PicksInSix Review: Ain't Misbehavin' - Drury Lane Theatre

AIN’T MISBEHAVIN’ - Revival Worth Waiting For!
PicksInSix® Review | Guest Contributor | Kaitlyn Linsner

For those looking to enjoy a soulful and spirited night of jazz music, consider a visit to Drury Lane Theatre for the wildly entertaining revival of Richard Maltby Jr. and Murray Horwitz’s 1978 Tony Award–winning musical revue, “Ain’t Misbehavin’: The Fats Waller Musical Show.” 

“Ain’t Misbehavin’” celebrates the music of legendary Thomas “Fats” Waller, a popular and influential performer who first studied classical piano and organ before becoming a master of Harlem stride piano playing. The production features over 30 of Waller’s captivating melodies and an incredibly talented cast that brings to life Waller’s prolific songwriting skills with an impressive range of artistry that captures all the emotions of Waller’s catalog from the heartfelt and sultry moments to the upbeat and comedic.

Director E. Faye Butler set the production in Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood to share its history through Waller’s music. Butler and choreographer Mz. Flo Walker-Harris do a remarkable job in staging an old fashioned good time, right here in Chicago, and the creative team similarly soars with a set, costumes, wigs, hair and makeup that truly transport and transcend — Andrew Boyce (scenic designer), Lee Fiskness (lighting designer), McKinley Johnson (costume designer), and Kevin S. Foster II (wig, hair and makeup designer).  

The rich vocals of the five-member cast, under the musical direction of William Foster McDaniel and sound engineering of Stephanie Farina, make it so easy to lose track of the time and to get lost in the thrill of it all.  While each song shines in its own right, a few must be highlighted. James T. Lane, Alanna Lovely, Alexis J. Roston, Micah Mixon, Lorenzo Rush Jr. are sensational in “Black and Blue” in reaching heavenly harmonies together. Lorenzo’s comedy chops shine in “Your Feet’s Too Big,” and Lane is too smooth in “The Viper’s Drag.” Other standouts include “Honeysuckle Rose,” “Mean to Me” and the jubilant audience interaction in “Fat and Greasy.”

Perhaps the best part of “Ain’t Misbehavin’” is just how entertaining it is from start to finish. As soon as the show begins, a vibrancy takes hold and pulls the audience into an evening of celebration and delight. It felt good to connect with the stories that unfolded with each song and to fully embrace the feeling of, well, feeling good. 

“Ain’t Misbehavin’” is something special and in the words of Waller himself “the piano’s thumpin’ The dancers are bumpin'. This here spot is more than hot. In fact, the joint is jumpin.’  

GUEST CONTRIBUTOR | KAITLYN LINSNER is a Chicago-based attorney practicing construction and surety law.

PHOTO|Justin Barbin

DRURY LANE THEATRE
presents

AIN’T MISBEHAVIN’
The Fats Waller Musical Show
100 Drury Lane
Oakbrook Terrace
through August 18, 2024

WEBSITE
TICKETS

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PicksInSix Review: Anything Goes - Porchlight Music Theatre

Blow Gabriel! Murphy is Heaven Sent!
PicksInSix® Review | Ed Tracy

Porchlight Music Theatre celebrates the Chicago Cole Porter Festival and launches their 29th Season with a sparkling, effervescent 90th anniversary production of “Anything Goes” superbly directed by Michael Weber featuring Meghan Murphy in a big, boisterous star turn as the seaworthy siren Reno Sweeney. The book by Timothy Crouse and John Weidman, was adapted for the 1987 Broadway revival from the 1934 original by P.C. Woodhouse, Guy Bolton, Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. It tells the story of an oceanic crossing with a zany cast of characters with Murphy’s Sweeney at the delectable center of Porter’s most beloved music and lyrics.

Luke Nowakowski shines in the role of Billy Crocker who yearns for Hope Harcourt (played beautifully by Emma Ogea) even as he falls in with a gangster named Moonface Martin (an inspired performance by Steve McDonaugh) and his partner Erma (a scintillating Tafadzwa Diener) who all want to flip the tables on the wedding between Harcourt and Lord Evelyn Oakleigh (Jackson Evans). At the matinee on Saturday, Evans—in one of the most hilarious of his many stage appearances to date—and Murphy create an irresistible comic cosmos in “The Gypsy in Me” that literally brought tears to my eyes. In the end, of course, love conquers all and everything works out, except for a few clay pigeons off the starboard bow and anyone who actually sold their Amalgamated stock.

