Before the curtain rose for the start of the Oriental Theatre’s current traveling production of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the sole image onstage was a giant silhouette of the character most associated with the beloved tale — a tale told in Roald Dahl’s original novel, in two Hollywood films, and of course now as a Broadway musical — Willy Wonka. Said character, having been famously portrayed by famous folks Johnny Depp and Gene Wilder, has not only long coopted this story of a young boy and a visit to a confectionary facility, but even its title in the Wilder movie. That being said, this tendency to focus on Willy Wonka detracts from what is Wonka’s magical Chocolate Factory and the oddballs and delights within.

So, when the curtain did rise and this particular production began, I was happy to see that it lovingly focuses on Wonka’s whole world. Don’t get me wrong — Noah Weisberg is just fine as Willy Wonka. I told my daughter at intermission that I thought he was perhaps too understated, as I’ve come to expect an overbearing Wonka. That changed a bit in the second act, as Weisberg reminded me a bit of some of Groucho Marx’s Rufus T. Firefly or Captain Spaulding, with his witty asides and exaggerated pacing and prancing. But overall Weisberg stayed out of the way and let the set and his castmates shine.

Henry Boshart is charming as the titular Charlie, providing that rare but happy balance in a child actor that is neither too precocious and polished, nor too amateur. I’d be curious to see how the other two Charlies in this traveling show do, but Boshart does a fine job. His chemistry with James Young’s cuddly yet curmudgeonly Grandpa Joe seems real, as does his connection with Weisberg’s Wonka.

The rest of the cast, however, are allotted the real fun. Jessica Cohen is a Russian Veruca Salt (her father a timely oligarch played by Nathaniel Hackmann), and puts her background as a ballerina to use as she pirouettes and pouts all over the stage. Also timely is Brynn Williams’ social media star, Violet Beauregarde, who’s afforded a dance number of her own. Daniel Quadrino’s Mike Teavee is a modern take on Dahl’s character — an ADHD kid fed a steady diet of screentime and pills from his harried mother. My favorite golden ticket winner was Matt Wood as gluttonous German youngster Augustus Gloop.

But it’s this production’s ensemble that push Augustus and the rest over the top, whether accompanying his polka in leiderhosen and beerhall maid outfits, breaking it down as Violet’s flygirls, or putting on a ballet clinic clad in furry squirrel outfits as bad nut Veruca meets her fate in the Wonka factory’s nut-sorting room. These unsung singers and dancers bring Wonka’s world to life, making it a shiny magical place just as much as the production’s set designers do.

And that set…my daughter, a bit of a set designer her own young self, was amazed at the ingenuity on display at the Oriental. The stacked bed and bedraggled shack where Charlie and the rest of the Bucket family lives. The gates to the chocolate factory. The TV world where Mike Teavee meets his fate. And the Oompa Loompas…

I won’t spoil it, but the portrayal of Wonka’s staff is modern, both in its consideration and its execution. Again, what a set and what an ensemble!

So, if you want a new take on an old favorite, a candy confection, a loving and overall satisfying take on the people and places who’ve done as much as chocolate bars to make Willy Wonka’s name, head to the Oriental Theatre for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, now through October 21.

When I first saw The Color Purple more than a decade ago, it was the touring company that, at the time, featured American Idol singer Fantasia Barrino. Ten years ago seems like such a simpler time – a time in which the show’s star power and striking sets were the draw, a time where the play’s message was of course crucial and necessary, as it was 30 years ago when the film was made, or a few years before that when Alice Walker published her Pulitzer-winning novel that formed the basis for the motion picture and the musical. But ten years on, the current touring production of The Color Purple is one stripped of all frills, and more needed, as it present its stripped-down and powerful message at a time when our world has changed so much, in both the voices trying to tear it down, as well as those calling for positive change.

The show is playing at Adler and Sullivan’s masterpiece, The Auditorium Theater, usually quite a place to see a show. But I’ll get my sole nitpick out of the way here, and it has to do with the size of said theater. With the stripped-down feel of this production, the Auditorium’s vastness swallowed the show’s sights and sounds at times – the bare-bones set feeling small on the huge stage, the music finding its way into far-off corners and crevices.

That being said, the benefit of the above complaint is that the show’s power – both from its story and this cast – is allowed to shine. When the audience isn’t focused on nifty set-pieces and faces once seen on the TV screen, the message and the messengers become the focus.

First, the messengers. The cast is wonderful. Adrianna Hicks leads the way as Celie, going from beaten and beaten-down to proud and powerful. As the character finds herself and her own self-worth, Hicks stands a little prouder and sings a little louder. The source of much of Celie’s woe, Mister, is played by Gavin Gregory, whose voice cuts through the Auditorium’s enormity, and who plays the reverse of Celie’s route – from dominant to defeated – every bit as well as Hicks’ onstage journey. Carla Stewart is saucy and sassy as juke-joint sensation Shug Avery. N’Jameh Camara is stunningly innocent as Celie’s long-lost sister Nettie. And J. Daughtry provides much-needed levity as Mister’s son Harpo. As Harpo’s wife Sofia, Carrie Compere steals the stage whenever she takes it, as a strong woman of color – in a time when women of any color dared not show strength – who had the audience rooting and roaring for her.

