Join the Indigenous Education Foundation (IEFT) on March 11 for A Night for African Education at Drury Lane Oakbrook Terrace. The second annual event is being hosted by Chicago resident and IEFT volunteer, Drury Lane Producer Abbie DeSantis, who became involved with IEFT in early November 2008 while pursuing a Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) certificate in northern Tanzania. Abbie found that her journey to Tanzania and time spent at Orkeeswa Secondary School was one of the most worthwhile and rewarding experiences of her life. Abbie recently caught up with ShowBiz Chicago to discuss the IEFT program, her experience in Tanzania, and how artists can work together to make a difference in the lives of at-risk youth.

Interviewed by Alissa Norby

ShowBiz Chicago: How did you initially become involved with the Indigenous Education Foundation?

Abbie DeSantis: I first became involved through pursuing my TEFL certificate, the Teaching English as a Foreign Language program. When I went to Tanzania we studied and worked alongside Orkeeswa Secondary School.

ShowBiz Chicago: Tell me about the educational systems in Tanzania. How do they present a challenge to young people living in Lashaine?

AS: Schooling is pretty expensive for the children in Tanzania. Their primary schools are set up by the government so they’re taught Swahili. After the primary school, secondary school is more on a private level, so they have to pay a tuition which is usually too expensive for rural children to afford. They really live in the bush, their parents are part of the Masai tribe. It’s almost impossible for them to continue their education after primary school.

ShowBiz Chicago: Let’s talk about your background. What initially inspired you to become involved with the program?

AS: I was in theatre before [pursuing TEFL] and had always wanted to got to Africa ever since I was a child. That was one of my dreams. One of my really good friends was going out to pursue her certificate so I saw it as an opportunity to go to Africa. But when I was out there I fell in love with the people of Tanzania and their culture. It wound up being one of the most rewarding and worthwhile experiences that I have ever had.

ShowBiz Chicago: Tell me about a particularly memorable experience working at the Orkeeswa Secondary School that specifically affected you and your perspective?

AS: You know it’s probably just that these children are so bright, eager, and grateful to learn. Most of these children will put in a whole day’s work before even getting to school, farming their land and milking the cows. After that they will walk almost two hours just to get to school. So these kids are so willing to be there and for me that was so amazing because I remember making up excuses not to go to school and playing Nintendo and watching cartoons beforehand [laughs]. Sometimes what we take for granted is unbelievable.

ShowBiz Chicago: What is interesting about the Orkeeswa curriculum is that it involves both basic curricula as well as art programming. Why do you feel the inclusion of art in the school education is important?

AS: I think it’s extremely important because it really develops their personal work and empowerment. It gives them an outlet to be who they are and express who they are, and I think that is one of the most important things [for youth].

ShowBiz Chicago: How have you seen the arts program impact these young people?

AS: When I was out there it was toward the end of the school year, and for the end of the year all of the parents are invited to graduation. The children had put together three skits for graduation to show the parents and they had so much fun. They developed a script, we brought in different clothes for costumes for them and they just loved it.

ShowBiz Chicago: IEFT makes and important comment on how, with no educational intervention, young women in particular often wind up in very unfortunate, disadvantaged situations. How have you seen the IEFT opportunity assist children in their resiliency?

AS: I believe that IEFT is aiding that [resiliency] because as a student at Orkeeswa Secondary School you are an equal, whether or not you are a boy or a girl. All of the students are equal, which is important because the girls who live in the village are treated poorly because they are girls. Once the young women are in school they finally have that opportunity to be treated equally. I think it was so great because the kids do a lot of group-oriented activities while they’re learning, and the boys and girls work together. And you do see that the they are treated equally. It will help the boys in the future because they come to see the girls as smart and capable.

ShowBiz Chicago: How did the benefit come to develop?

AS: When I got back from Tanzania last year I wanted it to still be a part of my life. I ended up being really good friends with one of the co-founders so together we decided it would be a great opportunity to try hosting the event in Chicago. The organization is a USA organization based out of California.

ShowBiz Chicago: How has the Chicago community embraced these efforts?

AS: We had such great support from the Chicago community last year. We had about 200 people come out and support us and contribute donations. It was great.

ShowBiz Chicago: How can we, as a theatre community, assist in the cause?

AS: What I think would be great is since we are hosting the event if everyone could come out and support us by attending the event on March 11th. Our goal is not only to raise money but to create an awareness. It’s really about getting the word out there about these children.

ShowBiz Chicago: Your upcoming production is one of the first regional premieres of Ragtime, a show that teaches us how far we have left to go in terms of compassion and equality. How far do you think we have to go in terms of recognizing the importance and value of education for all of our youth?

AS: I think there is a long, long way to go. I think doing productions like Ragtime creates that awareness. Because you are going to leave the show and think about how much more we need to do in an effort to improve our education.

For more information or to purchase tickets to the March 11th, 2010 IEFT benefit at Drury lane Oakbrook, please visit www.IEFTZ.org.

Review by Alissa Norby

As consistent as the hum of a sewing machine and the E-string pluck of a fiddle, Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick’s heralded book musical Fiddler on the Roof has followed the wake of its own self-devised traditions. The piece and its subsequent productions have waivered inconsiderably in its near half-centennial history. The staples of Hal Prince’s original directorial concept, replete with an omnisciently perched fiddler, lavish Russian dance, and Jewish schtick humor were forever synonymous with the musical’s later incarnations.

David H. Bell has thrown most of that familiar praxis out with the horse’s leg. The Marriott Theatre’s latest rendering of the Broadway behemoth dexterously- and mirthfully- scraps some of the authors’ most celebrated gimmicks in exchange for a more conversationalist tonality.

The point of tautest intensity in Joseph Stein’s book, the anti-Semitic pogrom at Tevye’s family wedding, receives a heftier buoying with Bell’s more somber conceit. At the climax of the scene, a Russian guard grasps the vulnerable fiddle, nary waiting a second before breaking the fragile instrument in two.

