Jonathan’s round-up of the latest on Broadway and beyond
By Jonathan AbarbanelJonathan’s round-up of the latest on Broadway and beyond
By Jonathan AbarbanelChicago Cabaret Professionals, having just completed a spectacular gala at Park West, now is planning its annual Merry Melodies holiday shows at Davenport’s, Dec. 5 & 6, which will feature a different line-up of Chicago’s diverse cabaret talent each evening. Each solo or duel spot is limited to two songs, so Merry Melodies will offer an ever-changing vista of holiday-themed musical entertainment.
If you’re reading this late, you may be too late. Little-known fact: on the 25th of each month, Broadway In Chicago offers a limited supply of $25 tickets for several of its touring Broadway shows. The shows offered today are Mary Poppins (at the Cadillac Palace through Nov. 6) and Ann (Holland Taylor’s tribute to late Texas governor Ann Richards), at the Bank of American Theatre Nov. 13-Dec. 4. The only catch: you can only access the tix through Broadway In Chicago’s Facebook page. They call the promo “$25 on the 25th.”
And next Wednesday is the 90th anniversary of the opening of the Chicago Theatre, designed in 1921 in florid French baroque style by the architect brothers George and Cornelius Rapp. The 3400-seat house, originally home to the greatest vaudeville headliners, was a crown jewel of the Balaban and Katz theater chain, and continued to offer a live stage show and a hit movie into the 1960’s before shuttering and falling into decay. It’s the place where, as a boy, I first saw Louis Armstrong live during one of the stage shows. The house was lavishly restored in the 1980’s.
For Light Opera Works, the bricks-and-mortar story is neither an old theatre nor a new one. In the first major change to its physical set-up in years, Light Opera Works (LOW) has acquired new administrative and rehearsal headquarters that take its offices from Evanston to Wilmette and give the company its first proper rehearsal space that isn’t begged or rented on-the-cheap. The new HQ for the 31 year-old company will be the former Duxler Tire Center at 516 4th Street, a half-block from the Linden CTA Purple Line stop. An advantageous five-year lease will allow LOW to hold rehearsals for the first time in a suitably spacious facility, with a sprung dance floor, that replicates the company’s performance space, Northwestern University’s Cahn Auditorium. The new rehearsal center will be rented to other theater companies, dance instructors and fitness classes when not in use by LOW. It also means there’s a new box office phone number for patrons: (847) 920-5360. Web address remains the same: The next Light Opera Works show is The Secret Garden, Dec. 26-Jan. 1.