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Articles by Lawrence B. Johnson

Silk Road Rising probes life in Muslim society from the Far East to Middle East to America

Feb 18, 2016 – 8:38 am
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Preview: Preview: The spirit of Chicago’s Silk Road Rising theater lies in its name, says artistic director Jamil Khoury. It’s about the global span of connectedness along the ancient corridor linking Middle Eastern desert peoples to the Far East, and the modern extension to life in America, Silk Road Rising opens its winter season Feb. 20 with the premiere of Ronnie Malley’s “Ziryab: The Songbird of Andalusia,” about a famed 9th-century musician.

‘Mothers and Sons’ at Northlight: Gay peace achieved, bitter mom presses her private war

Feb 17, 2016 – 8:59 am
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Review: There is a quality, an esprit, about Terrence McNally’s “Mothers and Sons” that transcends mere affirmation of what one might characterize as gay normalcy. The play, now in a tightly knit and persuasive production directed by Steve Scott at Northlight Theatre, has a spiritually cleansing essence – and a resolute narrative that is nothing short of celebratory. ★★★

What good is sitting alone in your room? Willkommen to a beautiful, bleak ‘Cabaret’

Feb 16, 2016 – 9:00 am
Cabaret
Providence Performing Arts Center

CABARET
Book by Music by
Joe Masteroff John Kander
Based on the play by JOHN VAN DRUTEN and stories by CHRISTOPHER ISHERWOOD
starring
Randy Harrison Andrea Goss
Shannon Cochran Alison Ewing Mark Nelson Ned Noyes Kelsey Beckert Sarah Bishop Margaret Dudasik Hillary Ekwall Lori Eure
Andrew Hubacher
Set Design by Robert Brill
Orchestrations Michael Gibson
Hair & Wig Design Paul Huntley
Technical Supervisor Larry Morley
Associate Managing Director
Steve Dow
Executive Producer Sydney Beers
Lee Aaron Rosen
Aisling Halpin Leeds Hill Joey Khoury Tommy McDowell Evan D. Siegel Dani Spieler Steven Wenslawski
Musical Supervisor/Vocal Arrangements
Patrick Vaccariello
Associate Choreographer & Choreography Recreated by Cynthia Onrubia
Directed by
BT McNicholl
Originally Co-Directed & Choreographed by
Rob Marshall
Originally Directed by
Sam Mendes
Costume Design by William Ivey Long
Dance & Incidental Music David Krane
Casting
Jim Carnahan, C.S.A. Jillian Cimini, C.S.A.
Tour Booking Agency The Booking Group Meredith Blair
Director of Marketing
& Audience Development
Robert Sweibel
General Manager Richards/Climan, Inc.
Lighting Design by Peggy Eisenhauer Mike Baldassari
Music Director Robert Cookman
Production Stage Manager John M. Atherlay
Press & Marketing Direction Type A Marketing
Director of Development Lynne Gugenheim Gregory
Sound Design by
Keith Caggiano
Based on the Original Broadway design by Brian Ronan
*Generously underwritten by Margot Adams, in memory of Mason Adams Roundabout Theatre Company is a member of the Broadway League and League of Resident Theatres. RoundaboutTheatre.org
National Tour Launch: January 26 - 31, 2016
Lyrics by
Fred Ebb
Founding Director Gene Feist
Adams Associate Artistic Director*
Scott Ellis