It is this weighted symbolism, an overarching and unbridled willingness to expose the unhappy truths that have long been swimming in this text, which turns the tide of this Anatevka.

The remaining signature numbers evolve in a similar, albeit understated, manner. The trapeze-like brooms often integral to “Matchmaker” have been replaced by a simple scrub basin and laundry line. The multi-leveled stage landscape that once defined “Sabbath Prayer” is now threaded with hushed candlesticks.

Music director Doug Peck echoes Bell’s sobriety in every cadence of Fiddler’s famed score. “Now I Have Everything” and “Miracle of Miracles” receive refreshingly new arrangements and stagings, proffering a quiet introspection in the place of their traditionally jovial rhythms.

Cogitation, it would seem, is the driving force behind both the show’s directorial and performance approaches. Perhaps the most significant developments with regard to the cemented plot arc arrive in Tevye and his daughters. Recurrently portrayed with the husky bravura of Zero Mostel and Chaim Topol, the latest interpretation of the cantankerous dairy farmer is imbued with a gentle, everyman quality by the venerable Ross Lehman. Allowing original author Sholem Aleichem’s narrator to breathe new life into his morally vacillating monologues, Lehman grants his audience more immediate access to the musical’s universal themes. The original concept of this mammoth-sized orator encountering a faith challenge from his God has largely been unfastened. Instead, Lehman presents Tevye as a common man, in both thought and circumstance, who must grapple with impending change.

Jessie Mueller, Dara Cameron, and Laura Scheinbaum reverberate this pensiveness as the three matchless daughters. Although all of the comedic stunts are hit, “Matchmaker” is ultimately portrayed with a sobering foreboding by the three increasingly nuanced Chicago actors. Mueller tenders eldest daughter Tzeitel with harrowing clarity of the consequences of both cultural and religious constraints. During one particularly incisive moment, Mueller delivers such uncurbed despair at the thought of a betrothal to butcher Lazar Wolf, it seems as if the entire shtetl may burst at the ridges with her indocile declaration.

Bell has used the musical’s notion of metamorphosis as a tool to revise Fiddler in almost all stagnated mores of its original production. Embedding both direction and score with a contemporarily honest sensibility, Bell approaches this Anatevka within a more human framework than his predecessors. It is this earthly approach to the established text that ultimately reminds us of the impending and unconquerable nature of change. It is a change that, like the reappraisal present in this new production, will ultimately form its own tradition.

“Fiddler on the Roof” runs through April 25, 2010 at the Marriott Theatre Lincolnshire. For tickets or more information, please visit www.MarriottTheatre.com.

Interview by Patrick McDonald

Special to ShowBiz Chicago

CHICAGO – Veteran songstress Shirley Jones knows a bit about the Academy Awards. Known for her signature leading roles in the multi-nominated film versions of “Oklahoma!,” “Carousel” and “The Music Man,” she collected her own Best Supporting Actress win for the unforgettable performance as the fallen Lulu Baines in “Elmer Gantry.”

Born near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Shirley Mae Jones advanced her love of musical theater and natural singing talent into a direct audition for Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, The famous songwriters were so taken with her innocence and voice, that they signed her to an exclusive contract.

What followed was a string of lead roles in the film versions of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s most popular musicals. Throw in Marian the Librarian and her Oscar winning dramatic turn, and it is surprising that Ms. Jones had her highest profile in television, as the matriarch of a certain pop group that took its name from a bird in a pear tree.  ShowBiz Chicago got the honor of interviewing Shirley Jones, in anticipation of her performance in the revue “A Night at the Oscars” on March 4th at the Paramount Theater in Aurora, Illinois.

ShowBiz Chicago: What specific film song standards can audiences expect from your show?

Shirley Jones: I’m doing three or four songs from “Oklahoma!” and three or four songs from “The Music Man.’’ I have a series of film clips that show everything I’ve ever done, which is fun. We have an incredible orchestra who play the Oscar winning scores and songs. Plus we have two beautiful singers, a gal and a guy, who do some wonderful duets. It’s a great show.

ShowBiz Chicago: What were the songs that first wowed you as a girl growing up in the Pittsburgh area? Was there any particular song or musical moment that made you think, ‘This is exactly what I want to do’?

SJ: All the MGM musical stars – Judy Garland, Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire – I would sit in the front row as a kid and watch all those movies. Everything they ever did, they were my heroes. And I was able to sing, which was a gift, I was singing at six years old. I sang everywhere, every song I ever heard. I remember one of the first ones [singing] ‘Frankie and Johnny were sweethearts…’ [laughs]

ShowBiz Chicago: Of all the movie musicals you did in that period from “Oklahoma!” to “The Music Man”, what particular song or screen moment do you think resonates with people the most?

SJ: There are several. But first I think “Carousel” has some of the most beautiful music ever written. I open this show with ‘If I Loved You’ and I close with ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ when I do my own act. That music is spectacular. There are many moments in that film and in that score where people connect emotionally. I’m a Rodgers and Hammerstein fan, and they were my mentors. Everything they wrote I love. And I still love singing it, which is amazing.

ShowBiz Chicago: Well, besides your sheer talent, why do you think you made such a strong connection to Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II when you first collaborated with them?

SJ: I think for them, when they first auditioned me, I was Laurey Williams [Jones’ character in "Oklahoma!"]. I was a little girl from a ‘farm community,’ I was young, naive and I could sing. They saw that immediately. They had screen tested every young girl singers on both coasts for the role, and came back to me. That is why initially they put me under a personal contract.

ShowBiz Chicago: Could you talk about the relationship between the two famed writers?

SJ: They loved it. They got along very well. Oscar Hammerstein was the partner that made most of the decisions, because writers had great respect for him.

