PicksInSix Review: Guys and Dolls - Drury Lane Theatre

Shake the Dice. Save a Soul!
PicksInSix® Review | Ed Tracy

Looking for the oldest established permanent floating crap game in New York with tough guys packing heat and cracking wise while a couple of old-time love stories unwind in locales as exotic as Havanna and the Hot Box Club? If so, then, the rock’em sock’em revival of the 1950 Tony Award winning “Guys and Dolls” now playing at Drury Lane Oakbrook is the show for you.  

Director/choreographer Dan Knechtges with co-music directors Roberta Duchak and Chris Sargent, who also conducts, have assembled an impressive ensemble of multi-talented performers for a highly-charged production showcasing the most cherished music and lyrics of Broadway’s legendary songsmith Frank Loesser and a book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows based on Daymon Runyon’s stories and characters. The cavalcade of Loesser hits like the touching ballads “I’ll Know” and “More I Cannot Wish You,” the superb bigtime, song and dance spectacles “A Bushel and a Peck,” “Luck be a Lady,” and “Sit Down You’re Rocking the Boat,” make Drury Lane’s “Guys and Dolls” a musical extravaganza that pokes good-natured fun of the rough and tough guys and the glitzy glamor dolls from Runyon’s creative imagination.

As the story unfolds, the lovable huckster Nathan Detroit (Jackson Evans) has been unofficially engaged for 14 years to the vivacious Miss Adelaide (Alanna Lovely), headliner at the Hot Box Club. Adelaide is trying to get him to stop gambling and settle down to the life she has imagined all along. Meanwhile, Detroit and his ‘associates” Nicely-Nicely (Nkrumah Gatling) and Benny (Christopher Llewyn Ramirez) are trying to get a spot for some nightly action and stay a step or two ahead of the law in the process.

Against the backdrop of petty larceny and bawdy late night revelry, the dutiful missionary Sarah Brown (Erica Stephan), struggling to make a difference one sinner at a time at the Save-A-Soul Mission, falls hard and fast for the suave, high-stakes charmer Sky Masterson (Pepe Nufrio). When the love table turns on Sky, he finds himself suddenly searching for any way to win her back again including making good on his mark to fill up the evening prayer meeting to impress the zany General Cartwright (Heidi Kettenring) and save the mission from closing.

Drury Lane Theatre presents “Guys and Dolls” through June 9, 2024. More information and tickets HERE.

Stephan and Nufrio are perfect together. Their rich vocals and chemistry shine in the heartfelt Act I closer “My Time of Day/I’ve Never Been in Love Before.” Stephan, one of Chicago’s top performers, is simply marvelous. Nufrio’s smooth and effortless Sky is spot on in “My Time of Day,” and with the brilliant ensemble in “Luck Be a Lady.” Lovely sparkles as Adelaide, displaying excellent comedic chops in “Adelaide’s Lament” and singing, dancing and leading the Hot Box Girls in a sizzling version of “Take Back Your Mink” while chumming up with Evans’s hilarious and heartwarming Nathan for lots of laughs and their touching duet “Sue Me.”

Back at the mission, Gene Weygandt’s serves up a splendid Arvide Abernathy, Kettenring is a riot and everybody gets in the act when Gatling explodes into the rousing crowd favorite “Sit Down You’re Rocking the Boat.” Angela Weber Miller’s scenic design, framed in a glistening Broadway skyline, alternates seamlessly between the relatively solemn confines of the mission to the gritty underbelly of the city and the sultry Hot Box Club where Leon Dobkowski’s stunning costumes set the place on fire. All in, Drury Lane’s “Guys and Dolls” is a night filled of 7’s and 11’s for every high stakes roller in the audience.  

PHOTO|Brett Beiner

Drury Lane Theatre
presents
Guys and Dolls
100 Drury Lane
Oakbrook Terrace
through June 9, 2024

WEBSITE

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PicksInSix Review: Little Shop of Horrors - Paramount Theatre

Boy Meets Girl Meets Bloodthirsty Plant.
PicksInSix® Review | Ed Tracy

There’s a little show about plant food and world domination that’s getting a big-stage theatrical revival at a theatre near you. The smash hit 1982 Off-Broadway musical “Little Shop of Horrors” featuring book and lyrics by Howard Ashman and music by Alan Menken is currently blooming nightly in a fast-paced and highly entertaining production directed by Landree Fleming at the Paramount Theatre in Aurora.

For the humble and lovable Seymour Krelborn (Jack Ball), being on Skid Row as a junior employee at Mushnik’s Flower Distributors is looking more and more like a dead-end job every day. It doesn’t help that the awkward and inept Seymour is hopelessly infatuated with his coworker, Audrey (Teressa LaGamba), who happens to be entangled with a sick, demented and abusive lover Orin (Russell Mernagh), the nitrous oxide addicted dentist from hell you love to hate.

The Mushnik flower shop is on a perennial bubble of its own. With his inventory shriveling and not one sale for the day, the dejected Mushnik (Gene Weygandt) is about to throw in his trowel and pull the door shades down for the final time. Grasping for a hopeful life-vine, Audrey urges Seymour to bring out his newest project, a fascinating and irresistible plant he has dutifully named “Audrey II” in honor of the woman of his dreams.

What starts out as fun-loving camp turns quickly to ghoulish satire with a succulent score and a top rate ensemble led by Ball and LaGamba as the unwitting marks for the charismatic, and inherently evil, foliage from another planet that has a taste for world domination and fresh hemoglobin. It’s Ball’s Seymour who is first enchanted into feeding his own fancy for fame and fortune until those closest to him begin to succumb to Audrey II’s insatiable erythrocytic appetite.

