The Theatre Thread

[borracho]

speaking of theatre deals, if hamilton comes to your town, enter the lottery on the hamilton app. they randomly pick 40 people to buy $10 tickets for each performance. i won one of the shows a few weeks ago and got 7th row tix and those were normally $200.

[krentist]

Instagram answered my prayers. Lyric Opera is offering tickets at half off. Got back of Main floor front dead center for $70. V excited.

[thebosma]

This probably doesn’t have broad appeal but if you’re a freak like me, they dropped an updated version of the soundtrack for The Sound of Music that features some alternate instrumentals, vocal cuts, and most notably “The Sound of Music reprise”, “Edelweiss”, and “Something Good” with Christopher Plummer’s vocals rather than the guy who did the overdub. Think this is the first time they’ve released those? Sounds really good, much softer tone.

[Tweet]

I'm seeing POTUS at Steppenwolf next week

[Tweet]

Dec 1, 2023 10:49:09 GMT -6 Tweet said:

I'm seeing POTUS at Steppenwolf next week

This was pretty funny and I'd recommend if you're on the fence about it/it comes to a town near you

[rango420]

I saw both of the big chicago world premieres this week.

I obviously knew Jason Alexander was the lead of Judgment Day but didn't realize the second lead was Scooter from Billions so I was losing it from the jump. Otherwise pretty down the middle stuff. Paced like a sitcom rather than a play (series of 3 minute scenes with 2 or 3 actors, sets moving in and out) and Alexander basically just plays George Costanza and it's hard to argue with what works.Leaving a lady was telling her daughter or grand daughter or whatever that Alexander reminded her of "Tony soprano" which rocks because he is literally playing George. Would say the average age of the crowd was about 400 but they were going nuts for the surprisingly vulgar mid 2000s "blue" comedy. Love that the Chicago Shakespeare gives 30 mins for the intermission so everyone can slowly get their pee on.

"Turret" @ Chopin via Red Orchid on the other hand was much messier but much better. About 20 mins too long (imagine that will be fixed in the future) but Michael Shannon is so exciting to watch, and the level of set design, sound design and lighting in such an intimate room was really special. Thought the second lead struggled to match the intensity (which is tough for what is essentially a two hander) but imagine a role that required that amount of physicality isn't easy to cast for. Falls short of the plays that clearly inspired it (Bug, True West etc.) but thats a pretty high standard, and it's hard to not just be grateful to see an actor of that caliber in a space like that "working it out". Crowd was moderately younger but only given 10 minutes to pee which led to a very stressed out stage manager running around.

[ten15]

Saw Little Bear Ridge Road last night. Incredible. Laurie Metcalf is perfect and Micah Stock does an amazing job playing off her. Often funny, but also very sad. Go see it if you can.

[rango420]

Has anyone caught Stereophonic? Enjoyed the first 2 hours quite a bit, thought the pacing was deservedly slow, and found the staging and sound design pretty captivating. The "Fleetwood Mac, but not!" elements were cringe but the lived in vibe and energy made it fine and even fun. Than the last 80 minutes happened and the show became about EMOTIONS and it got excruciating. Made the 2 hours before it feel like a waste retroactively if we are just going to hear people suddenly posses the emotional intelligence to say their feelings and insecurities why did they just discover it when they have to wrap everything up. Really tough time for a show to get boring. One of the Will Butler songs would legit be a great Fleetwood Mac song and the others are perfectly fine songs that sound like what if one of the arcade fire guys tried to make Fleetwood Mac songs

Saw "Job" as well and enjoyed it a fair amount. Toed the line between being genuinely shocking and being a show that has to sell tickets to tourists 8 times a week really well, and potentially in its favor keeping it from being too online. Was nice to see an entire play take place in less time than the post intermission of Stereophonic.

Tried to see Oh, Mary instead but just normal non-inflated face price tickets are $200-350. Thats insanity.

[rango420]

Jun 29, 2024 6:23:38 GMT -6 ten15 said:

Saw Little Bear Ridge Road last night. Incredible. Laurie Metcalf is perfect and Micah Stock does an amazing job playing off her. Often funny, but also very sad. Go see it if you can.

I caught this very early in its run, so can't fully comment on the chemistry between the leads, and liked it mostly for Laurie Metcalf's performance, but felt like she was basically literally playing a significantly toned (and sized) down version of Charlie in the Whale, and the story of "Flamboyant son who's creative career has all but flamed out and has to move back home to help settle estate with kooky small town family" was literally just the plot of Baskets. Felt like either Samuel Hunter either wrote this thing in 2 months because he had the opportunity to write a Laurie metcalf show at Steppenwolf or hes really just a one trick pony.

[Tweet]

www.stereogum.com/2281928/thom-yorke-is-adapting-radioheads-hail-to-the-thief-for-a-new-production-of-hamlet/news/

[scoots]

Seeing Hamilton next month. I'll report back to let you know if it's worth it.

[cosmo]

We're seeing Stephen King's Misery on stage tonight. Hope that's good, as well.