But The Color Purple’s message is what really grabbed the Auditorium’s audience – people who are today trapped in a world where injustice grows, the weakest and neediest are not only ignored but abused, and things only seem to grow darker by the day. It’s a message that change can happen, if the good speak out and act out. It’s a message that love can win. And it’s a message that this production of The Color Purple shouted out to the theater’s rafters, leaving the theatergoers on their feet.

The Color Purple is only here on a limited run through July 29th. For tickets and more show information visit www.broadwayinchicago.com. 

I came into the American Blues Theater for its Chicago revival of Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story a bit apprehensive. See, I’m a Buddy Holly superfan. Seriously. I’ve got a couple tattoos inspired by the rock legend, I once even wrote an entire novel about him (which nobody can or will read…not just yet), and I know his story and his music about as geekily and obsessively as a guy could. So, having a special spot in my heart for this legend who’d been gone for decades by the time I came along, I’m often very critical of cultural (mis)representations of Charles Hardin Holley, including a traveling tour of the same show I saw back in college.

Partly my apprehension is because of the many things that the show (and the 1970s Hollywood biopic that jumpstarted the career of Gary Busey) gets factually wrong. Thing is, most biographical jukebox musicals do the same for their subjects, as they need to manufacture drama and condense a life’s story (even a life cut as short as Buddy’s). But mostly it’s because every portrayal I’ve seen of Buddy falls into the same trap that other impersonations do. They all rely on caricature, on the obvious, instead of something that’s more fulsome and true.

But I promise you, rock ‘n’ roll fans, that the American Blues Theater’s current production of Buddy skirts these traps, instead providing an honest and beautiful portrayal of Holly’s lifework, while also showing the audience a rollicking good time.

The key to the show, of course, is Buddy. Playing the part of the young Texan is Canadian Zachary Stevenson. A veteran of this show (and others, including Million Dollar Quartet, from the same era), Stevenson knows the material and the man. It shows from the get-go, as Buddy’s early vocal and guitar performances are hesitant, if youthfully energetic. That youthful energy is kept up for the whole show (a must, since Holly was just 22 when he died), but Stevenson also gives us a Buddy who comes into his own as a singer, a songwriter, a guitarist, and a man. And while the twang and hiccups he includes in Buddy’s performances are there, as they must be, he doesn’t rely on these tics and tricks. Instead, Stevenson’s Buddy has a warm, beautiful voice, and serenades us (and his castmates) with tender ballads, as well as toe-tapping rockers. This Buddy isn’t just an impersonation with a drawl and a pair of black-rimmed glasses hastily slapped on. Zachary Stevenson’s Buddy is a labor of love.

But the rest of the cast, directed by Lili-Anne Brown, labor lovingly, as well. The theater’s intimate, and the performers all play their instruments and sing their songs up close and in view of the audience. Shaun Whitley (himself a veteran of Million Dollar Quartet, with almost 2,000 performances as Carl Perkins under his belt) holds down the Crickets’ low end, slapping the upright bass (and even riding it at one point!), while also providing vocal harmonies and even playing violin on a couple softer numbers. The Crickets’ drummer is played by Kieran McCabe, who provides the groove and youthful energy. A fourth Cricket is played by Michael Mahler, who is also the production’s music director, directing the rest of a ridiculously multi-talented cast.

And that cast really does everything, from playing the important roles in Buddy’s life to playing the soundtrack of his life. Liz Chidester lights up the stage whenever she’s on it, first as Vi Petty, the wife of Buddy’s producer, tickling the keys of a celeste on Buddy’s beautiful “Everyday,” before adding boogie-woogie piano on several songs, and energetic dancing to several more. Derek Hasenstab plays the part of Vi’s husband Norman, but also picks up the bass and the guitar for many other songs. Molly Hernandez is alluring as she plays Maria Elena, the woman who enjoyed a whirlwind romance with Buddy and a tragically short marriage to him, as well. And Vasily Deris and Cisco Lopez are right on as the two stars – The Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens – who accompanied Buddy on his final tour and on that final flight that ended in an Iowa cornfield in 1959.

Those famous names you probably know are not the only talent to grace the American Blues stage, however. It seems that all of the cast are multi-instrumentalists and very talented vocalists. Ian Paul Custer spreads the news as Buddy’s early champion, DJ Hi Pockets Duncan, while also playing the saxophone and piano. Chuckie Benson and Kiersten Hodgens get the crowd jumping and shouting at the famous Apollo Theater before an early and iconic Crickets concert there. And Ann Delaney, Daniel Riley, and Lauren Vogel round out this exceptional ensemble, playing multiple roles, singing acapella doo-wop, and helping tell Buddy’s story and play his songs.