ShowBiz Chicago: There is an interesting connection between the film versions of “Carousel” and “The Music Man’’ as Frank Sinatra was cast in both of them initially. Were you instrumental in getting Gordon MacRae into “Carousel” after Frank dropped out?

SJ: Frank and I had done all the rehearsals and the pre-recordings before filming. We had done everything, Frank was thrilled to be playing Billy Bigelow. To this day, nobody knows why he backed out. No one knows the real reason, but I was told that Ava Gardner was on location on a film and see said, ‘Get your ass down here or I’m leaving you.’ That’s what I heard, but I don’t know if it’s the truth or not. [laughs]

Actually what happened was we were in Bristol Harbor, Maine, ready to shoot the first scene. Frank arrived, saw the two cameras [the filmmakers needed to shoot two versions of each scene for Cinemascope technology] and said he signed on to do one movie not two, and left. There was a pay phone on the dock, and a producer came to me with tears running down his cheeks and asked, ‘Where’s Gordon MacRae’? I said he was in Lake Tahoe doing an act with his wife. He asked me then if I could get him on the phone. I put some money in the pay phone, and managed to reach him. I said, ‘Gordon, how would you like to play Billy Bigelow in “Carousel”?’ He replied, ‘Give me three days, I have to lose ten pounds.’ [laughs] That’s how he got the part.

ShowBiz Chicago: In the case of the film version of “The Music Man”, you were playing opposite Robert Preston, who had originated the role on Broadway. How did he help you develop the great chemistry you had on screen, as if you had played your role as long as he had?

SJ: The wonderful thing about Robert is that usually when someone had done the show on Broadway as long as he had and knew the character so well, everyone on the film set was waiting for when he would come in and say, ‘No, we did it this way.’ He did none of that. It was as though he were playing Harold Hill for the first time. And it was so great, and gave us the great chemistry, because it just happened. And it worked very well for both of us, he was wonderful.

ShowBiz Chicago: How did the opportunity to portray Lulu Baines in the film “Elmer Gantry’’ come up? Did you have to audition against any other known actresses at the time?

SJ: Oh no, Burt Lancaster saw me in a “Playhouse 90″ that I did, which was an hour and a half of live television. It was called ‘The Big Slide,’ and I played an alcoholic ‘Sunshine Girl’ during the Mack Sennett era, co-starring Red Skelton. Burt saw the production and was convinced that I was Lulu Baines. Richard Brooks [the writer/director] was not, but Burt fought for me to get that role.

ShowBiz Chicago: And as a result, you had your own Oscar moment on April 17th, 1961, winning Best Supporting Actress for that role in “Elmer Gantry”. Who presented the Oscar trophy to you and what do you remember about that night?

SJ: The presenter was the English actor Hugh Griffith [Best Supporting Actor Winner for ‘'Ben-Hur'’ the previous year]. I was the dark horse, I had no idea I was going to win. Janet Leigh had won all the other basic awards for ‘’Psycho’’. I was thrilled to be nominated, but it was a shock when I won.

ShowBiz Chicago: I don’t want to mention the ‘P-word’ [Partridge Family] but I was also a big fan of that as well, and I love you for doing it.

SJ: [Laughs] You are a sweetheart.

Shirley Jones will appear in “A Night at the Oscars” at the Paramount Theater, Aurora, Illinois, on Thursday, March 4th. Visit  www.ParamountArts.com for tickets and more information.

Interview by Patrick McDonald

Special to ShowBiz Chicago

Note to Readers: Contains graphic language.

CHICAGO – Joan Alexandra Molinsky was born in Brooklyn, New York, but her stellar career has traveled many miles and left her best known as Joan Rivers. The legendary comedienne will appear in the Chicago area when she brings her distinct style of stand-up to the Paramount Theater in Aurora, Illinois, on March 5th.

Beginning her stand-up career in New York City of the early 1960s, Joan Rivers distinguished herself among budding peers, an illustrious group that included Lenny Bruce, George Carlin, Woody Allen and Richard Pryor. She moved into television with “Candid Camera” and made her first appearance on Johnny Carson’s “The Tonight Show” in 1965.

It was the Carson connection, and her continuing stand-up career, that launched her into national prominence. She became a primary substitute host throughout the next couple of decades, succeeding to permanent guest host in 1983. The fledgling Fox Network lured her away to start her own talk show, “The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers” in 1986.

In the years since, Rivers continued to hone her stand-up, producing many best-selling books and comedy albums. She reinvented herself again as Red Carpet commentator and hostess – with daughter Melissa – for the E! Network and TV Guide Network. Most recently, she won Donald Trump’s “Celebrity Apprentice” in 2009 and holds court once again after every awards show with the E! Network’s “Fashion Police.”

In anticipation of her appearance at the Paramount Theater, ShowBiz Chicago caught up with Joan Rivers to discuss her ever-progressing comedy and long, extraordinary career.

ShowBiz Chicago: You seem to constantly be evolving your comedy act. What can audiences expect when you appear at the Paramount Theater in Aurora, Illinois?

Joan Rivers: It will be two days before the Oscars and besides my fashion show on the E! Network, I will be talking about what we’ll be looking forward to at the Oscar show. I will also be talking about the Olympics, Tiger Woods, all the things that need talking about.  Please make sure every gay man in Chicago comes to the show. I get six gay men in the front row and I get a great show. It’s that simple [laughs]. They are the best audience, they were my first audience and they’re still supporting me.

ShowBiz Chicago: Do you enjoy the freedom you have today with language and subject matter as opposed to your early days when acts were tamer and incurred censorship? Or was it more of a creative challenge to do the cleaner acts?

JR: You change with the times. It’s getting wilder because you are allowed to get wilder now. You don’t know that you’re saying f*ck and c*nt and all that. Everybody is doing it now. Kathy Griffith is a very good friend of mine and I went and saw her act the other night and she was wonderful. I listened to her language and thought, “Gee, mine isn’t so bad.” [laughs]  Life now is rougher and tougher, and comedy reflects that. I’ve never made a conscious decision about what I talk about in my act or where it is going. It just evolved. I get on stage, and whatever feels right that’s what I do.