Emcee.............................................................................................................................. RANDY HARRISON The Kit Kat Girls:
Rosie ......................................................................................................................... HILLARY EKWALL Lulu...................................................................................................................................DANI SPIELER Frenchie........................................................................................................................AISLING HALPIN Texas. ................................................................................................................. MARGARET DUDASIK Fritzie ..............................................................................................................................ALISON EWING Helga...............................................................................................................................SARAH BISHOP
The Kit Kat Boys:
Bobby .................................................................................................................................... LEEDS HILL Victor...................................................................................................................ANDREW HUBACHER Hans .............................................................................................................................. EVAN D. SIEGEL Herman.................................................................................................................. TOMMY McDOWELL
Sally Bowles ...........................................................................................................................ANDREA GOSS Clifford Bradshaw .......................................................................................................... LEE AARON ROSEN Ernst Ludwig................................................................................................................................NED NOYES Customs Official .......................................................................................................... TOMMY McDOWELL Fräulein Schneider ..................................................................................................... SHANNON COCHRAN Fräulein Kost..........................................................................................................................ALISON EWING Rudy ..................................................................................................................................... EVAN D. SIEGEL Herr Schultz ...........................................................................................................................MARK NELSON Max .............................................................................................................................. TOMMY McDOWELL Gorilla ................................................................................................................................. AISLING HALPIN Boy Soprano (recording).......................................................................................................... ALEX BOWEN Customs Official (recording) ........................................................................................................ FRED ROSE

Review: If there are two words not commonly associated with touring Broadway shows, they are daring and courageous. Both apply in stunning fashion to “Cabaret,” a not-to-be-missed experience presented by Broadway in Chicago at PrivateBank Theatre. ★★★★★

On large scale and small, Rozhdestvensky’s festive visit with CSO leaves fond memories

Feb 13, 2016 – 1:13 pm
2/11/16 8:12:06 PM -- Chicago Symphony Orchestra 125th Year.


Maestro Gennady Rozhdestvensky conducts Sibelius' Rakastava


© Todd Rosenberg Photography 2016

Review: As the Chicago Symphony Orchestra has no other festival planned for the current season, let us declare the past two weekends – two completely different but equally marvelous musical encounters — as Rozhdestvensky Fest. After leading his scheduled week of Shostakoivch concerts, the 84-year-old Russian conductor Gennady Rozhdestvensky took over for an ailing Riccardo Muti in a second, more intimate program.

‘The Drawer Boy’ at Redtwist: Tragedy buried in distant past, and a present unremembered

Feb 9, 2016 – 7:47 pm
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Review: Inevitable in every theater season is the sleeper play, the one you overlook: the curiously titled unknown quantity you don’t quite connect with as a lure from the hearth on a cold Thursday night. Such an unforeseeable beauty and memorable winner, a genuine sleeper, is Michael Healey’s “The Drawer Boy” at Redtwist Theatre. ★★★★

CHICAGO WINE JOURNAL: Gina Gallo signs pride of authorship on Cabernet Sauvignon

Feb 8, 2016 – 4:42 pm
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Tasting Report: The name Gallo may invoke a vast enterprise that produces a raft of wines under a great many labels. But the company also has another side, one more suggestive of a boutique operation, that offers a robust, complex Cabernet Sauvignon bearing the imprimatur of winemaker Gina Gallo.

‘The Mutilated’ at A Red Orchid: Two lonely souls touched by Tennessee Williams’ grace

Feb 6, 2016 – 1:01 pm
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Review: Life, Tennessee Williams’ plays insist again and again, is a painful passage. Bitter, sweet, paradoxical, farcical. Never mind that other business about sound and fury and nothingness. Williams views the world through a lens of dark existential comedy, and it is on display in all its sad glory in A Red Orchid Theatre’s trenchant take on “The Mutilated.” ★★★★

‘Sunset Baby’ at TimeLine: Empty past, sordid present, fragile dreams haunt crusader’s child

Feb 2, 2016 – 8:11 pm
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Review: Nina’s life is nowhere. She’s a twentysomething black girl with no real prospects, living in a dumpy apartment and attached – emotionally, financially, perhaps forcibly – to a tough but needy dude with great dreams and no solid plan. Then who should pop back into her tenuous world but her dad, she would say dad in name only, once a big player in the black power movement and recently released from prison. The old man wants something. Nina just wants him out. That’s the setup for Dominique Morisseau’s taut, gritty, redemptive play “Sunset Baby,” in a blistering account at TimeLine Theatre. ★★★★

In Russian troupe’s ‘Measure for Measure,’ virtue and its opposite bear a close kinship