And it’s those songs – from early Western numbers like “Blue Days, Black Nights” and “Rock Around Ollie Vee” to Buddy’s hits “That’ll Be the Day” and “Peggy Sue” and “Oh Boy” to later more mature fare (mind you, all of this output and growth was done in less than two years, a fact the show hammers home) such as “Words of Love” and “Raining in My Heart” and “True Love Ways” – that best tell the Buddy Holly Story. A story of talent and tragedy. A story of youthful rebellion and musical growth. And, as the last of those tunes shows when Stevenson plays it solo on an acoustic guitar for his pregnant wife on their living room couch before he leaves for his fateful final trip, it’s a story told warmly and lovingly and truthfully.

Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story is being performed at Stage 773 through May 26th. For more performance information, visit americanbluestheater.com. 

*Now extended through September 15th

These days, the antihero has become the new hero. Talented, but tortured. Acclaimed, but complicated. We have gotten to a point in culture where those we place upon pedestals are not just allowed to be, but expected to be, both ingenious and imperfect. And I’m fine with that; seeing my heroes as humans not only makes them more relatable, but more real and much more fascinating.

One of music’s true heroes – and a legend we lost at age 90 in the past year – gets this realistic treatment in Black Ensemble Theater’s Hail, Hail Chuck: A Tribute to Chuck Berry, written by L. Maceo Ferris. That’s not to say that the show, directed by Daryl D. Brooks, isn’t a delightful musical production, because it is. But instead of simply focusing on the beloved songs Chuck Berry left us, we get a look at the man who made the music.

We see Chuck’s childhood as a deacon’s son – which, coming from this son of a preacher man, can lead to a far from perfect adulthood – and his run-ins with the law. We witness a young Chuck struggle against racial inequality, both while touring through the Jim Crow South and right at home in St. Louis, as well as the unfair practices of record labels and managers. But while these episodes might explain the famously curmudgeonly man Mr. Berry became, especially later in life, they do nothing to dampen the pure joy his music brought to the world.

And that music! That rock and roll music!

That music is played, and played perfectly, by a band led by musical director and drummer Robert Reddrick. The band performs above the stage, so we see and appreciate every note, every backbeat. Oscar Brown fires off those licks we all know, those riffs that Chuck invented, with all the virtuosity and attitude you’d desire. Gary Baker and Mark Miller hold it down on rhythm guitar and bass, respectively. And Adam Sherrod is a highlight on keyboards, not just playing the piano parts of Johnny Johnson, but of Jerry Lee Lewis and Fats Domino, as well.

But in front of the band, in front of the mic, is the man. Or men, as we get an older Chuck as narrator, performer, and actor, played by Lyle Miller. Miller’s got the look – the sideburns, the sequined shirts, the pigeon-toed strut – and he’s also got the musical chops, as vocally he kills it. But what he brings most of all is that pure joy. Chuck, despite his difficulties as a man, was always the ultimate performer. And Miller brings that, a twinkle in his eye and a spring in his, admittedly, aged step.

What Chuck might have lost in spryness when he got older, the young Chuck always had, and that is what Vincent Jordan provides us as Berry in his earlier years. A lanky, cocky, duck-walking “black man playing hillbilly music,” Jordan has the confidence that Chuck had, that Chuck had to have, as he played as an underage prisoner, as an unknown in a St. Louis nightclub, and as an unsigned talent at Chicago’s legendary Chess Records. He had it, and he knew it. What I didn’t know, what I couldn’t have known, is that Jordan was a last-minute fill-in for the role, having had only days to learn the part, learn the songs, learn to be Chuck Berry. If he’d prepared his whole life to play Chuck, I’d have applauded Jordan’s performance. But to learn he did so in less than a week, now that’s something special.

Also special is the rest of the cast. As younger and older versions of Chuck’s longtime musical partner and pianist, Johnny Johnson, Rueben Echoles and Kelvin Davis bring humanity and humor. And it’s nice that Ferris’ script works to rectify the decades Johnson spent receiving little to no recognition for his hand in making the man we know as Chuck Berry. Jeff Wright plays two important roles in Chuck’s legend. First, he plays Leonard Chess, the Chicago label owner who made Chuck famous, and himself very wealthy in the process, as well as a sneering, leering Keith Richards, one of many white men who built careers on reworking what Chuck had invented. Dwight Neal was a particular favorite of mine, also handling dual roles. His Muddy Waters howls and growls the 1950s electrified Chicago blues, while his Fats Domino is regal, tickling the ivories to “Blue Monday.”

The rest of the ensemble is impressive, too. Kylah Williams is affecting as Chuck’s loyal and long-suffering wife Themetta. Cynthia Carter brings additional joy and humor each time she graces the stage. And Trequon Tate is great as a late-period Bo Diddley, leading the audience in a singalong.

