By Lawrence Bommer

CFP theater editor

If hope springs eternal, it lives and breathes in every show that yearns to be a hit. This year’s equinox beckons some very promising attractions, the newest in a theater scene that defines life as it advances its art. Here are the worthy prospects of our annual second season theater preview, as always arranged by interest and selected for impact.

 

Gay and lesbian fare
 Bailiwick Repertory continues its good luck with cutting-edge musicals such as “The Jerry Springer Show,” with the continuing local premiere of “A Man of No Importance,” the tender story of a Dublin bus conductor with an obsession with the works of Oscar Wilde. Created by Terrence McNally, Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens, it celebrates a civil servant who enchants his passengers with poetry readings by day and spends his nights directing the local community theater in plays by his idol. Through the course of tumultuous rehearsals for a production of Wilde’s “Salome” he comes to terms with his own true nature. (Sometimes life imitates art well enough to improve on the original.) Scott Ferguson directs. Next up, Bailiwick launches another big Chicago debut, “Hunchback of Notre Dame”—opening May 19 with book, music, and lyrics by Dennis DeYoung and a staging by artistic director David Zak, this new adaptation of the classic love story retells Victor Hugo’s depiction of twisted love in an unusual triangle.

About Face Theatre, the other gay troupe, presents its annual summer offering by their youth ensemble at the Center on Halsted: Paula Gilovich directs “HIV: History in Voices,” a drama that asks a big question: How do LGBT young people learn about their cultural inheritance of the AIDS crisis when the current educational system has banished them from contemporary conversations about sex and health? “HIV” uses music, dance, theater, and spoken word to explore new realities of intimacy, illness, and survival.

There’s a big buzz humming around another significant local premiere: Court Theatre’s Midwest premiere of Tony Kushner’s musical “Caroline, or Change,” with music by Jeanine Tesori. Depicting change in America during the 1960s, it focuses on 8-year-old Noah and Caroline Thibodeax, an African American housekeeper working in a stifling basement laundry room in Louisiana in 1963.  Blending blues, gospel, and traditional Jewish melodies in a breathtaking score, this offering from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “Angels in America” is drawn from the playwright’s childhood.

Opening April 7 at Victory Gardens Theaters, “Four Places” is the latest work by gay playwright Joel Drake Johnson, a dark family comedy about a cantankerous “everymom,” her middle-aged kids and an unusual lunch date at a local restaurant. Gay novelist E.M. Forster’s “A Passage to India” comes to the Theatre Building beginning April 8 with Vitalist Theatre’s revival of powerful portrait of a culture clash in colonial India that’s as much sexual as social. “Candles to the Sun,” Tennessee Williams’ early play about striking coal miners, enjoys an Eclipse Theatre local debut at the Theatre Building. Finally, “Hay Fever,” Noel Coward’s rollicking tribute to the neuroses of actors on opening night, plays June 23-August 3 at Circle Theatre in Forest Park.

 

Musicals
 “Carousel” continues its well-received revival at Court Theatre in a co-production with Long Wharf Theatre, as do “La Cage Aux Folles” at Theater at the Center and Marriott Theatre’s “Les Miserables,” the first local production of the Boublil blockbuster. (It’s followed by “Nunsense,” opening May 21.)

“Sweet Charity” is revived at Drury Lane Oakbrook Terrace this month and, beginning April 6, “Nine” by Porchlight Theatre at the Theatre Building. “Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story” plays Drury Lane Oakbrook, starting May 22. “Shout! The Mod Musical” begins a limited engagement at the Drury Lane Theatre Water Tower Place from April 30–June 22. This fast-paced jukebox musical journeys through the infectious and soulful pop anthems and ballads that made household names of such stars as Petula Clark, Dusty Springfield and Lulu. In this Austin Powers-like musical, hits such as “To Sir With Love,” “Downtown,” “You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me,” “Son of A Preacher Man” and “Goldfinger” frame the journey of five women during the liberating days of the 1960s that made England swing.

Broadway in Chicago carries on its reign of blockbusters with “Jersey Boys” packing them in at the La Salle Bank Theater and “The Drowsy Chaperone” receiving its local debut April 1 at the Cadillac Palace Theatre, to be followed at the Palace by a touring production of “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” (April 23-May 4). “Wicked” continues to enchant green-eyed audiences at the Oriental Theatre.

Opening April 20, a new musical by Chicago director David H. Bell and actor Michael Mahler celebrates the life of “Knute Rockne All-American” at Theatre at the Center. Starting July 17, that Indiana music theater then turns to Maury Yeston’s “Phantom.” Opening July 23, “The Full Monty” teases audiences at Marriott Theatre. August 14 is the opening night of Rodgers and Hart’s delightful “The Boys from Syracuse” at Drury Lane Oakbrook.

Premiering in September at Goodman Theatre, “Turn of the Century,” by Marshall Brickman and Ron Elice (writers of “Jersey Boys”), enlists nine-time Tony Award winner and National Medal of the Arts recipient Tommy Tune to direct the world premiere of this romantic comedy and nostalgic time trip. Beginning Sept. 18, Theater at the Center sends up “The Producers.” In December the Marriott Theatre’s “Little Women” gives song to Louisa Mae Alcott’s lovely story of daughters and sisters coming of age during the Civil War. TimeLine Theatre’s greatest hit, the rollicking election-year musical “Fiorello!,” earns its exclamation point in this rampaging revival, opening April 19 and featuring PJ Powers as the lovable Mayor Fiorello H. LaGuardia.

A different kind of musical graces the stage April 27 with the world premiere of Brett Neveu’s latest creation, Strawdog Theatre Ensemble’s “Old Town,” featuring live music (a 10-piece band) by ensemble member Mikhail Fiksel and a staging by Kyle Hamman. “Old Town” focuses on Chicago’s political machine, as a family dynasty has a reckoning with the fickle voting public.