Along the way, Ashman and Menken’s brilliant collaboration shines in the capable hands of music director Kory Danielson who conducts the Paramount Band and choreography by Michael George and Mariah Morris. LaGamba’s lofty and poignant rendition of “Somewhere That’s Green” and the superb duet with Ball “Suddenly, Seymour” are particular highlights. Standout performances abound from the Urchins—Lydia Burke (Crystal), Tickwanya Jones (Ronnette) and Marta Bady (Chiffon)—who serve as the show’s Greek chorus, to Weygandt’s irascible turn as Mushnik in “Mushnik and Son.”

The magnificent multi-level Skid Row set is the work of Jeffrey D. Kimec. Add Jose Santiago’s crisp lighting and Yvonne Miranda’s evocative 60s era costumes and you have the perfect backdrop for the ever-present, and all-consuming, Audrey II—voiced by Je’Shaun Jackson and puppeteered by Adam Fane—designed and created by Skylight Music Theatre and the props team who are working overtime for this show and make Paramount’s “Little Shop of Horrors” a creeping-crawling hit that’s good to the last drop!     

PHOTO|Liz Lauren

Paramount Theatre
presents
LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS
through October 15, 2023

23 East Galena Boulevard
Aurora, IL 60506

(630) 896–6666

WEBSITE

TICKETS

HEALTH & SAFETY PROTOCALS

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PicksInSix Theater Review: The Wizard of Oz

DOROTHY AND FRIENDS ELECTRIFY PARAMOUNT’S ‘OZ’

Bolts of lighting and seat-shaking thunder claps. Twirling graphics and flashes of light that are so startling that the poor lady in front of me popped out of her seat. Spiraling cones swirling around Dorothy (Elizabeth Stenholt) as she was perched atop a rig holding on for dear life in the middle of the twister that propels her from Kansas to the magical Land of Oz. And once the twister stops, the relative calm and beauty that follows is all pretty much by the L. Frank Baum book (as adapted by John Kane) as Dorothy meets up with the Scarecrow (Kyle Adams), Tinman (Carl Draper) and Cowardly Lion (Paul-Jordan Jansen) who must face all manner of threats from the Wicked Witch of the West (Caron Buinis) to get back home again.

Every stage production of “The Wizard of Oz” must first come to terms with our own perception of the 1939 film classic starring Judy Garland. When I first saw the film on a creaky console television set in the late 50s, all I could think about for days was the vision of Margaret Hamilton bursting through the screen into our living room. Without the benefit of a dvr to replay it, I had only the immediate memory that would have to serve until the film came around again. Through no fault of my own, I did not know the Wicked Witch was green or that Oz was in color until I saw the actual film at a screening in 1973. Our television way back then was black and white.

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That feeling of discovery is exactly what it is like to watch “The Wizard of Oz” live, particularly in a big stage, fully-loaded, hi-tech treatment like the one that opened Saturday at Paramount Theatre in Aurora. Expertly cast by director/choreographer Amber Mak, the show is stacked with seasoned talent from top to bottom. Making her Paramount debut, Stenholt’s startlingly fresh, electrifying performance of “Over the Rainbow” and her journey in Oz is extraordinary. It helps to be clutching the best and most accomplished Toto, too. Nessa, trained by William Berloni, not only looks the part, but accomplishes everything short of biting Almira Gulch.

Each of Dorothy’s stalwart companions in Oz elevate this sumptuous, brilliantly-crafted production by making each of their performances classically unique. Adams limbo-like contortions and comic range combine with his innate ability to make the all-important emotional connection between the Scarecrow and Dorothy. (He also has the biggest laughline of the night, but I won’t tell you which one.) Draper knocks “If I Only Had a Heart” out of the park, in a tap-dance number that is not an easy assignment for a Tinman carrying an axe and romping about with rusted joints. Jansen, shows why his Cowardly Lion is King of Forest with vocal chops that simultaneously bark and roar.

Even though we know they are coming, the scenes with Buinis as the fiendish Gulch and the Wicked Witch will have you on the edge of your seat. Professor Marvel/Wizard (Gene Weygandt), Auntie Em/Glinda (Harriet Nzinga Plumpp) and Uncle Henry/Emerald City Guard are picture perfect. Everyone looks magical in the Theresa Ham designed costumes from the adorable Munchkins and the Winkies to the brightly emerald-clad residents of the Emerald City. The exquisite Harold Arlen and E. Y. “Yip” Harburg score is under the very capable musical direction of conductor Kory Danielson. With over two dozen imaginative puppets – crows, jitterbugs, flying-monkeys, the crabby-apple trees (Emily Agy, Allyson Graves and Leah Morrow) and more – by Jesse Mooney-Bullock, the atmosphere is whimsical and fun, all set up by the masterful scenic design by Kevin Depinet and Christopher Rhoton, lighting design by Greg Hoffman, projection designer Kevan Loney and sound by Adam Rosenthal.

When all the world is hopeless jumble, it is good to know that some things can always be counted upon to help you make your dreams come true. The time-honored story of “The Wizard of Oz” live on stage is an experience for young and old of all ages which makes the Paramount production perfect family fare for the holiday season, and brings new meaning to the lyric: Fa La La La La La La La La La!      

PHOTOS|Liz Lauren



THE PARAMOUNT THEATRE
Presents
THE WIZARD OF OZ
through January 6th
23 East Galena Boulevard
Aurora
(630) 896–6666

WEBSITE

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