ShowBiz Chicago: You have a distinct Chicago connection. What clubs have you played here in your early career?

JR: I played the Gate of Horn [Chicago Avenue and Dearborn], Mister Kelly’s [Rush Street, now Gibson’s] and I came out of Second City.   I was at Second City for seven months and it was fabulous and kicked off a lot of wonderful things. In those days I performed with Alan Arkin, David Steinberg and even Mike Nichols came and directed a show.

ShowBiz Chicago: You were on the cutting edge of the revolutionary acting and performance scene of New York City during your early career. How do you think the performance scene in New York has evolved or stalled?

JR: New York now is so exciting and so terrific, because comedy is so exciting now, you can say anything. The only thing New York had in the early 1960s were these wonderful little coffee shops where you could break in, which they don’t have now. You could go down Bleecker Street and there would be George Carlin appearing in one, Richard Pryor in another and me in a third. And that’s all gone now.

ShowBiz Chicago: You were honing your stand-up act in the days when women weren’t necessarily encouraged to be stand-up comics. What was your experience with this kind of sexism in your early days?
JR: There has never been sexism in comedy. I think that if you’re funny, you’re funny, and no one could care less if you are a man, woman or child. It’s rubbish. The fact that women weren’t allowed to be funny is bullshit. [When you] talk about Mae West, Fanny Brice, and Lucille Ball, it just isn’t true. It’s just that few women chose to be in that field. So it looked like women weren’t allowed in. But it was never said to me, ever, that it’s not a woman’s field.  But I live so much in the present. I’ve done the memoirs and I let it go. It’s what’s happening now that is so interesting and fun. There is so much comedic fodder, Sarah Palin saying you can’t call someone retarded anymore. That’s ten minutes in my act. You don’t have to look back, it’s in your face now.

ShowBiz Chicago: What is the main difference in television production between when you were starting out on “Candid Camera” and “The Tonight Show” and what you observe today?

JR: None. Think about it, “Candid Camera” was one of the first reality shows. And “The Tonight Show” hasn’t changed. If you think about, it’s exactly the same [makes snoring sounds]. That’s what makes it so boring. The hosts, the guests, the guest chair, the couch. Late night hasn’t changed one iota, and they should be ashamed of themselves.

ShowBiz Chicago: What did you do differently when you got your Fox late night show in 1986?

JR: We started doing the out-on-the-street packages, where you go outside and talk to people, which now has become standard. We were the first to ask deeper questions, nobody gives a shit that you were happy on the movie set. We opened it up.

ShowBiz Chicago: You knew Johnny Carson as both a show business mentor and friend. What was the main difference between Johnny the public persona and Johnny the Private Man?

JR: He was a drunk. He was not a very nice person in private life. They always say the camera doesn’t lie. The camera lies a lot. Having said that, he was the Tiger Woods [laughs] of late night comedy. He was the most brilliant of all the late night show hosts, and he was a brilliant straight man who knew just the right question. I have utmost respect for what he did.

I think all comedians [have problems with relationships]. Comedians are very damaged people. I’m very angry and very damaged [laughs]. It has taken a lot to achieve what I’ve achieved in my private life, holding together my family. That’s because I wanted it very much. Comedians are outsiders. If we were insiders we couldn’t make the jokes about all this stuff.

ShowBiz Chicago: You made a famous cameo in the Burt Lancaster film “The Swimmer.” Why did you decide not to do more film in that era, waiting ten years until “Rabbit Test”?

JR: I didn’t decide, nobody asked me. It’s a very strange business, and you go where the work is, and you never know that the work will be. If you hang around and wait for what you think is right for you, you can end up waiting your whole life.

ShowBiz Chicago: I noted that “Rabbit Test” was the first film to be shot on video and then transferred to film stock. Why did you decide to do it that way what did you have to go through to get it produced with you as director?

JR: We did it on tape because we couldn’t afford film. It worked out well because tape was cheaper than film. It took away a little of the preciseness, but we saved money and got the result. It took a lot for me to be a director on that. It is the one thing I’m really not good at, being a director. I’m thrilled I gave it a shot, I love the writing and editing, but I just did not particularly like the directing.

ShowBiz Chicago: Your career, both its beginnings and proliferation, have witnessed transformative periods in our social history. How did the evolution of women’s rights affect your approach to comedy performance?

JR: I truly believe that I want to live my life how I want to live. I’m law-abiding, I pay taxes and the rest is none of your business. The past is the past and the reason I think I stay so current is that I don’t care. I’m always thinking “What am I doing today, what am I planning for tomorrow?”

ShowBiz Chicago: If you could magically conjure one person from your long career to talk to again, who would it be and what would you say?

JR: Probably Lenny Bruce, and I’d say “Do your act again for me,” [laughs].

Joan Rivers will appear at the Paramount Theater, Aurora, Illinois at 8pm on March 5th. Visit www.ParamountArts.com for more information and to purchase tickets.

By Patrick McDonald

Special to ShowBiz Chicago

CHICAGO – Ice Age? King of the Mammals? The futility of war? Thornton Wilder (”Our Town”) covered it all through one wacky New Jersey family way back in 1942 with “The Skin of Our Teeth.” The Artistic Home theater group fires up a sumptuous revival of the classic currently on their stage at North Clark Street in Wrigleyville through March 21st.

Filtering the history of man, biblical religion, sex and philosophy through the meanderings of a suburban home in New Jersey creates an absurd atmosphere that gets more bemusing as the story builds. The play is essentially narrated by the family maid, Sabina, who introduces the audience to Mr. and Mrs. Antrobus and their children, Gladys and Henry.