And that’s what this show is all about, really: the songs, and how the audience loves them, how everyone loves them. Old and young, black and white, nobody could stay still as those frolicking riffs were played and those transporting lyrics were sung. And while Jackie Taylor’s Black Ensemble Theater does look at some of the more honest and serious aspects of Chuck Berry’s life, it is almost impossible to make human the kind of hero, the kind of superhuman who could write those songs and perform them. Hail, hail Chuck Berry. Hail, hail Black Ensemble Theater. And hail, hail rock and roll.

Hail, Hail Chuck: A Tribute to Chuck Berry is being performed at Black Ensemble Theater through April 1st. For more show information, visit blackensembletheater.org.

Before I set foot in the Goodman’s Owen Theatre to see the Chicago premier of Sarah DeLappe’s acclaimed play The Wolves, I tried not to read or hear or learn too much about it. I knew it had been a finalist for a Pulitzer, and won other awards. I knew it was about a girls’ high school soccer team. And that was about it.

The first tidbit informed my own expectations – this ought to be good, I figured. And the second informed who I’d bring along – my own 14-year-old soccer-playing daughter. I was excited that the subject matter might excite her, sure, but was more intent on using her as a litmus test for not just the play’s quality, but its authenticity. And boy, did we both find that it delivered on both counts.

While the play’s 20-something playwright and cast might seem like whippersnappers to an old dude like me, their ilk are positively elderly to a teen. After the play, my daughter admitted she’d been worried that the presentation would be the usual – what old people think young life is like these days. But The Wolves portrayed young life – the young life of today, of yesterday, of time eternal – in a way both dad and daughter found realistic. That is, the play portrayed life realistically.

Sarah DeLappe’s script sets up this portrayal like a champ. After the play, I read that DeLappe was influenced by old war movies – the kind where a gang of guys gain personal revelations in the face of greater situations – and I can see that. I also sensed the influence of 12 Angry Men or Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs – art that finds greater truths by plopping a disparate troupe of characters into a script. But instead of machine guns and military rations, instead of a jury room or a bank heist, the troupe on the Goodman’s stage was armed with shin guards and phones and backpacks and headbands. But the idea was the same – flesh out a story by fleshing out the people telling it. DeLappe tells her story through her girls’ banter as they stretch and warmup before a series of soccer games. Her gift for said banter is something else – making it sound like how not just girls talk, but how people talk, as the characters flit from discussions of world events to feminine products, from hopes and dreams for the future to the sex and sexuality that seems so pressing in their present. Talk goes from Pol Pot to periods, from weirdoes who live in “yogurts” to punk rock chicks who lick coffeehouse microphones. The stuff real people talk about. And how real people talk about that stuff.

And, more than any play I can remember, director Vanessa Stalling’s production of a team shows it takes a team to pull it off. First off, the cast is great. Those grown-up ladies onstage could totally, like, pass as a gaggle of teen girls. And that’s not to belittle them or the material they’re working with. Most likely because I’m a nerd, myself, I connected with Sarah Price’s neurotic know-it-all, #11 (yes, the characters are only identified by jersey number, further enforcing the team concept, and further highlighting how both script and cast breathe life into these nameless roles). As the team captain, #25, Isa Arciniegas is – to continue the earlier war motif – Pattonesque in a Napoleanic package. Cydney Moody’s #8 is the moody one. Angela Alise’s #00 is the lonely goalkeeper. Erin O’Shea is the red-headed, homeschooled, yogurt-livin’ outsider (think Lindsay Lohan in Mean Girls, except with mad ball-handling skills). And the heart and soul of the team are Natalie Joyce and Aurora Real de Asua. Joyce’s #7 has the mouth of a sailor but the problems and insecurities of a girl, while #14 is the ego to 7’s adolescent id. The teammates kick around conversations as feverishly and randomly as they do their soccer balls, again making it sound not just like how high school girls talk, but how people interact.

The teamwork on display does not stop with the script and its interpreters, however. Collette Pollard’s set gave this soccer dad, who’s spent too much time hanging out at fields both outdoors and under domes, flashbacks. Lighting by Keith Parham is spot on, as are the musical choices by sound designer Mikhail Fiksel, both providing energy and intensity that match the actors’.

And so, this whole team comes together to not just tell a story of young girls, but of people. What starts as dissonant and diverse digressions between types and tropes turns into a realistic back-and-forth you’d hear not just on the field or in the mall or in a classroom, but at work, on the train, in the checkout line, on the street. Given great material to work with, the cast and crew of the Goodman Theatre’s production of Sarah DeLappe’s The Wolves give us something that’s funny, sad, uncomfortable, cute, ugly, and beautiful – that is, art that pulls off the rare feat of feeling like real life. And, like, my teen daughter seconds that!

*Extended through March 18th

Having spent a good majority of my adult life producing books and media for children, I like to think I’m a good judge of content directed at the young of year, as well as the young at heart. I’m also quite an exacting critic when it comes to such content, which is why I was worried I’d be a bit hard on the Chicago Children’s Theatre’s current production, My Wonderful Birthday Suit.

