his purpose? Princeton and his neighbors, both puppets and humans, are all young adults facing problems after school ends and the real world begins. They navigate and explore these issues often through song, problems dealing with money troubles, job issues, sex ("You Can Be as Loud as the Hell You Want (When You're Makin' Love)", homosexuality ("If You Were Gay"), unrequited love, racism ("Everyone's a Little Bit Racist"), and wondering when and how you can chase your dreams. There are incredibly relatable numbers that explore why we’re here and what the hell we’re supposed to be doing (“Purpose”), and longing for a more simplistic life (“I Wish I Could Go Back to College”). The musical also boasted profanity, fucking puppets, and I feared I would be asked to leave the theater when I couldn’t stop laughing when the puppet Kate-Monster and her puppet neighbor Trekkie Monster sing about the beauty and awe that is the internet “The Internet Is for Porn.” The Northlight production added some hilarious digital elements to the play during stage prep and scene changes, such as funny NYC facts and signs (free wi-fi ON don’t use for porn/free wi-fi OFF they used it for porn) and play-on-word counting videos like Sesame Street (5-4-3-2-1, 1 Night Stand) to prep for a sex scene in the musical.

Avenue Q is a simultaneously well-known and obscure musical. Many audience members had seen the show while I had only heard of it in recent pop culture. It came out the same year I graduated high school and has aged incredibly well. What once might have seemed outrageous to audiences and critics at the time are rather tame by today’s standards. Some older and more current reviews point not to the content but to the mocking or disparaging parody of the groundbreaking show Sesame Street. To me, Avenue Q is merely the grown-up version of Sesame Street or the big brother who returned home jaded from college and moved in next door because they can’t afford rent. It’s the show that Sesame Street could have become if acquired by HBO from PBS. Said another way, Avenue Q is the Cards Against Humanity to Sesame Street’s Apples to Apples. The show’s humor grounds itself in the realness of stepping out as an adult in the world and it is why it is still relevant and relatable today. I can see it quickly becoming a cult classic amongst younger generations who embrace parody, satire, and humor in an otherwise brutal world.

Avenue Q plays at the Northlight Theater (9501 Skokie Blvd) in Skokie. Northlight Theater continues to deliver incredible productions, and its 2023 lineup is filled with incredible shows. The theater is easily accessible for Chicagoans and suburbanites with a sense of humor. Tickets are available at Northlightcenter.org.