Displaying items by tag: Edgar Miguel Sanchez

Decades before the enactment of Title IV, famous for its impact on expanding opportunities for women and girls in sports and well before the inaugural game of the WNBA, an African American women became the first to play for a professional baseball team.

“Toni Stone”, written by award winning playwright Lydia Diamond is receiving a rip-rousing production at the Goodman Theatre. Arguably, this is Lydia Diamond’s finest work, and that is saying a mouthful. She has consistently written engaging, thought-provoking work, adding beauty and depth to the American theatre canon.

We meet Toni Stone as she introduces herself and her teammates in a circus like atmosphere. She narrates the story of her life with The Indianapolis Clowns, a baseball team much like the Harlem Globetrotters. Although they play baseball and are darn good at it, their main job is to entertain. This was before African Americans were allowed to play in the all-white baseball leagues. We meet a cast of characters that are the most interesting characters I’ve seen on stage in a very long time.

Diamond wrote Stone as a beautifully complex, conflicted character. I don’t believe Toni Stone ever saw herself as sexual. She knew she wasn’t a man, but she also knew she was so much more than what was expected of a woman. She saw herself simply as a baseball player. She expected everyone to see her as a baseball player. When she meets Alberga, a male suitor that falls in love with her, she is thrown a curveball. Along with her only woman friend Millie, she navigates life as a baseball player and wife. Baseball came easy, being a wife was a bit more challenging.

This is Toni’s story, but it couldn’t be told without the assistance of a team of rambunctious, opinionated, athletic men. Under award-winning director Ron OJ Parsons’ assured and exuberant direction we are transported back to the late 1940’s.

With the help of movement director, Cristin Carole, Parson’s has his cast dancing, singing, juggling and doing acrobatics as if by second nature. This is a fun show to watch. The Actors morph into a variety of characters with striking ease.

It would be unfair not to mention some of the uniformly excellent the cast by name. Tracey Bonner is a joy as Toni Stone. Her warmth and enthusiasm are evident in this role. It’s hard to think of another actress embodying this character. The outrageously talented Edgar Miguel Sanchez plays a bookish Spec with steely resolve. Kai A. Ealy fresh off the Court stage in “The Island” gives us an energetic King Tut. Travis A. Knight goes from team bus driver Stretch to team owner Syd Pollock effortlessly. Chike Johnson brings a tender effect to Alberga, Toni’s admirer/husband. It was good seeing Chike on stage in Chicago again. Jon Hudson Odom plays a drunk ballplayer and Millie, Toni’s friend and confidant. The character of Millie could have gone too many ways of wrong, but for the writing of Diamond, the direction of Parsons and the acting expertise of Odom. Odom played Millie so understated that it was sublime and never caricature.

Todd Rosenthal’s set of a dugout with bleachers is masterful. This set has lots of surprises, with projections by Mike Tutaj it becomes the team bus, a boardroom, a bar but mostly a baseball playing field. Keith Parham’s lighting design was as high energy as the set, blinding white lights reminiscent of a summer day in the ballpark, quiet country roads at midnight.

Toni Stone was honored by the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1991 and was inducted into the Women’s Sports Hall of Fame in 1993. Although we have made inroads in sports, to date there are no women playing professional major league baseball.

Not only is this an entertaining piece of theatre, it’s also an important piece of theatre. How often does that happen?

When: Through Feb. 26

Where: Goodman Albert Theatre, 170 N. Dearborn

Tickets: $25 - $45

Info: goodmantheatre.org

"Nostalgia is a disease." bemoans Lynn Nottage's downtrodden characters in 'Sweat' now playing at Goodman Theatre. This 2017 Pulitzer prize winner examines the ordinary lives of factory workers in a Pennsylvania town in the years leading up to the 2008 recession. 'Sweat' is the second Pulitzer for playwright Lynn Nottage, making her the first woman to ever receive the prize twice. Goodman Theatre premiered her first prize winning play 'Ruined' in 2008. Ron OJ Parson directs an all-star cast in this Chicago premiere. 

'Sweat' switches between 2000 and 2008 as the changing economy finds factory work becoming scarce in traditionally blue-collar Pennsylvania. The play begins with two young men's release from prison for an undisclosed crime. One white (Mike Cherry), has a swastika tattooed on his forehead, the other a young black man (Edgar Miguel Sanchez), crisply dressed holding a bible. We're immediatley swept back to year 2000 when things were as they always had been. Three coworkers of different backgrounds celebrate their friend Tracey's (Kristin Fitzgerald) birthday in a local dive bar. When their friend Cynthia (Tyla Abercrumbie) mentions she's putting in for a promotion at the plant, tensions rise in quick moving scenes. 

The majority of the play takes place in a rundown bar tended by retired plant employee Stan (Keith Kopferer). Kupferer plays a reliable moral backbone of the play as Tracey and Cynthia are pitted against each other when the layoffs begin. Fitzgerald and Ambercrumbi deliver powerhouse performances. Both each other's match as they square off in scenes so intense you nearly forget to breath. 

Though first produced before Trump won the election, it's as if Nottage knew the outcome. It's a quick descent into blatant racism for these otherwise easy-going characters. Economic stress in these reliably blue states turns those at the bottom of an economy against each other. Nottage captures life for those holding onto the past with compassion but perhaps not dignity. 

It's nice to see a full length play these days. 'Sweat' runs two and a half hours but the scenes are so taught you'd hardly notice. This deeply human story has a long-burning fuse that leads right up to a full-fledge powder keg. In the four walls of a smelly bar we're shown some of the darkest sides of capitalism. In that regard, 'Sweat' is not just an American play, but a universal and timeless play about those left behind. 

Through April 14th at Goodman Theatre. 170 N Dearborn Street. 312-443-3800