It’s also why – aside from the fact that I prefer dates that are both brainy and beautiful – I was accompanied by my five-year-old daughter to this past Sunday’s performance…I might consider myself a child at heart, but I wanted to see how the show connected with an actual child, too. So, in we walked to the theatre’s location at the near west side Station, this perky and perceptive young woman and her skeptical pops.

We arrived at the party early – she fashionably, me not so much – and were invited to sit at one of several tables covered in crayons and colorful paper leaves to decorate. I’ve gotta admit, as a father with an attention span equal to his preschooler’s, something to do while waiting was awfully thoughtful.

When the theater doors opened, we joined the flock of eager youngsters and Sunday morning oldsters finding seats and checking out the stage.

At first glance, I thought the set looked simple, but as my date and I studied it before the show started, it proved to be full of delights. A giant burlap tree in the center of a bright living room. Shining gifts to either side. Colorful picture frames on the walls. We were intrigued, the both of us. The jaunty ragtime piano playing over the PA system only added to the whimsy.

When the show started and the first character – Ooblahdee – appeared, her rainbow tights and sparkling smile welcomed us into her whimsical world. Our red-headed hostess Darci Nalepa was dolled up for children’s theater, sure, but from the get-go she showed she’s got the energy and openness for the job. Tossing herself Raggedy-Ann-like across the floor when needed, singing songs when called for, Nalepa most importantly avoids the mistake too many make when performing for kids – she doesn’t talk down, she doesn’t condescend. She inhabits this onstage world as if it’s a given and invites us – the audience – to join her there.

Soon enough, Nalepa’s Ooblahdee was joined by her best friend, Ooblahdah – a prancing, pouting, purple pal played by puckish scene-stealer Will Wilhelm. Wilhelm’s a great id for Nalepa’s girl-next-door protagonist, sneaking a peak at a present, worrying about friendships, the kind of stuff that all of us do but that only kids get to admit to.

And after Melanie Brezill’s Shebopshebe arrives for her birthday, her party, and her presents, Wilhelm’s next act of honesty is to question her being “brown.”

For such a complex thing, prejudice is really pretty simple. So simple that it’s perhaps best illustrated by a childlike character in a child-friendly setting.

And just like how us adults might sometimes ignore the uncomfortable, Brezill’s character seems to do so at first. But then, after Wilhelm again shows displeasure at the tone of her skin, Brezill shows her stuff. She’s brown, she’s proud, and despite her small size, she lets her fellow characters and the audience know just why she’s proud of being brown.

After this bit of birthday conflict, things of course wrap up nicely. There are bows, there are gifts, there are hugs. There’s even a bird puppet inside that burlap tree that lays birthday bows instead of eggs.
The children in the audience seemed riveted throughout the show – by the set, by the actors, by the story. My only suggestion is that kids are by nature interactive little critters. At the end of the show, there was a moment where the fourth wall was broken and the actors asked the audience for responses. The children were, naturally, eager to respond. But I thought the prompts and the interaction could perhaps be polished a bit, could perhaps be more naturally incorporated into the show.

But now, as I sit here thinking about what the children’s responses showed that they’d learned – and their responses to the show throughout – I realize that perhaps children aren’t the audience for the play’s message of inclusivity and acceptance. Perhaps children, despite their own honest opinions or maybe because of them, already innately know the lesson that Gloria Bond Clunie’s My Wonderful Birthday Suit is trying to teach us – that a gift’s wrapping doesn’t matter nearly as much as what’s inside. Maybe the show was meant to teach said lesson to those of us who are children no longer, even if we want to think we are. And so, while the trappings and theatrics might target the youngest in the crowd, Chicago Children’s Theatre’s latest production is really meant for children of all ages.

My Wonderful Birthday Suit is being performed at the Chicago Children's Theatre through February 18th. 

While I’d yet to see Beautiful: The Carole King Musical since it premiered to much acclaim (and a U.S. tour) a couple years ago, I entered the Cadillac Palace Theatre for its latest Chicago debut a lifelong Carole King fanboy. I knew her songs. I knew her story. But for a couple hours on Wednesday night, the cast of this latest touring production made me feel like I knew her.

But first, those songs. The audience, young and old, knew them all. The older ones, the ones who’d been there the first time around, giggled with nostalgia. And the rest of us – who know them from parents, from oldies radio, from YouTube, from simply being alive – were every bit as thrilled. From John Michael Dias’ mugging Neil Sedaka singing “Oh Carol” on national TV to his former high school flame, Carole Klein, to the ensemble’s medley of Brill Building tunes love-potioning and splish-splashing and yakkity-yakking, we were all Boomer kids taken back to a not-simpler time.