Under the lush musical direction of Nick Sula, Porter’s rich, melodic score comes vibrantly alive in “You’re The Top,” “Friendship” and “It’s De-lovely.” And when conductor Linda Madonia’s band kicks into high gear, it’s time to clear the decks for Tammy Mader’s rock-solid, toe-tapping choreography—and one of the finest singing and dancing ensembles seen on a Porchlight stage—to blast the big production numbers like “Anything Goes,” and “Blow, Gabriel Blow” straight to the heavens, with Murphy leading the way.

Jeffrey D. Kmiec’s magnificent two-story ship deck is dressed in navy blue and white with seaworthy stairs that frame a series of three revolving doors providing access to the main stage area. Kmiec’s masterfully sturdy design, complete with ship’s railing and arched pylons, reveals more than a few surprises along the way.

Under the steady hand of artistic director Michael Weber, Porchlight Music Theatre has built a superb reputation for developing exceptional new talent. In recent years, on the intimate Ruth Page Center for the Arts main stage, the company has forged full steam ahead through harsh winds and heavy seas to stay on course despite the challenges that the performing arts community has been navigating. Weber and Executive Director Jeannie Lukow’s bold, innovative, award-winning, musical productions include a long list of outstanding veteran performers like the late Hollis Resnick in a memorable production of “Sunset Boulevard,” E. Faye Butler’s showstopping performance as Mama Rose in “Gypsy” and Broadway veteran Felicia P. Fields in “Blues in the Night” who elevate the performances of everyone around them to new heights.

Add the exquisite Meghan Murphy to the company of Chicago’s all-time brightest stars. What a performance. What a show! 

PHOTO|Liz Lauren

PORCHLIGHT MUSIC THEATRE
presents
ANYTHING GOES
Ruth Page Center for the Arts
EXTENDED
through March 10, 2024

WEBSITE

TICKETS

DIGITAL PROGRAM

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PicksInSix Review: The Nacirema Society - Goodman Theatre

A Powerful, Laugh-Out Loud Triumph!
PicksInSix® Review | Guest Contributor | Kaitlyn Linsner

Expect the unexpected in the Chicago premiere of Pearl Cleage’s extravagant and absurd comedy, “The Nacirema Society.” The play shines as the opener of Susan Booth’s first curated season as Goodman Theatre’s Artistic Director and as a joyous and nuanced exploration of how class, family tradition, honor, privilege, young love, ambition and social responsibility all present in everyday life. These themes mixed with over-the-top drama sets the stage for big gasps and even bigger laughs. Grab a glass of sherry, sit back and welcome to the lavish home of Grace Dubose Dunbar. 

“The Nacirema Society” drops us into the world of a prosperous, aristocratic Black family, the Dunbars, in 1964 Montgomery, Alabama. The mighty and entitled matriarch of the family, Grace Dubose Dunbar (E. Faye Butler), is also the grande dame of the Nacirema Society, a social club for affluent Black women in the South. The Society is preparing for the centennial year of its annual debutante ball, and Grace expects perfection in everything and everyone around her including her effervescent granddaughter Gracie (Demetra Dee) who is making her debut at the centennial ball. 

The plot weaves in another family—the working-class single mother Alpha Campell-Jackson (Tyla Abercrumbie) and her daughter Lille (Felicia Oduh)—who dig up Dunbar family secrets and rattle Dunbar family skeletons. The juxtaposition of these two families during the Civil Rights Movement illuminates the impacts of class and generational expectations in navigating change and legacy. The two families collide with great hilarity in the second act. 

Cleage’s remarkable writing and dialogue are brought to life under the superb direction of Lili-Anne Brown and the outstanding cast of powerhouse talent. Butler and Abercrumbie command the stage. Oduh and Dee are so honest and charming in depicting teenage eagerness, and the ensemble works beautifully together on stage to elevate each scene. 

Plus, the physical comedy is inspired. Ora Jones has a stand-out comedic performance as Grace’s nervous-wreck of a friend lurking on stage at the epicenter of a blackmail scheme. Shariba Rivers as the maid also had the audience buzzing as she collects coats, listens in from the stairs and eventually indulges in a glass of sherry herself as everything unravels.