Jan 29, 2016 – 5:14 pm
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Review: One well might argue that Shakespeare’s “Measure for Measure” is a less than perfect play. But the neatly framed picture of hypocrisy at its core is so clear, indeed so ringingly universal in its human embrace, that it resonates in any culture. Witness the Russian-language production (with English supertitles) that officially popped the cork Jan. 27 on Shakespeare 400 Chicago, a yearlong aggregation of events dramatic and otherwise spearheaded by Chicago Shakespeare Theater. ★★★★

Chicago Shakespeare Theater lights lamps, world comes in remembrance of the Bard

Jan 27, 2016 – 5:15 pm
MEASURE FOR MEASURE by Shakespeare,             , Writer - William Shakespeare, Director - Declan Donnellan, Designer - Nick Ormerod, Lighting - Sergei Skornetsky, Paris, 2015, Credit: Johan Persson/

Preview: This year marks the 400th anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare, and surely nowhere is that big round number being observed with greater zeal, diversity and, well, relentlessness than here in Chicago-Upon-Avon. Throughout 2016, the plays of Shakespeare, adaptations of the plays in various forms and creative applications of Shakespearean themes will be found across the metro area in a coordinated, nonstop festival dubbed Shakespeare 400 Chicago.

CHICAGO WINE JOURNAL: Burgundy’s range is reflected in two beauties from Leclerc, Gille

Jan 25, 2016 – 5:07 pm
Gille Chambolle

Tasting Report: The power, the finesse and the sheer intellectual engagement that stamp top-quality red Burgundy wines were amply displayed in youthful, sharply contrasting examples I recently tasted from two producers in the famed Côte d’Or, Domaine Gille and Domaine René Leclerc.

‘Satchmo at the Waldorf’: As Louis Armstrong nears end, he recalls a winding path to fame

Jan 22, 2016 – 9:24 am
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Review: Terry Teachout’s “Satchmo at the Waldorf,” a one-man bio-drama on the life of jazz trumpeter Louis Armstrong, is an affecting, often surprising and raspingly funny alchemy of brass and clay. it is a lively, engaging fiction but also a credible portrait with a human heart. ★★★

CHICAGO WINE JOURNAL: Sbragia’s Merlot makes a regal splash from a bargain bottle

Jan 19, 2016 – 4:58 pm
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Tasting Report: It’s always such a smile-inducing pleasure to come upon a wine that exceeds all expectations in its price class. A terrific example is Sbragia Family Vineyards’ Dry Creek Valley Sonoma Home Ranch Merlot 2012, a wine stuffed with the goods to compete well beyond its modest price of $24.

‘Bruise Easy’ at American Theater: Miserable siblings recall childhood with Mommy dearest

Jan 18, 2016 – 4:35 pm
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Review: There’s a critical difference between a play that is intensely provocative and one that is essentially an unfinished puzzle. Dan LeFranc’s “Bruise Easy,” now in its world premiere run at American Theater Company, falls into the latter category. It is a tale fraught with sex and monosyllables, signifying we know not what. ★★

CHICAGO WINE JOURNAL: Santa Duc draws arc of splendor with old-vines Gigondas

Jan 15, 2016 – 4:33 pm
The stony clay soil of Santa Duc's Hautes Garrigues produces superb Gigondas

Mulling Wine: To glimpse the poor, stony soil is to wonder how it could ever produce the grapes that Domaine Santa Duc in turn translates into some of the most seductive wine in the Southern Rhône Valley appellation of Gigondas. But the proof was there in a palate-pleasing, indeed eye-opening vertical sampler of Santa Duc’s single-vineyard, old-vine Gigondas Prestige des Hautes Garrigues.

CHICAGO WINE JOURNAL: Brancaia delivers three Tuscans that are super and then some

Jan 11, 2016 – 3:56 pm
Brancaia estate

Tasting Report: The wines of Tuscan producer Brancaia are well worth seeking out. There’s something exceptional here to meet budgets across a wide range. An array of Brancaia wines were served at an off-beat cheese party at the East Loop Chicago restaurant Tesori, when chef Danny Sweis sliced into a new 80-pound wheel of parmesan.