The three acts center on events in civilization that influence both world culture and the relationships of the Antrobuses. Act One is the Ice Age,a period that threatens the eastern seaboard while Mr. Antrobus strives to invent essential technology (e.g. the wheel, etc.). Act Two takes place both on the other side of the ice storm and in Atlantic City, where Sabina has morphed into a beauty queen. The final act is a post-war saga, where the forces involved in the conflict split the Antrobus family asunder, and in time together again.

The play also has built in stops and starts where Sabina breaks the fourth wall – abandoning character and talking to the audience – while a harried stage manager scurries about attempting to keep order within the chaos.

The performance and staging of this American essential (winner of the Pulitzer Prize) is heightened by a multimedia presentation within the head-scratching premise. Witty YouTube style video loops are played before Acts One and Two to give a sense of proportion to the surreal proceedings, effectively introducing the Antrobus family to their circumstance.

The staging makes excellent use of the large performance area. The Antrobus home is transformed impressively between Ice Age and war, and the Atlantic City episode evokes the atmosphere of a carnival air that prefaces another disaster to come. The actors play about the arena, using the theater entrances and seating area to spread out, especially during a sequence involving a regally costumed dinosaur and wooly mammoth.

The crucial role of the family maid Sabina is handled with aplomb by the radiant Maria Stephens. She commands the stage in her role, one that asks her to engage the situation with overt sexiness, physical grace and eccentric narrative discourse. She is a force of nature not to be missed.

The heads of the Antrobus household have fun with the twists of their characters and the joyride that goes along with it. John Mossman, as Mr. Antrobus, is best when he takes on his ‘King of the Mammals’ persona, positively Mitt Romney-esque. His dutiful wife, played by Kathy Scambiatterra, morphs from suburban housewife to political arm candy to battle-scarred survivor while never losing her cheery, pasted-on disposition.

The Antrobus children, portrayed by Katherine Swan (Gladys) and Nick Horst (Henry), are given some transformations of their own to journey through, and run hot and cold in various degrees of performance. Gladys evolves from innocent girlhood to vamping temptress, and Swan manages to hold onto her throughout.  The quiet, more serious points of the play occur in the post-war of the third act, which don’t play as well as the higher profile follies of the previous two. But the thematic fulfillment is rich in context, surviving all the ups and downs of this timeless treatise on humankind’s interment with their own history.

The Artistic Home has taken on the Thornton Wilder challenge in adapting this beloved farce and, in keeping with the activities of their Wrigley Field neighbor, has knocked it out of the park.

“The Skin of Our Teeth” runs through March 21st at the The Artistic Home Theater, 3914 N. Clark St. in Chicago, visit www.theartistichome.org.

Few individuals are safe when it comes to Lisa Lampanelli, the self-professed “Queen of Mean” who traffics in the comedy of racially-charged diatribes. All those who set foot inside one of the insult comic’s prolific performances are at risk for targeting. In a culture rife with political correctness, Lampanelli has taken gleeful- and side-splitting- pride in the obscene. Having previously toured in Chicago during the TBS Presents A Very Funny Festival, Lampanelli now returns to the Midwest in a performance at the Genesee Theatre. Acid at the ready.

Interviewed by Alissa Norby.

ShowBiz Chicago: The last time we spoke, your parting words to me were to “Eat your box”.

LL: You probably should have. Now see, you didn’t and I went and got engaged. I went straight because of you.

ShowBiz Chicago: Then I’ll always regret it. In fact, the Post spotted you at your engagement party at the Carnegie Club recently. How has that process been for you? Are you glad to be out of the single life?

LL: You know, it’s really good. We’re in domestic bliss. We are here vacuuming and we’re out of space bags, okay? That’s domestic, isn’t it bitch? It’s horrifying. But it’s good. It’s finally something a little normal. [I don't feel settled], and you know I never will. There is always something to do, some other television show to get rejected from. But see, with this positive attitude it’s all working out [laughs].

ShowBiz Chicago: Naturally. You recent book, Chocolate Please, focuses on your interest in African American lovers. Will you still be using those bits in your road shows now that you are getting married?

LL: No I cut them out because my fiancé is Italian and if I do those routines he’ll hit me with an open fist. You know because that’s what the Italians were put on this earth to do. So instead I do all of my bits about his enormous nutsack and I think it all works out.

ShowBiz Chicago: That sounds like a fair exchange. Chocolate Please, in some aspects, was much more serious than your stand-up. It addressed issues of self-image and overeating. What inspired you to delve into more personal areas of your life?

LL: Well with a book you do not need to worry about anyone hurting your feelings by not laughing at a punch line. Onstage you tend to get a laugh every thirty seconds, well every eight seconds if you’re me. With a book, it was like, they will probably laugh a little, cry a little, piss their pants a little. Those were my goals, so it was a lot less pressure. The writing of it still sucked nonetheless. It’s hard you know. It’s not like some jokey, hey-here’s-some-stuff-that-wasn’t-good-enough-to-be-in-my-act book. It’s more about self-esteem issues so it’s not fun to write about that. But adding punch lines is good because that way people are like, “Well it was serious but it was still funny.”

ShowBiz Chicago: Were you concerned regarding audiences’ response to the issues, such as self-esteem and eating behaviors?

LL: You know, no, because whenever I’m on Stern and do stuff about real shit, people always respond well. I never get people saying things like, “Dude, you were all negative and serious and whatever.” I have a way to make it funny. If there weren’t humor in it I would be worried. I have so many straight guys who are fans. I’d be worried that they wouldn’t get enough punch lines per minute.

ShowBiz Chicago: I recently spoke with another comedienne regarding the ever-evolving state of female comedy and she noted that female comediennes had, in her experience, moved away from character-driven comedy and more toward insult comedy. Why do you think this may be?