Perhaps the best part of “The Nacirema Society” is as you find yourself belly laughing from start to finish, you are also deeply moved. This play stands strong as a delightful piece of theater that connects us through its content and characters all while creating an exuberant community in that experience.  

GUEST CONTRIBUTOR | KAITLYN LINSNER is a Chicago-based attorney practicing construction and surety law.

PHOTO|Liz Lauren

GOODMAN THEATRE
presents
The Nacirema Society
EXTENDED through October 22
Albert Theatre
170 N. Dearborn St.

(312) 443-3800

WEBSITE

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PICKSINSIX Review: GYPSY: A MUSICAL FABLE

‘GYPSY’ WILL TAKE YOUR BREATH AWAY! 

Like the scene out of a famous Buster Keaton film, the front wall of the Ruth Page Center for the Arts rattled and shook for over two hours on Tuesday night and then fell forward in one monumental crash all over North Dearborn. The only thing left standing amid the rubble was the extraordinary E. Faye Butler whose jaw-dropping portrayal of Rose in Porchlight Music Theatre’s “GYPSY: A Musical Fable” created such a seismic shift that the aftershock is still being felt at a 1920s vaudeville house in Omaha. But there she was, beaming that beautifully, broad smile, in one of Bill Morey’s many stunning outfits, with dozens of roses coming up all around her. You have never seen a “GYPSY” like this one — arguably Porchlight’s finest and most ambitious production to date — and it will be talked about for a long, long time.

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Artistic Director Michael Weber, known for envisioning big, bold innovative treatments of classic musicals, has raised the artistic bar at their new home in the Ruth Page Center. It is only the second season at Ruth Page, and 24th overall for the award-winning Porchlight organization, but Weber has now unlocked a fascinating new treatment of the classic Arthur Laurents book with music by Jules Styne and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim that churns through the early days of Rose’s quest to make a better life than she had for her daughter’s June and Louise, who becomes the famous Gypsy Rose Lee.  

It is vitally important to state at this juncture that Weber sets things up so simply, and with such fitting and expert attention to Styne’s beautiful music and the backstory, that you begin to wonder how all of this is going to play out. Then, in one sweeping motion, courtesy of scenic designer Jeffrey D. Kmiec and choreographer Chris Carter, we are catapulted into the vaudeville theater circuit and the heart of this wonderful story. That moment — and everything else about this glorious production of “GYPSY” — will take your breath away!

Among the principal roles, in a cast that numbers close to 30, there are standout performances from José Antonio García (Herbie), Aalon Smith, (June) and Daryn Whitney Harrell (Louise) who evolves into the sultry Gypsy Rose. Harrell and Smith shine in “If Momma Was Married” and the trio of Butler, García and Whitney deliver the fun and tuneful favorite “Together, Wherever We Go.” The Ensemble, which includes a slew of youthful performers, most notably the charming newcomer Izzie Rose (Baby June), are all terrific, as are the featured roles rendered by Marco Tzunux (Tulsa), Larry Baldacci (Uncle Jocko/Mr. Goldstone/Pastey) and Elya Faye Bottiger (Agnes).

Backstage at the burlesque house, nothing could be finer than having the enormous talents of Melissa Young (Tessie Tura), Dawn Bless (Mazeppa), and Honey West (Electra) in the horn-blowing, tassle-turning, electrifying number “You Gotta Get A Gimmick.”

David Fiorello’s superb music direction and the seven-piece ensemble is on fire all night long. Butler’s powerful interpretations of “Some People,” the delightfully funny “Mr. Goldstone” and “Everything‘s Coming Up Roses” are unforgettable highlights. It is the iconic “Rose’s Turn,” however, that makes the house shake, rattle and roar, and forever changes the description of “Showstopper” to: “E. Faye Butler in ‘GYPSY: A Musical Fable’ at Porchlight!”

PHOTOS|MICHAEL COURIER

PORCHLIGHT MUSIC THEATRE
Presents
GYPSY: A MUSICAL FABLE
EXTENDED through December 29th
RUTH PAGE CENTER FOR THE ARTS
1016 N. Dearborn St. Chicago
(773) 777-9884

WEBSITE

Our CONVERSATION with Director Michael Weber is available on Apple Podcasts, Libsyn and Stitcher.

For more reviews, visit: Theatre In Chicago

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