2008's suburban theater highlights
2008 turned out to be a banner year for Drury Lane Theatre Oak Brook, the west suburban mainstay that until recently had ceded its place among top Chicago-area musical theater venues to the Marriott in Lincolnshire and the ambitious Porchlight Music Theatre in Chicago.
The Oakbrook Terrace theater had no problem attracting top talent, but too often saddled first-rate singer/actors, directors and designers with second-rate material. That changed under producer Kyle De Santis, who took over last year after the death of his grandfather, founder Tony De Santis. After beginning the year with the tepid musical adaptation of "The Goodbye Girl," things really heated up beginning with one of 2008's best shows, the exuberant, Jeff Award-winning production of "Sweet Charity," directed by Jim Corti with delicious Bob Fosse-inspired choreography by Mitzi Hamilton and a stellar turn by the dynamic Summer Naomi Smart as Charity Hope Valentine.
Drury Lane also scored a hit with director/choreographer David H. Bell's re-imagining of "The Boys From Syracuse," Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart's adaptation of Shakespeare's "The Comedy of Errors" in which mistaken identities lead to romantic entanglements. Great-looking and wonderfully sung, the show benefited from music director Keith Dworkin's deft arrangements of Rodgers' gorgeous, swinging score and Bell's reworking of George Abbott's book.
The boomer-friendly bio-musical "Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story" and 2007's production of "Meet Me in St. Louis" both earned remounts downtown at Drury Lane Water Tower Place. William Osetek's lavish "Mame" not only paired local favorites - the redoubtable Barbara Robertson as the titular endearing eccentric and the always-entertaining Alene Robertson as her boozy foil - but boasted the visual pop that characterized most Drury Lane shows this year. This year was an unqualified success for Drury Lane, whose 2009 lineup suggests De Santis has no intention of resting on his laurels.
That other titan of suburban theater, Marriott Theatre, scored a coup when it got the rights to the regional premiere of Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schonberg's "Les Miserables." Director Dominic Missimi's intimate, briskly staged revival triumphed thanks in large part to John Cudia, whose vocally pristine Jean Valjean earned the actor a well-deserved Jeff Award this year
The rechristened First Folio Theatre in Oak Brook also scored big with its sparkling "Jeeves Intervenes," based on a P.G. Wodehouse comedy of manners about imperturbable gentleman's gentleman Jeeves played by the delectably droll Jim McCance, and his bumbling, upper-crust employer Bertie, played by the charmingly foppish Christian Gray. Kevin McKillip played Bertie's endearingly dim best friend Basie in Alison Vesely's zesty production that definitely warmed up a frigid February.
Of the five Chicago-area productions this year - including the Q Brothers' raptastic reworking for Chicago Shakespeare - Michael Goldberg's charming, Edwardian-inspired version of Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing" for First Folio was the most traditional. Even a summer shower couldn't dampen opening night of this show featuring Nick Sandys' perfectly pitched Benedick and Melissa Carlson's self-aware Beatrice.
Tony Award winner and former resident artist Judith Ivey reunited with Northlight Theatre's BJ Jones for "The Lady with All the Answers," David Rambo's one-woman bio-drama about the late advice columnist Ann Landers. Jones' understated direction and Ivey's moving performance made this incomplete biography a moving portrait of conviction and resilience.
Saving the best for last, Northlight in Skokie closed the year on a high note, with the regional premiere of the Tony Award-winning musical "Grey Gardens," a quirky, endearing portrait of mother-daughter dysfunction centered around Jacqueline Kennedy's eccentric relatives Edith Bouvier Beale and her daughter Little Edie. The powerhouse production, buoyed by Doug Peck's impeccable music direction, featured powerhouse performances by A-listers Hollis Resnik (Little Edie) and Ann Whitney (Edith) who will likely receive Jeff nominations for their work.
When it comes to consistency, few ensembles compare to Writers' Theatre, whose exceptional season included a remount of 2000's "Nixon's Nixon," featuring tour-de-force performances from the formidable duo of Larry Yando and William Brown, who starred as Nixon and Kissinger in Russell Lee's shrewdly examined drama imagining the disgraced president's last evening in office.
Other highlights included actor Yando teaming up with director Brown for the North Shore theater company's artful, exquisitely acted "As You Like It" - Shakespeare's merry romp tinged with melancholy - that featured fine work by Tracy Michelle Arnold as the wise Rosalind. Add to that director Rick Snyder's ferocious but not obvious production of "The Lion in Winter," James Goldman's delicious look at domestic discord in Henry II's royal family, another 2008 highlight.
Also deserving mention is Next Theatre's vibrantly sung and smartly conceived "American Songbook" double bill featuring Leonard Bernstein's haunting, rarely produced one-act opera "Trouble in Tahiti" and songs by five emerging American composers that suggests American musical theater has more to offer than B-movie retreads and jukebox revues.