CHICAGO WINE JOURNAL: With elegant 2014 Viognier, Darioush does a beauty one better

Jan 6, 2016 – 4:04 pm
Sub Viognier

Tasting Report: One of the great pleasures of a visit to France’s Northern Rhone Valley is the luscious Viognier produced in Condrieu. I would have said it was matchless – until I had the equally happy experience of the Viognier from Darioush in California’s Napa Valley. The Darioush Viognier is a recent discovery for me. I first tasted it in the 2013 vintage – a lovely expression of white wine that in its combination of buttery depth and finesse evoked not only the Viognier of Condrieu but also the plush majesty of the top Chardonnays in Burgundy. And the newly released 2014 may prove to be even better.

Six-fold thriller: Lincoln Center chamber group makes a grand sweep of Bach ‘Brandenburgs’

Dec 18, 2015 – 6:46 am
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Review: In a strictly transcendental sense, Bach being the quasi-divine figure that he is in the pantheon of Western art music, the traversal of his six “Brandenburg” Concertos by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, on Dec. 17 at the Harris Theater, rocked.

Two sparkling treasures to stuff a stocking: CSO’s ‘Messiah’ and Joffrey’s ‘Nutcracker’

Dec 13, 2015 – 7:04 am
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Review: ’Tis the season when the mere names of Handel and Tchaikovsky conjure two of the most beloved works for concert hall and stage in Western culture. That affection radiates through splendorous continuing productions of Handel’s “Messiah” by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus at Orchestra Hall and the Joffrey Ballet’s “The Nutcracker” at the Auditorium Theatre.

Role Playing: Sandra Marquez, as Clytemnestra, sees an exceptional woman in the Greek queen

Dec 5, 2015 – 8:30 am
Sandra-Marquez

Interview: What would she, this modern woman, have done in the place of a legendary queen who has been abandoned by her warring husband, a man who also has sacrificed their daughter for the sake of his military campaign? That was the question on Sandra Marquez’s mind as she approached her complex portrayal of the vengeful Clytemnestra in Aeschylus’ “Agamemnon” at Court Theatre.

‘Agamemnon’ at Court: Queen welcomes king with smile and nice bath in his own hot blood

Dec 2, 2015 – 5:52 pm
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Review: Agamemnon, king of Argos and commander of the vast Greek expeditionary force that conquered Troy after 10 years of fighting, is home from the war at last – victorious, exhausted and, not least, wreathed in guilt. That is the proposition of Aeschylus’ tragedy “Agamemnon,” which now enters its final weekend of performances in an imaginative, keen-edged production at Court Theatre directed by Charles Newell. ★★★★★

‘The Merry Widow’ at Lyric Opera: Slow start, then Pop! – bubbles and, mais oui, grisettes

Nov 23, 2015 – 2:53 pm
11/11/15 1:21:27 PM -- 
The Lyric Opera of Chicago Presents
"The Merry Widow"
Renée Fleming, 
Nicole Cabell, 
and Thomas Hampson

© Todd Rosenberg Photography 2015

Review: If it had been opening night for the Lyric Opera production of Franz Lehár’s “The Merry Widow,” one might have understood the stark contrast between the dismal walk-through of the first act and the sustained vivacity suddenly on display post-intermission. One might have chalked it up to a calming of collective nerves. But as this was the second performance, the first-night excuse hardly applies. I daresay the show is what it seemed to be: egregiously uneven. ★★★

Berg’s high-intensity opera ‘Wozzeck’ dual firsts for veteran conductor Davis, director McVicar

Oct 30, 2015 – 9:54 am
Wozzeck preview feature image

Preview: He could be talking about Puccini’s “La boheme” or Verdi’s “La traviata” or Bizet’s “Carmen,” but when Anthony Freud, general director of the Lyric Opera of Chicago, says, “I would encourage anyone who has never experienced opera to give it a try,” he’s referring to none of the above. Freud means Alban Berg’s harrowing Expressionist music-drama “Wozzeck.”