LL: I don’t know if that’s necessarily true. Character-driven comedy is what we all do. Bits are driven by the character of who we are, so it is still character-driven but not performed by doing various characters onstage. I think that everyone just wants to be themselves more. I mean I started comedy when I was thirty, so I already knew who I was a little bit even though I have definitely changed a lot in these eighteen years. But I think I know who I am. I’m always dirty and loud in real life, so I want to be how I am and not put on a façade. I’m also not the kind of comic whose act is one big audition for Saturday Night Live. My act is more who I am, not “Hey look at me, I can do twelve characters and have you kick me off the show in one year.”

ShowBiz Chicago: You are the self-proclaimed “Queen of Mean”. Why do you think, in a society that can be overly politically correct, insult comedy is so earnestly received?

LL: People are starved for that kind of thing, maybe not so much anymore because Stern is so big and [Don] Rickles is still making a living at it. But people went so far to the other side. Everyone was once so politically correct and now they’re wanting real edgy shit. I think the reaction to that political correctness gave way to an extreme.

ShowBiz Chicago: How do you feel your comedy has evolved since your initial foray into the business?

LL: You never start where you’re going to end up. When I was thirty doing regular comedy, it was unskilled. Roseanne didn’t say to herself, “I’m going to be the domestic goddess,” or whatever the fuck she ended up being. You just kind of let it evolve. But my personality and character didn’t change, I was just being myself.

ShowBiz Chicago: You’ve done a few screen works, but you consistently perform in live venues. What about this medium in particular keeps your primary interest as opposed to spreading the comedy into varying forms?

LL: I wouldn’t call what I’ve done “screen work”, to be honest with you. You’re being far too nice [laughs]. I’ve done two Larry the Cable Guy movies and one Owen Wilson movie, so calling them works of art isn’t exactly realistic. I only do stuff where I can be me. I can’t really do that unless I have a television show based on my life, so I just want to keep doing live stuff so I can be my own boss. I answer to no one, I can’t get fired, and I want that immediate response. Anyone with self-esteem problems likes to get a quick hit, like “Oh they just laughed at me, it must mean I’m a good person.” That’s what you get from the live experience that you don’t get from a movie that will come out in nine months. I always say that if I didn’t have to do one more second of television, radio, or movies I would be thrilled. But to keep the audience in the live shows you have to do that other crap, to help more people get to know who you are.

Showiz Chicago: You were recently involved with a pilot for HBO with Jim Carey.

LL: They didn’t end up picking up the pilot. Then I got a call from a producer three months later who was like “Can I have some writers do a treatment and script based on your life now?” So I said sure, I always say yes if it’s a really good producer who gets me. Another producer wants to do a talk show, so we’re going to pitch that in a couple of months when I go out to L.A. But it’s not stuff that I actually seek out that much because I really like what I do. Bette Midler pretty much quit her CBS show on David Letterman one day. She was just like, “I fucking hate it, it’s awful, I don’t like working this much. I’m out.” So will I say, uh oh, be careful what you wish for? Whatever is going to happen is going to happen. I go for it, and if nothing happens, I always think it wasn’t meant to be anyway. Television is really the hardest thing to make it in. You have to be happy with what you got.

ShowBiz Chicago: You recently mentioned the possibility of a Broadway show. Can we expect to see you tearing up the Great White Way anytime soon?

LL: The Broadway thing is based on the stuff in the book, you know the love addicts stuff. I have been speaking with a writer. Since the talkshow and sitcom options came up I have to see where those lead first and then do that. He’s the guy who wrote Billy Crystal’s 700 Sundays on Broadway, he said that he and Billy talked about it for about ten years before getting it off the ground because Billy just never had time. Things keep getting in the way. It’s something that I would like to do eventually because then you just get to be in New York, which is where I live. It’s something definitely for the future, but right now I like pursuing the things that I am doing at the moment.

For tickets to Lisa Lampanelli’s February 20, 2010 performance at the Genesee Theatre, please visit www.geneseetheatre.com. For more information on Lisa Lampanelli, please visit www.insultcomic.com.

Shannon Cochran and Jeff Still, who portray Barbara and Bill Fordham in the current touring production of August: Osage County, chat with ShowBiz Chicago about the dysfunctional family drama. Delving into the dissolution of marriage onstage at the Cadillac Palace, Cochran and Still discuss working with playwright Tracy Letts, the development of the new American Family genre, and why August: Osage County will resonate with audiences for years to come. Interviewed by Alissa Norby. Continue Reading

By Patrick McDonald
Special to ShowBiz Chicago

CHICAGO – Death, in all its finality for the person who expires, is actually a survivor’s story. It is for those who are still here to make sense of it, to put the finishing perspective upon the life that has been extinguished. And it was within the shocking suddenness of an unexpected demise that author Joan Didion wrote about her survivor’s experience on death and dying, in her 2005 Pulitzer Prize winning memoir The Year of Magical Thinking.

In 2007, a stage version was adapted by Ms. Didion and opened on Broadway. It is a straight forward retelling of the events that comprise the book, performed by a single actress representing the author. Chicago’s Court Theater opened its version last month, magnificently rendered on their stage by Mary Beth Fisher and directed by Charles Newell.

The Year of Magical Thinking actually covers a period of time between late 2003 to the summer of 2005. Joan Didion’s daughter, Quintana Roo Dunne, laid in a coma with septic shock in a New York City hospital on December 30th, 2003. Didion’s husband and Quintana’s father, the prominent author and screenwriter John Gregory Dunne, has just come back from that hospital with Didion and they sit down to dinner in their apartment.

After offering him a drink, Didion described Dunne as sitting by a fire, reading a manuscript for review, wondering if the scotch he was drinking was single malt. And then there was silence. Didion recalled that she thought he slumped in his chair to tease her, play acting as everyone has performed on occasion. The rest was a blur of paramedics and a rush to the emergency room. John Dunne was pronounced dead on arrival of a massive coronary one hour later.