The real standouts of this jukebox time machine were two vocal quartets. Playing the parts of The Shirelles, Little Eva and her backing singers, and Janelle Woods and her own group, McKynleigh Alden Abraham, Traci Elaine Lee, Marla Louissaint, and Alexis Tidwell were magic as they brought classic takes on King’s “Will You Love Me Tomorrow” and “One Fine Day.” The dresses, the elegant moves, the wedding chapel harmonies, and those songs. Wow. They were only equaled by their male counterparts – Josh Dawson, Jay McKenzie, Avery Smith, and Kristopher Stanley Ward – whose coiffed hairdos, satin suits, and smooth moves as The Drifters made it look so easy as they doo-wopped and stepped to “Some Kind of Wonderful” and “Up on the Roof.” But Ms. King’s songs weren’t the only ones on display. While The Drifters did a nifty walk down Weil and Mann’s “On Broadway,” the rival songwriting duo’s “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling” was retaken from Tom Cruise’s boozy Top Gun barroom ballad by Matt Faucher and Dias again as The Righteous Brothers. Faucher’s baritone filled the Cadillac, and Dias’ high harmonies brought it home. Again, wow. Wish I’d been there the first time around, but this cast showed off their chops while paying quite a tribute to the classic songs and their songwriters who the story’s about.

And about that story. Again, as a fan, I knew the outline: NYC kids slave away in a Times Square hit-making sweatshop, soundtrack a generation, and one of them makes it big herself later on. But the main cast fleshed out the story’s characters. They took them from characters to people. James Clow’s gum-chewing, contract-signing Don Kushner was intimidating but encouraging. Sarah Goecke’s witty, Cole-Porter-wannabe wordsmith, Cynthia Weil, was a woman ahead of her time. Jacob Heimer’s neurotic lady’s man, Barry Mann, made you root for him. And Andrew Brewer’s smoldering but sensitive Gerry Goffin made you swoon, even as you knew the dirty dog was sneaking around on his Carole.

And Carole. Oh, Carole. As Neil Sedaka sang, “there will never be another.” And throughout the show, lead Sarah Bockel not only proved Sedaka right, giving us Carole King’s look and playing and voice, she gave us Carole Klein, the person. Many talented performers could probably approximate King’s hair or her vocals. But Bockel went beyond that, giving us the perky and precocious 16-year-old writing those hits and falling for that hunk. She gave us the broken but devoted young mother finding out not just who she’s married to – Bockel and Brewer’s chemistry was very sweet and seemed very real – but who she herself is. And she gave us that self, finally confident to write her own words, to tell her own story, to sing it loud, for a crowd, for us. And that story, of a woman claiming her soul from the lost and found and using it to give voice to not just a generation, but many generations to come, was what wowed the Cadillac’s crowd the most. The voices will make you applaud. The songs will make you nostalgic. But the story this cast and their show tell of this natural woman, this national treasure, will make you feel. It made me feel.

For more show information visit www.broadwayinchicago.com.

As I entered the Cadillac Palace Theatre – originally the Orpheum Circuit’s lavish vaudeville flagship before keeping up with the times to become a golden age movie palace – the simple, classy screen that hung over the stage gave me hope for the evening’s entertainment. There was the show’s title and logo, red and white on a bright blue backing, all nostalgia, all sheen, all promise of a combination of the silver screen, of classic composition, of live theatrical talent. I could hardly wait for the screen to rise and the show to start.

But first, in full disclosure, I’ve never watched the movie straight through. Sure, I’ve seen the whole thing in fits and starts and bits and pieces through the years (married, as I am, to one of its biggest fangirls). But I’m more of a fan of the rock and rollers – the Little Richards, the Orbisons, the Chucks and Jerry Lees and Buddies with something a little randier and a little rowdier and a little more real – who came along and did away with the post-war schmaltz. What I mean is, while I appreciate, no, adore, earlier Hollywood musicals like The Wizard of Oz or even Berlin’s Easter Parade, as well as later ones like The Music Man, I have no real sentimental attachment to Bing and Rosemary. I figured I’d be an objective audience, a fresh set of eyes and ears for this production.

The show began and these eyes and ears weren’t impressed. The sets were bright and looked the part – the scene with the song “Snow” on a train car was beautiful, a real mid-century-modern knockout – but they weren’t the 1950's real thing. The actors, too, were talented and pleasant as they played their parts, but they weren’t Bing or Rosemary or Danny or Vera. Nobody could be.

So, as the first act progressed, I remained unimpressed. The story (and the music, and the sets, and the cast) were fine, but the show needed some charisma, it needed some pizazz, it needed something.

Where that something did come up was when the show added tunes by Berlin that weren’t in the movie. These songs hadn’t been staked out by the film’s icons, and the current production’s cast wasn’t forced to approximate the ideal they’d set. They were fresher. They gave this cast room to show their talents, to show themselves, and not just takes on someone else. An example was “Falling Out of Love Can Be Fun.” Throughout the night, the female lead, Kerry Conte, had Rosemary Clooney’s shoes to fill, a task I did not envy. But during this number, she fit right into an Andrews-esque trio, her vocals polished, her moves authentic. The lead singer in said number, Karen Ziemba’s Martha, stood out not just here, but in her own featured piece earlier that also strayed from the film and added to the show. Other standouts included: young Makayla Joy Connolly, who had a fine feature of her own; Kristyn Pope, who lit up the stage as recurring Rita and part of the ensemble; and Conrad John Schuck, whose General Waverly/Innkeeper Hank was equal parts Patton and grandpa.

