Me in chair

Alright Chicago, you've got one week left. The Drowsy Chaperone is even better on tour than it was in New York. The pacing seems a little tighter which keeps the action moving a bit better. As much as I loved it the first time, it did seem to get bogged down a bit. That problem was not present this time. The only change I noticed was the bit of MIC's dialogue about the Morosco Theatre having been torn down and a gaudy hotel built in its place. Otherwise, everything was there, just delivered better. Not to say that the NY production was awful, it was still one of the best things I've ever seen, this production just seemed to have fine tuned the one area that needed just a smidgen of improvement and has come up with a perfect show. The theatre was packed and the audience just seemed to love the production, including two student groups that were up in the balcony with us - take that, Jersey Boys! Nancy Opel (as the Chaperone), Jonathan Crombie (as MIC), and Georgia Engel were all fabulous, as was the rest of the cast. While it's too bad that Nancy isn't getting to reprise her performance of Miss Mazeppa on Broadway (truly one of the highlights of Gypsy's second act, next to Patti's Rose's Turn), she was just terrific as the Chaperone, ably portraying both the Chaperone character and the actress behind her (forgive me, I'm blanking on the name at the moment), more so than Beth Leavell did. While Bob Martin is the definitive MIC, Jonathan Crombie was just as good. My only quibble is that from our seats in the balcony, it was hard to hear the performers, it seems like the mics were stuck at 6 or 7 when they should have been at 10. Whenever anyone coughed or laughed, it completely obfuscated what was being said on stage. It didn't bother me so much since I've seen it and have the score memorized, but our friend that was with us seemed to miss some stuff. Still, that's a minor issue if you get main floor seats, which you should.

Ravinia has put out its calendar, with tickets going on sale April 17, and I'm much less than impressed. While the Martini's in the Martin series looks good (Betty Buckley, Barbara Cook, and Carol Lawrence, plus some queen singing Gershwin which I'm not all that excited about), there's no Broadway show this year, and there's a much heavier focus on pop, including having the Backstreet Boys perform, which just sounds so odd I'm tempted to buy a ticket just to see how that's going to get pulled off. I think I'm just going to get the MitM Sunday series and The 5 Browns and leave it at that. Since the Browns are on a Wednesay, and 3 of the Martin shows are on Sundays with the 4th being on a Wednesday, it won't disrupt my client schedule like last summer did. However, I can plug the gap this year with more shows. Nine is starting up for the next six weeks, and TimeLine will be reprising Fiorello! starting in a couple of weeks, and I really want to see that this time around. Plus, Steppenwolf is doing Dead Man's Cell Phone, although without Mary Louise Parker, but the show itself sounds interesting enough that I'd love to see it. So, while Ravinia may be declining in quality, there's still plenty to see.