Summer Season

It seems like I was just writing about the spring season and now summer is already almost upon us. While I didn't get to see everything I wanted to in the spring season, some of the shows are still lingering on, so hopefully I can catch at least Puppetmaster in addition to Jerry Springer. Looking ahead, in a very serendipitous offering, Drury Lane Oakbrook is presenting It's A Bird It's A Plane It's Superman starting next week through the end of July. After my companion becomes obsessed with it and I track the CD down, we suddenly have a chance to see it. Hopefully a scaled down orchestra can fix some of the problems with the score, but even without Linda Lavin, it's worth making the trek to the burbs to catch this little-seen show. My only concern is that they advertised it as "The Family Friendly Musical" which means the place could be crawling with kids who won't shut up during the show. Every time I've seen Beauty and the Beast, I can't fully enjoy it because some kid behind me can't stop giving a running commentary to their parents, and said parents think it's so cute and don't have the common courtesy to understand that no one else wants to hear what their kid thinks of the show. Get the kid a blog and teach him to shut up while the actors are on stage.
The Marriott Lincolnshire is offering Shenandoah, in a highly acclaimed production, through the end of June. I plan to see it June 21st.
Theatre on the Lake tickets go on sale June 5, and I will be going to Gorey Stories and Side Show, and possibly Oklahoma.
Lastly, tickets for Light in the Piazza and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels have FINALLY gone on sale. I now just have to prod my companion to go to the box office and get them so we don't pay over $50 in Ticketmaster service fees, which should take about 3 weeks to do. Hopefully they'll still have tickets for the days we want, they're both very short runs since apparently Chicago isn't a very hospitable city for touring productions (and yes, there is a lot of sarcasm in that last sentence).
In awards news, Spring Awakening, Coast of Utopia, and Frank Langella are all speeding towards Tony glory. The Drama Desk Awards were announced yesterday, and as expected, Spring got best musical and best score, although, in a move that could foreshadow a validation of my Tony prediction, Curtains took best book, and Debra Monk walked away with best featured actress. Michael Mayer got best director, Company got best revival, Raul Esparza got best actor, Gavin Lee got best featured actor (the one surprise of the night), and best actress was a tie between Audra and Donna. Hopefully that means they'll split the Tony vote and Christine will win. Apparently Grey Gardens was ineligible this time around because of its Off-Broadway incarnation last year.
On the play side, Utopia got best play, and most of the technical awards, except stage design which went to Mary Poppins (as predicted, but hardly a loss for Utopia since Bob Crowley would have won anyways), Eve Best got best actress (again, another possible foreshadowing that my Tony prediction could be validated), and Frank Langella took best actor. Less than 3 weeks to go until the big ones, will this be the trend.
Lastly, on Sunday I watched Lady Sings the Blues for the first time, and finally watched All That Jazz. What a revelation Diana Ross's performance must have been at the time. It's a beautiful transfer with great sound, and is definitely a classic. Moving on, I first saw ATJ my senior year of college and was blown away. I have not watched it all the way through, start to finish since, I've only caught it in bits and pieces on tv, although its always been hard to pull myself away. Watching it again, it had lost none of its power, the last musical sequence still gives me chills. What a fantabulous movie, why Roy Scheider never became a bigger star is still beyond me. It truly is one of the greatest movies ever. However, the sticker on the box, boasted over 2 hours of extras, which would make sense since they decided to release it in a new edition. It appears thought to be a bit of false advertising. The three documentaries only add up to about 45 minutes of material. The only way they can claim there's over 2 hours of bonus features is if they count the running commentary track for the entire 122 minute length of the movie. That was a bit of a letdown, I was hoping for a lot more behind-the-scenes stuff, although there are some great photos of Bob working with the dancers, and a deligtfully lucid Liza talking about him as the greatest director/choreographer ever. So, it was still worth getting, and anyone who hasn't seen it must run out and watch it immediately. You can't be a true theatre or showtune queen until you've seen it.