And as I said, while the first act dragged, the second act moved at a much better pace, better utilized the cast, and ended the night with some holiday cheer (spoiler alert: the show is called White Christmas). So if it’s an exact reproduction of the Technicolor glow and the old-microphone glisten of the film you’re after, stay in and watch it on TV. But if you’re just looking for a feel-good family jumpstart to the holiday season, then this might be the show to see.

White Christmas is being performed at Cadillac Palace Theatre through December 3^rd. For more show information visit www.broadwayinchicago.com.

Newsies, the Disney film from 1992 by Alan Menken (whose run around the same time of Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin I’d put up against the work of any songwriter, on tape, on film, or on stage), was one I saw back when it hit VHS. But I don’t remember it too well. At least not the story. So, having not yet seen the Broadway adaptation of Newsies, I was curious to see if the Marriott Theatre’s production made more of an impression. And boy, did it ever.

The story’s still nothing that’ll make the “papes” (that’s what newsies call those inky, stinky things that used to provide the daily headlines), but I quickly realized we weren’t there for story. We were there for spectacle. And boy, did this production deliver.

In the round, the set is dominated by three steel girders that move to change the feel and figure depending on the needed background, but mostly harken back to turn-of-the-century NYC (partying like it’s 1899, not 1999), a city that’s growing and figuring it all out. So, too, are the newsies of the title, a pack of newspaper delivery boys of all shapes and shades and sizes, but who’ve got one thing in common – servitude to the media titans of the day. The story – one of standing up to the wealthy bullies who run things – is inspiring and as apt today as it was over a century ago, even if it doesn’t hold up to the spectacle. So let’s get to that spectacle!

Patrick Rooney as principal paperboy Jack Kelly works well as the lead. He’s got old-timey leading man looks and allure – “pizazz” they probably would’ve called it back in ‘99. And he’s got pipes, too, really letting loose on Menken’s “Santa Fe” to close the first act.

Jack’s fellow newsies have pizazz from the Bronx to Brooklyn, too. Athletes, all, they leap and bound, frolic and flip all across the square stage, charming the audience on all sides with spot-on choreography. Nick Graffagna as Davey looks and talks the part of a lad of that era, and Garrett Lutz’s bushy-haired Irishman does, too. Laura Savage and Adrienne Storrs as two newsgirls provide even more spunk and theater talent to the gang. And when the newsies storm the simple stage for ensemble numbers like “Seize the Day” and “King of New York” they make Lincolnshire’s modest forum seem simply metropolitan.

But from the get-go, the newsie who stands the tallest is young Matthew Uzarraga. As Crutchie, a disabled orphan armed with his namesake walking stick, Uzarraga first shows his skills when he joins Jack in harmony on an early take of “Santa Fe” – I’m a sucker for spot-on harmonizing, one of the things that’s hardest to do as a vocalist and when done right gives the listener goosebumps – giving me the chills. And throughout the show, Uzarraga’s crippled but plucky street urchin steals the stage whenever he’s on it, hobbling along happily and even bubbly and bright when consigned to a poorhouse bed.

My teen daughter, who accompanied me to the Marriott and who did catch the traveling cast of Newsies at the downtown Cadillac Theater a couple years back, said she enjoyed this production even more – delighted at seeing the footwork and old-timey fashions up close. So, too, did the rest of the audience – old and young, alike. So if it’s a story you’re looking for, I’ll tell you right now, Newsies is pretty much Annie, but with Worlds and Suns and Tribs instead of mops and buckets and baldheaded tycoons. But if it’s a show, a spectacle, you wanna see, then head to Lincolnshire for the Marriott’s production of Newsies, and pony up for the pomps and papes they’re sellin’!

For more show information visit www.marriotttheatre.com.

“That didn’t even sound like a mandolin,” I said to my companion – a mandolinist of some considerable skill – as we left Skokie’s North Shore Center for the Performing Arts after attending An Evening with Chris Thile.

“That’s what a mandolin’s supposed to sound like,” he said.

I guess so.

A musician myself, I’ve always found that particular instrument to be a bit shrill, a bit annoying, a tiny guitar with too many strings that doesn’t know if it wants to be a hillbilly or a classy sort of feller. I hadn’t known what to expect a couple hours earlier as my friend and I found our seats and watched a lone gentleman clutching an aged instrument step out under a single white spotlight.
But the acoustics and the sound system in the complex’s Center Theatre – both of which match the room’s clean and classy comfort – could have had something to do with the beautiful sounds I’d hear for the next two hours.

So could the single classic microphone, standing at the front of the stage to catch both Thile’s voice and playing.

It might have been the mandolin he was playing – nearly a century old, built by a legendary luthier, and aged gracefully to perfection like most antique stringed instruments do, if they survive that long.
But I’m pretty sure most of the credit goes to the man on the mandolin. From the first keening cry that erupted from his throat – met moments later by the plucking, picking, and petting of eight strings that wouldn’t let up till we were all satisfied – everyone in that theater was at the mercy of a real master. A master musician. A master showman. A man on the mandolin.

