Articles tagged with: Gary Griffin
‘Six Corners’ at American Blues Theater: Murder at a train stop, seen in shifting lights
Review: Nick Moroni and Bernadette Perez are married (not to each other) mid-career Chicago cops burning late oil at the precinct shop, bantering, shuffling papers, watching the clock, waiting to check out so they can check into a motel together. This little slice of their lives provides the frame for Keith Huff’s “Six Corners,” a pulp-fiction drama at American Blues Theater that modulates from sad to sadder before it ends in the precincts of nobility. ★★★
As King Charles III approaches throne at CST, moral crisis and iambic pentameter engulf him
Review: Not very far into Mike Bartlett’s “King Charles III,” directed by Gary Griffin at Chicago Shakespeare Theater, I found myself wondering how it all might work telescoped into a monodrama and spoken – not declaimed, heaven help us – by Robert Bathurst, the king in waiting here and the one actor in view who seemed to understand that blank verse is not speech set to the head-pounding of a jackhammer. ★★
‘Gypsy’ at Chicago Shakespeare: This Rose puts fresh blush on Sondheim’s star-gazer
Review: Chicago Shakespeare Theater has given us a “Gypsy” for our own time, one that embraces the difference that 55 years have made since the brassy blockbuster first strutted onto the stage. As directed by Gary Griffin, it’s a gritty roadshow musical with a surprisingly contemporary and tender heart. ★★★★★
Theater 2013-14: Victory Gardens, predictably unpredictable, gets rolling with two premieres
17th in a series of season previews: Victory Gardens is a theater company built on new plays, says artistic director Chay Yew: “Our audiences comes expecting to see the unexpected.” Thus the 2013-14 season opens Nov. 15 with the “co-world premiere” of Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ “Appropriate,” about three adult siblings circling – and colliding – over the division of their deceased father’s estate. And that’s followed by the world premiere of Marcus Gardley’s “The Gospel of Lovingkindness.”
Shakespeare rules the playbill as Stratford unveils plans for its 2014 summer festival
Report: While the Stratford Festival has shed its branding association with the Bard of Avon, any concerns that the festival might really be loosening its traditional ties with Shakespeare should be allayed by newly announced plans for the summer of 2014. The Bard abounds. The festival’s five Shakespeare productions will include two takes on “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” — a full-scale account and a “chamber” version for just four players directed by one of the world’s most innovative masters of stagecraft, Peter Sellars.
Oh, what a beautiful show: Lyric ‘Oklahoma!’ sweeps the plain with bounty of song, dance
Review: ★★★★★
In a vibrant brush with ‘Sunday in the Park,’ Chicago Shakespeare connects all the dots
Review: ★★★★★
The New Season: Chicago Shakespeare offers a walk ‘In the Park with George’ and a premiere
15th in a series of season previews: Chicago Shakespeare Theater’s 2012-13 season will extend artistic director Barbara Gaines’ deep exploration of the Bard with “Henry VIII” as associate artistic director Gary Griffin adds a Sondheim encore to last year’s hit production of “Follies.” And Gaines will direct what she calls “the funniest play I ever read” in the Chicago premiere of David Ives’ comedy “The School for Lies,” a romping modern spin on Molière’s “The Misanthrope.”
‘42nd Street’ at Stratford: By any other name, this musical rose would still be just as sweet
Broadway’s tap classic. 4 stars!
Darn that ‘Dream’ – Chicago Shakespeare does double take on Bard’s lovers, fairies
It’s a midsummer night… 4 stars!
Sondheim’s ‘Follies’ at CST: Broadway glitz and glamour, with all the endearing bruises
At Chi. Shakespeare Theater. 5 stars!
