Displaying items by tag: Musical theater

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

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

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

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

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

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

When my husband announced that his company holiday party this year was 80s themed, my first thought was that it had been done before. I’d donned enough leg warmers and sported enough side ponytails at enough parties. My second thought was why not the 90s? Surely in 2023 people want to worship another decade? But when I read Chicago was getting American Psycho: The Musical, I dug out my favorite oversized blazer and headed to Wicker Park to watch the book-turned-movie-turned-musical that encapsulated and glorified the very decade I dared to criticize..

The cast was led by the showstopping talent of Kyle Patrick as Patrick Bateman, the stylish and sadistic center of American Psycho. Patrick’s performance was riveting, one couldn’t take his eyes away from him. He perfectly captured Bateman’s devilishly attractive and hypnotic presence, pulling you in with his charm and wit, turning psychotically evil effortlessly before falling back into his charm. The range Patrick displayed as Bateman was nothing short of breathtaking. The murderous chemistry between Patrick and John Drea as his nemesis Paul Owen was haunting and electric, their bravados embodying the 80s and their fight staging choreography scarily convincing. The play was accompanied with an indulgent soundtrack with original numbers like “Cards” and “Not a Common Man” along with seminal 80s bangers Everybody Wants to Rule the World and of course Hip to Be Square. You were dancing in your seat along with the cast.

The play was set appropriately on a cat walk, white business cards adorning the path, the cast using the cat walk to seamlessly transition from the Tunnel nightclub Tunnel, to the gym, to the office, to Paul Owen’s apartment, the entrances draped cleverly with white tarp. The choreography, directed by Breon Arzell, was nothing short of art. Arzell was able to take extremely difficult and violent scenes and make them hauntingly captivating. In one particularly sexually violet scene (read the book or watch the film if you are curious about this referenced scene), an adonis-like Patrick puppeteered two women, played by Emily Holland and Quinn Simmons, through a series of graceful movements, simulating a sexual throupling without being obscene, and navigating the violence with dignity, masked through the art of dance. Such scenes were made to be very effective thanks to Kokandy's incredibly talented Intimacy Coordinate Kirsten Baity and Fight Choreographer Kate Lass. 

(left to right) Kyle Patrick and John Dreain Kokandy Productions’ Chicago premiere of American Psycho: The Musical

The book-turned-movie-turned-musical has real staying power. Comments Director Derek Van Barham,  It’s horror, it’s satire, it goes for the guts and getsinto your head. And it’s all tinged with that David Lynchian unease of ‘What is actually happening?’ Extending that question of uncertainty into the live experience, we’re playing with what we show vs. what we don’t show, what you see vs. what you think you saw. A lot is going to be left up to the audience.” American Psycho: The Musical has many themes that are still applicable and relatable today. If I concede that the musical glorifying the 80s is still relevant and significant in 2023, then by proxy the 80s are still relevant and significant today, meaning I must find neon bangle earrings to match my leg warmers this holiday season…

Kokandy Production's American Psycho: The Musical runs through November 26, 2023 at The Chopin Studio Theatre (1543 W. Division St., Chicago). Tickets are available at https://www.kokandyproductions.com/american-psycho/.

*Extended through December 10th

In 2023, “iconic” is a word often used hyperbolically. It is flippantly used to describe and categorize an incredible movie, a famous influencer clap back, a beautiful piece of fashion, or even used to describe a viral TikTok video. When we overuse or misuse a word enough it loses its meaning. In 2023 I submit we reclaim the word and apply it to those in life that truly exemplify to word, where all generations can come together and for a fleeting moment bask in the glow and apt use of the word. Because there is only one word that can describe the biopic of the often revered Queen of Rock and Roll, only one word that can encapsulate her lifetime, her career, and her legacy that will live in the new musical medium of her life. Tina Turner. Iconic.

Much like the artist’s life, TINA-The Tina Turner Musical is a hard-hitting, fast-paced, exhilarating rollercoaster chronically Tina Turner’s extraordinary life and career. Spanning from her childhood days in Nutbush, Tennessee, her early career as the lead singer of the Ike & Tina Turner Revue, her turbulent marriage to Ike Turner, and her incredible comeback as a solo performer which has often been hailed as the greatest comeback in music history. 

TINA- The Tina Turner Musical follows a similar style to some other blockbuster bio picks and plays such as Rocket Man (Elton John) and Mamma Mia (Abba), though it blows all other musical biopics out of the water. Tina’s catalog is sequenced into a timeline to tell her life’s story; “Nutbush City Limits”, released in 1973, opens up Act One of the musical where we meet Tina, born Anne Mae Bullock, who sings too loud for her 1940’s choir, “River Deep Mountain High,” released in 1966, is performed in lockstep to her storyline as she records the track with Phil Spector at the height of her career with Ike Turner, and “I Don’t Wanna Fight,” released in 1993, closes Act One as Tina is making up her mind to leave Ike after 16 years of marital abuse. Tina Turner’s catalog is filled with soulful, emotional, and powerful songs that provide the soundtrack to her life.

The audience is guided through the decades of Tina’s life through seamless stage transitions and beautiful costume design. A shuttered wooden door and simple cloth dresses for the 1940s, the big hair and glittering sequence against a tinsled 1970s Vegas stage backdrop, a microphone and desk in Phil Spector’s studio, bigger hair, a synthesizer, and a denim jacket for the 1980s. 

Zurin Villanueva and Garrett Turner, and cast, in the Broadway tour of "Tina - The Tina Turner Musical" at Nederlander Theatre. Photo by MurphyMade / Handout.

TINA arrives to Chicago and the theater circuit at a pivotal moment. Recent years have been tumultuous for women from the Me Too movement and recent infringement on bodily autonomy. The iconic Turner herself lived through horrid abuse at the hands of a man, and that abuse is still pervasive today. Skinny trends are threatening to plague women and further rollback the body positivity movement. Millennial women are equally too young to have a voice and not old enough to sit at the table despite having children of our own.As we look for hope or simple escapism in 2023, we can draw inspiration from Tina Turner’s remarkable career. She overcame segregation and performed in the Jim Crow south, facing rampant and often unchecked racism, sexism, and physical abuse. Women in Tina’s life loved and supported her as best they could at a time when women had little to no power or belief in their stories. Tina Turner still battled racism during a European resurgence during her work with her Australian manager, Roger Davies, and battled ageism at 45 being told she’s over the hill.As the bevy of female Oscar winners this year will show, the narrative that women’s lives are over at a certain age is patriarchal  nonsense. Without the fighting supportive and uplifting strength of women, Tina Turner would not have prevailed in her career and the world would be all the more dim without her light.

TINA- The Tina Turner Musical is the broadway musical we need to get us out of our seats and singing as Proud as Mary. The musical runs through April 2nd at the James M Nederlander Theater (24 W Randolph St), tickets are available at Broadway In Chicago, get your tickets today before this show rolls on down the river.