After beginning the set with a tune of his own followed by one by his band, The Punch Brothers, Thile took the classier road, performing Bach’s Partita in D Minor. On the mandolin. And, as I said up top, it didn’t sound like a mandolin to me, or what I thought a mandolin would sound like. Like so many other apex instrumentalists before him – Joshua Bell on his Strad, Jimi Hendrix on his Strat – Thile turned the wood and the wire into something more than what it had been crafted into – something other than a mandolin, entirely. The sound was huge, beautiful, otherworldly, other. It filled the hall. It filled me. I don’t know if I took a breath from the first note to the last.

My friend noted that not a note of Bach’s had needed to be added or changed, that what Bach wrote almost exactly three centuries ago was perfect then, and is still perfect today. And Thile played it perfectly. When he’d finished, he acknowledged the song’s creator, “Johann Sebastian Bach…the MAN”…even though right then, Thile was the man, playing some of history’s most brilliant music as brilliantly as it could be played.

But perfectly performing classical pieces isn’t this man’s only trick. Nope. I’ve seen Joshua Bell play the hell out of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto – one of the other times in my life I’ve had the pleasure of watching, hearing, experiencing one virtuoso interpret the work of another. But many virtuosos are one-trick ponies. Most doesn’t also host a long-running radio program that has become an institution, taking over for its beloved creator and decades-long voice. And, correct me if I’m wrong, but few musicians you could call virtuosos also write and perform their own music – music that can hold up during a program that features composition’s colossi.

Introducing a tune he’d written as a “Song of the Week” for Prairie Home Companion, Thile lamented last November’s electoral result and the direction of the country with the romping “Elephant in the Room.” A couple numbers later, he pulled out another written for NPR on the same theme, the swaggering “Falsetto.” Other originals were highlights, too. When Thile asked the audience for requests, one was The Punch Brothers’ “Magnet,” which he noted was one-fifth written by a Skokie native. After that he played another of his own – from this year’s collaboration with jazz pianist Brad Mehldau – a reflection on his favorite childhood bible story called “Daughter of Eve.”

While Thile’s playing and writing are indeed masterful, his voice is worth noting, too. All night I kept trying to come up with comparisons for what I was hearing, and because of his voice, I kept coming back to Jeff Buckley. Not because Thile can sing as well as Buckley – nobody can. But he reminded me of Buckley in the way he let his voice soar freely, in the way he could just let it go, up and up and up, floating and searching and floating some more, unashamed and free.

But mostly he reminded me of Jeff Buckley in his ability to take music written by others and make it his. I heard it when he made the bluegrass classic “Rabbit in the Hole” sound brand new, still respecting its roots. I heard it when he covered Neil Young’s “Tell Me Why,” turning a classic album’s opening tune I know so well into something new, too. And I heard it on my second favorite song of the night – one I admit I didn’t know the provenance of, mistaking it for an old sea shanty standard until I got home and looked it up – a take on Josh Ritter’s “Another New World.” As he did during each vocal piece, Thile interspersed bursts of virtuosic playing throughout the song – mixing mandolin with sails and ships, with Ninas and Pintas and Santa Marias, with Annabel Lee – the end result even more than just a beautiful story beautifully told and beautifully sung. It was beautifully played.

The highlight of the night, however, began with a little aside (Thile’s also a talker, as any radio personality should be, I suppose), as he told the crowd he’d written “Song for a Young Queen” as a boy, inspired by Natalie Portman in her 90s role as the future mother of Luke and Leia, and his own true boyhood love for her. And then came a magical moment for me. Now, I’ve seen a lot of shows in my life. But the one show – and the one moment during that show – that still means the most for me was way back in August of 2001. On a day that had hit a hundred, with the grass of Grant Park beneath my feet, with Lake Michigan to my right, with Chicago’s skyline to my left, and with a full moon above me and behind me, my favorite band Radiohead encored with a then-little-known rarity, “True Love Waits.” When that band’s singer, Thom Yorke, began it, it was one of those moments. So when, during his own song, Chris Thile sang Yorke’s words, “I’ll drown my beliefs,” he had my ear. And when he took that song, one I know inside and out, and stretched it out and embellished it with his playing and made it his own, he had my heart. And when he ended with its lyrics, “just don’t leave,” I didn’t want him to.

So, needless to say, seeing Chris Thile play the other night at Skokie’s North Shore Center was a performance I won’t forget. It’s, to be honest, a performance I’m still processing. The man showed off his many talents. The mandolin never sounded better. And this musician – now a fan – might never have seen the untouchable greats – the real inarguable virtuosos like Jimi on guitar or Buckley and his voice – ply their craft. But he can say he did see one in Skokie in October of 2017 when he was lucky enough to hear what mandolins supposed to sound like. When played by a master. When played by the man.