“Magical thinking” refers to the thought process in which Didion faced his death and the methodical steps in caring for her ill daughter in the midst of that specter. The phases of her mourning are brought to light by Ms. Fisher, steeped as they are in the cold professional atmosphere of hospitals, attending on-call doctors and drug therapies that cost $20,000 dollars. “It will happen to you,” Fisher as Didion warns the audience as she begins the narrative, and the journey bears reasonable similarities to the eventuality of that aphorism.

Fisher relates the events from a rectangular riser in the middle of Court Theatre’s elegant black box ambiance. Her set consists of a simple white desk and chair, appointed with flowers and a single coffee cup. She is dressed simply, using a scarf that is artfully draped on her, to emphasize certain points in the storytelling, tying and untying the garment to relieve nervous energy. She uses the spare stage gracefully, moving like n ballerina in a cage at times, creating the time and space to illustrate certain junctures in Didion’s magical undertakings.

Special mention must also go to the lighting design (Jennifer Tipton) and sound design (Andre Pluess). As Fisher relates Didion’s specific magical thinking, the lighting is altered to take on an otherworldly, smoky quality. When the spare music or sound effects were necessary, they punctuated rather than distracted.

Mary Beth Fisher’s approach is gentle, bringing an emotion and a smile to Didion’s sometimes academic prose. There is a line in the show that speaks to how matter-of-fact a tragic event can be retold, that people often focus on ordinary circumstances surrounding the awful circumstance – the clear blue spy in September as a plane heads toward a building, for example. Fisher as Didion relates several of those background ironies plainly and beautifully, giving them a salve-like quality against the crushing pain of loss.

It will happen to you. But somehow through the inspiration of Joan Didion and the incredible performance of Mary Beth Fisher, in addition to your own magical thinking, you will get through it as well.

“The Year of Magical thinking” finishes its run February 14th at the Court Theatre, Chicago, visit www.courttheatre.org for show times and details.

Few souls have been spared the sweltering heat of an arduous family reunion. Skirted glances, biting quips, and awkward embraces abound in these casserole-laden territories. But few clans can hold a candle next to the smoldering febricity that infests the Weston household, both on and off the thermostat.

The course upon which Tracy Letts’ August: Osage County has been propelled has become something of contemporary theatrical legend. Commissioned and produced by the Steppenwolf Theatre Company in 2007, the production became an overnight sell-out success in Chicago before making its much-hailed arrival on Broadway. Gripping its audiences with a familial toxicity that proved all-too-relatable, August swept the 2008 awards season (including a Pulitzer for Letts) and has continued to set its sights onward.

The Weston guild is now making its first Broadway-backed pilgrimage to its birthing place, a long awaited homecoming for its dutiful Chicago viewers. Penned by Letts, a playwright known for such squeamish thrillers as Bug and Killer Joe, August is a densely calibrated, sucker-punch Midwestern drama. Riffing off predecessors such as Sam Shepard and Eugene O’Neill, Letts has reinvigorated the often-exhausted genre of family dysfunction. At once coolly sardonic and stirringly morose, the piece clutches tight as it tethers you along through the Weston family’s apocalyptic demise. And from the look of things Tuesday night, there is still nary an eye to its deafening storm.

Shepherded by the unyielding Estelle Parsons, the current touring cast of August: Osage County exacts a near-perfect positioning for the sweating tragicomedy. Ms. Parsons helms as Violet Weston, the acidic matriarch of the Pawhuska kin. After having lost–or rather misplaced–her husband on a particularly disarrayed summer evening (though certainly not an irregular one), Violet summons her three daughters to return to their childhood homestead. The physical abode, a glaring structure by designer Todd Rosenthal, is itself a haunted foreboding for the destructive path that is to be traversed.

Barbara (Shannon Cochran), the eldest and most gainsaying of the psycho-symptomatic trio, arrives with disaffected husband (Jeff Still) and bedraggled teenage daughter (Emily Kinney) in close tow. Ivy (Angelica Torn), the self-effacing middle child who resides nearby, reluctantly attends to the parent for whom she has long served as a repository for libel. An erupting emotional instability and incestuous relation are promptly found to be the tolls paid for assuming the arraigning role of Violet’s caretaker. In fact, in an ultimately seasoned turn of pessimism, Ivy chalks up all of her relations to “accidental genetics”. Karen (Amy Warren), the youngest and most incognizant of the bunch, arrives with slick fiancé in paw and Dr. Phil quotes at the ready.

Amidst the cataclysmic unveiling of harbored disdain, sexual misconduct, and narcotic addictions spews the locus of the Weston dilemma. Despite having extended invitations to attend her period of seeming abandonment, Violet has neither need nor want for such familial abetment. Slurping down painkillers and spurting ill-tempered ripostes, it is soon discovered that Violet employs her offspring as little more than flesh-filled punching bags. With an uncanny knack for vitriolic cruelty and tentacles at the reach, Violet sets out to single-handedly excoriate what little remains of her daughters’ sanities.

Parsons is revelatory in the role. An actress deftly particular in her craft, Parsons permits her viewers to ascertain the underpinnings of Violet’s despotism. A victim of her own family’s neglect and propensity for battering, Violet clings to a long-seeded survivor’s mentality, armored for whichever curveballs life has yet to send. The exertion to survive ultimately manifests itself in her unbridled need to lacerate those who veer too close.

Shannon Cochran renders a harrowing performance as the stalwart Barbara. Easily slipping between Letts’ most sardonic and morose, Cochran tenders an affecting portrayal at each stage of Barbara’s metamorphosis. Yet the cast as a collective has yet to reach an organic, wholly unalloyed portrayal in these characters’ dramatic propulsions. The ensemble tends to eschew the perverse and dolorous for the comical. Segments of the text that once warranted quiet reflection are now met with uproarious laughter, an audience treat in which the actors have clearly learned to indulge.