Role Playing: Brian Parry says he summoned courage before wit as George in ‘Virginia Woolf’

Oct 23, 2015 – 8:18 am
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Interview: In the thimble-size playing space of Redtwist Theatre, Brian Parry is reminded every night of the plain truth in playwright Edward Albee’s admonition to any actor who takes on the role of George, the battle-worn husband and semi-satisfied college professor in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” – that it will be the workout of a lifetime.

Theater 2015-16: Paint still wet on its new name, Irish Theatre of Chicago expands to third play

Oct 12, 2015 – 9:57 pm
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19th in a series of season previews: Irish Theatre of Chicago took on its present name last season some 20 years after beginning life under the banner of Seanachai Theatre. Commencing its third decade with Geraldine Aron’s one-woman show “My Brilliant Divorce,” the rechristened Irish Theatre now spreads its wings by adding a third play to its season.

Theater 2015-16: Shattered Globe celebrates twofold 25th – its own and ‘Marvin’s Room’

Oct 4, 2015 – 9:44 am
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18th in a series of season previews: Shattered Globe Theatre opens its 25th anniversary season with a memorial tribute to Chicago playwright Scott McPherson, who died at age 33 in 1992, just two years after the premiere of “Marvin’s Room” at the Goodman Theatre. Sandy Shinner, Shattered Globe’s producing artistic director, calls this historic revival “a celebration of Scott’s life.” The season opens Oct. 4.

Mozart and Beethoven shine in hands of CSO; dust sticks to erstwhile premiere from archives

Oct 3, 2015 – 8:11 am
Riccardo Muti conducts Beethoven

Review: What was good was very good in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s concert with music director Riccardo Muti on Oct. 1 at Orchestra Hall. Then came the program’s bizarre second half, which recalled the previous week’s fare and left one wondering just how weird – and musically marginal – the CSO’s 125th anniversary season will turn out to be.

Theater 2015-16: Steep gets down and grapples with Linklater premiere, more Simon Stephens

Oct 1, 2015 – 1:06 pm
Kendra Thulin in the world premiere of 'The Cheats' at Steep Theatre. (Gregg Gilman)

17th in a series of season previews: Founding artistic director Peter Moore says Steep Theatre’s 15th season captures the essence of what this scrappy company is all about – “ground-level views of life.” That low-angle survey begins with the world premiere of Hamish Linklater’s “The Cheats,” about two neighboring couples who suddenly find themselves uncomfortably close.

Theater 2015-16: A gentlefolk’s guide to love, murder, other diversions at B’way in Chicago

Sep 30, 2015 – 4:11 pm
Poster of 'Kill Floor,' which played Lincoln Center in NY in the fall of 2015. Jonathan Berry will direct a new production of it for ATC in spring 2016. (LCT3)

16th in a series of season previews: Broadway in Chicago’s bountiful fall series of touring shows, crammed into four performance venues – Bank of America Theatre, Oriental Theatre, Cadillac Palace Theatre and Broadway Playhouse – opens with one of the hottest new musical comedies to come out of New York, “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder,” and winds up at the holidays with the pre-Broadway world premiere of “Gotta Dance,” a testament to youth as an expression not of age but of spirit.

‘Marriage of Figaro’ at Lyric Opera: Stellar voices prevail in a farcical take on Mozart’s comic gem

Sep 29, 2015 – 3:17 pm
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Review: If Mozart’s “The Marriage of Figaro” is inherently and effectively a bittersweet comedy that edges into farce, the new production directed by Barbara Gaines that opens the Lyric Opera of Chicago season reframes it as farce that edges into cartoon. This “Figaro,” conducted by the Hungarian Henrik Nánási in his American debut, fares best where a uniformly strong cast of singers is allowed to stand and deliver Mozart’s witty, touching, brilliant and wise arias and ensemble numbers. ★★★★