Finally, here’s a curiosity that opens April 30 on the mainstage of the Royal George Theatre: In “Russian on the Side,” virtuoso Mark Nadler takes audiences on a 90-minute journey from Stravinsky to Sondheim. Along with music by Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein, Cole Porter, and Ira Gershwin, Nadler dishes scintillating gossip about these famed composers. “Russian on the Side” receives its Broadway premiere this fall.

 

Shakespeare and other classics
 The Bard is busy as ever: Opening April 27 at Chicago Shakespeare Theater on Navy Pier, “The Comedy of Errors” is the master’s first attempt at humor, a throwback to Plautus’ melange of mistaken identities and sexual humiliation. It’s staged by CST artistic director Barbara Gaines, in collaboration with Second City veteran Ron West. Set in 1940, during the golden age of film, “Comedy” presents an eccentric group of stage and screen actors assembled to film the play on an English movie set during World War II, in the midst of the London blitz.

Among other Bard comedies, a very well-received “As You Like It” runs through mid-April at Writers’ Theatre in Glencoe. Opening April 17, Greasy Joan & Co. revive the Scottish tragedy “Macbeth” at the Athenaeum Theatre, with Kevin Cox in the killer role of Macbeth. (Meanwhile, the theater’s much-praised “The Misanthrope” plays the Athenaeum Theatre through April 5.) Opening July 11, First Folio Shakespeare Festival’s annual outdoor presentation at the Mayslake Peabody Estate in DuPage County is the modestly named comedy “Much Ado about Nothing.” Oak Park Festival Theatre’s annual outdoor offering is also “Much Ado About Nothing,” opening July 13.

A lesser-known American classic, Mark Twain’s sardonic “Pudd’nhead Wilson,” his final novel set in America, deals with the ironies of slavery inflicted on two babies switched in infancy. City Lit Theatre’s adaptation opens May 5. Beginning this week, Chekhov fans can enjoy yet another “Uncle Vanya,” the Russian master’s definitive look at a family feud that defines them all. TUTA Theatre Chicago revives this 110-year-old play at the Chopin Theatre studio.

Classic French farce rampages at the Theatre Building with Theater Wit’s local premiere of “Feydeau-Si-Deau,” replete with mistaken identities, booze-ridden complications, philanderers, missing clothing and, of course, slamming doors. Another French classic from the 19th century, “Around the World in 80 Days,” opens April 26 to take Lookingglass Theatre audiences on a busy itinerary. A British stunner, “A Taste of Honey,” which features a gay art student who helps a shy adolescent cope with the birth of her baby, opens in May at Shattered Globe Theatre.

A classic bandido comes to stage life on May 12 as Lifeline Theatre presents a new adaptation of “The Mark of Zorro,” directed by Dorothy Milne. The paragon comedy about underestimated airheads, “Born Yesterday,” opens April 21 at Court Theatre in Hyde Park. Fans of Neil Simon can look forward to “Laughter on the 23rd Floor” (opening May 4 at Raven Theatre) and “Plaza Suite” (July17-Aug. 31 at Eclipse Theatre).

 

Promising new works
 These shows should shake up the seats. The latest from Sarah Ruhl (of “Passion Play” notoriety), “Dead Man’s Cell Phone” opens April 5 to depict Jean, a woman sleepwalking through her life until she answers a dead man’s cell phone. It turns out to be a wake-up call that sends her on a date with the dead man’s brother, a drinking binge with his wife, and a mysterious rendezvous with his mistress, not to mention trips to the afterlife and the black market. In this quirky modern adventure, Jean re-connects to her own spirit and learns that life is for the living.

Weirdly promising that “you’ll fall in love with terrorism all over again,” last week Trap Door Theatre launched the Midwest premiere of “The Beastly Bombing,” an L.A. cult/hit musical that’s a Gilbert and Sullivan take on white supremacists romancing Al Qaeda terrorists bent on blowing up the Brooklyn Bridge. A real life terror, “The Ballad of Emmett Till” reprises the 1955 lynching of a 14-year-old African American boy from Chicago.

Just opened March 24, Remy Bumppo Theatre’s “Bronte” looks at three famous Victorian spinsters and how their fantasy worlds were nourished by or reactions against their isolation on the Yorkshire moors. Controversial playwright Neil LaBute is featured in the final offering of Profiles Theatre’s season-long look at this difficult writer—opening March 27, “In a Dark Dark House” examines two brothers whose history of abuse may be repressed memories or the worst sort of sibling rivalry.

Puppets and shadow images explore struggle and salvation beginning April 1 when Redmoon Theatre imagines “Boneyard Prayer,” in which five gravediggers recreate key moments from a dead man’s story drawn from Dante, T.S. Eliot, tramp art, Santas sculpture and other influences.

You don’t get any gayer than this camp travesty: Opening April 11 at the Bailiwick Repertory studio theater, Hell in a Handbag Productions presents the Chicago premiere of “Die! Mommie, Die!,” Charles Busch’s homage to thriller films of the 1960s starring “women of a certain age.” This production also marks the Midwest premiere of the piece since it was rewritten for its Off Broadway run in 2007-2008.

If Jerry Springer can get his own musical, doesn’t Ann Landers deserve a play? It seems so: “The Lady with All the Answers” opens May 21 at Northlight Theatre, honoring the Chicago icon who could, it seems, help everybody but herself. “Not a Game for Boys” refers to ping pong: It’s the subject of British writer Simon Block’s comedy about the male psyche at its competitive worst and opens April 21 at A Red Orchid Theatre. This September, Chicago favorite Frank Galati directs “Kafka on the Shore,” which parallels a young man’s coming of age and an old man’s search for destiny in modern day Japan.