Yet one of the most formidable production aspects of August (indeed, there are several) has always been Anna Shapiro’s methodically suited direction. Shapiro invites us to observe the Weston family as if the mere instance of pre-dinner grace is ripe cause for an anthropological examination. There are minimal explorations of the theatrical in Shapiro’s directing. In its place she has allowed for the occurrence of absolute naturalism onstage. You are not provided with a seat at the dinner table, but rather given a sliver of window through which to peer and observe a most excruciating demolition. And judging by the sweating intensity that courses through the veins of those present for the meal, it is a welcomed distance.

Frequently daunting with few intermittent allowances of relief, August: Osage County is a drama both consuming and unapologetic in its bleakness. “You have to admire the purity of the survivor’s instinct,” Beverly Weston muses during the play’s opening sequence. But it is a darkness that is well worth the journey and stay, as well as several return trips.

“August: Osage County” runs through February 14, 2010 at the Cadillac Palace Theatre. For tickets or more information, please visit www.BroadwayInChicago.com.

The allaying hum of the bayou provides a guiding cadence for the denizens of The Brother/Sister Plays, a world in which fireflies ignite as rapidly as a prescient dream. A new voice premiering in both form and linguisticism, playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney lilts on both the whimsical and visceral in his characters’ pilgrimages through the projects of New Orleans. The oft-episodic text, now receiving its latest incarnation at Steppenwolf, encompasses three narratives deftly informed by Yoruban folklore and Afro-Caribbean mysticism.

The characters that breathe through this triune echo the powers of Oyo mythology in both name and peregrination. The young female Oya, an ill-fated locus of In the Red and Brown Water, also serves as the Yoruban goddess of wind and change. Shango, Oya’s inured and intermittent lover, similarly reigns over the skies with thunder and lightning. This gnawing potentiality of Moirai hovers closely beside these Louisiana backwaters, a swamp-like everyman’s land in which both mortal and deity can give rise to gale.

Yet McCraney carefully imbues the spiritual with the humane, examining instances of the ordinary by route of the locale’s waggish dilapidation. Indeed, McCraney compels his listeners to navigate the grounded emotionality- gestated by desire, betrayal, loss and desperation- that carbonates the waters of Louisiana.

The trilogy pilots the interconnected, intergenerational lives of a kith inhabiting a metaphysicalized project. Caught between thirsty consciences and familial ties, as well as spiritual doctrine and mortal truth, McCraney’s fodder live in both the celestial and earthly worlds. It is in this literary vein that McCraney has created a genre of transference, confounding the long-obeyed separation of dramatic realism and theatrical fantasticism in exchange for a partnering between the two. This approach does not merely create a new stage amalgam, but rather the inauguration of a form in which genres are permitted to reverberate with one other in the creation of fable. A new conversation between fantasy and reality, performer and community, is subsequently unlocked.

Limned with urbane patois and winking cultural references (two characters in Marcus; Or the Secret of Sweet improvise a number from “The Wiz”), McCraney frequently refracts this corporeality through shades of chimera. Characters in McCraney’s world often weave stories of dream and wonderment between such unskinned instances of funeral processions and parole visits.

In the Red and Brown Water, the first and most lyrically-based portion of the work, proffers the tragic story of Oya (portrayed with unrivaled poignancy by ensemble member Alana Arenas), a young woman bequeathed to the ill fates of stasis. Forgoing an athletic scholarship to care for her ailing mother (a powerful Ora Jones), Oya falls for Shango, an asperous and unfaithful soldier. Unable to give birth yet desperate to feel fertile, Oya becomes enmeshed between the worlds of fantasy and reality in her need for fulfillment. Ripe with street vernacular, In the Red and Brown Water invites its audience to purge its preconceptions and adopt a more raw notion of sacrifice, one in which we may partake in our own world. The ceding of body, mind, and sexual innocence are particularly at rise in the text.

Like its siblings, In the Red and Brown Water is told through choreographed poeticism. With the rhythmic tapping of water basins parroting McCraney’s dialectic meters, In the Red and Brown Water aptly sets itself inside designer James Schuette’s barren set.

The latter section, inclusive of both The Brothers Size and Marcus; Or the Secret of Sweet encompasses a more naturalistic, cross-generational narrative clip. In the arresting, albeit truncated, The Brothers Size, Ogun (a harrowing K. Todd Freeman) wrestles with the return of his brother, Oshooshi (the versatile Phillip James Brannon), a young man who has been granted asylum from the penitentiary only to bout with more trouble. Marcus gives voice to the intersectionality between homosexual identity and the African-American community. Fearless in its conceit, Marcus addresses both the comically awkward and harshly belittling encounters that can meet young LGBT-identified individuals. Though at times bordering on crutches of caricature and archetype, Marcus blisters with honesty in its depiction of the agony that befalls all rites of budding sexuality.

Perhaps what is to be most seminal about this triadic work is the pairing of two uniquely artistic conductions. McCraney’s text receives its syncopated pulse from Tina Landau’s intricately calculated, yet incredibly lyrical, direction. Employing aspects of the Viewpoints method (which she developed with cohort Anne Bogart), Landau sculpts her performers both physically and mentally into tableaus that enlighten McCraney’s words. Using Scott Zielinski’s lighting design, Landau has created a palate of narrative reflexivity. Silhouettes in projected shadows create a sense of dual habitation. Landau entices her audience to live in, and be aware of, all domains upon which the stories unfold, both human and otherwise.

Landau has also ushered her inquisitive search for the living community through McCraney’s dialectics. Performers in The Brother/Sister Plays often announce their own stage directions, including shifts in psychological states, to conceive a more candid platform of storytelling. One receives the sense that the story is meant to be both felt through the body and heard through the ear, a conscious reminder that our contemporized conceit of theatre still roots itself in the oral telling. It is introspective aspects such as this, while swiftly moving along the underbelly of the text, that suggest a most prolific future for these two partnering artists.

“The Brother/Sister Plays” runs through May 23, 2010 at Steppenwolf. For tickets or more information, please visit www.Steppenwolf.org.