Reader Recommended — Smoke is Excellent! May 18, 2008
Posted by Steve in : Weblog , add a commentI went last night with my wfie and parents to see Smoke on the Mountain, the latest offering from Provision Theater and it is a rip-roaring funny musical! Go check it out Thursday to Sun at the Viaduct Theater, 3111 N Western Ave.
Smoke on the Mountain is the story of the 1938 North Carolina Mount Pleasant Church’s first Saturday night ”sing.” Reverend Mervin Ogethorpe (Alex Goodrich, a traffic banjo player) has invited the “Singing Sanders’ family to lead the church’s first ‘sing.’ Burl Sanders (Richard Marlatt) and wife Vera Sanders (Susan Moniz) together with Burl’s brother Stanley (Jeff Harms) and their children June (Amber Burgess), Denise (Christine Barnes) and her twin Dennis (Shaun Whitley) form a gospel bluegrass band. The Sanders’ family play guitar, fiddle, bass, mandolin and piano and all have excellent voices. They mix their wide range of white gospel tunes with down-home personal antidotes and religious ‘testimonies.’ These sentimentally sweet stories are humorous adding a spiritual revival element to the show. The musicianship here is first class.
The cast have a blend of fine voices (Susan Moniz and Richard Marlatt are terrific), offering truthful performances, especially from Shaun Whitley and Christine Barnes as the teen twins smitten with the spirit of the Lord. There were rich harmonies and a nice mixture of bluegrass and gospel tunes. These rural folks’ lives are centered on their religion in small town North Carolina in 1938 and their faith explodes through their music and their general store and auto garage in rural North Carlonia.
RECOMMENDED BY THE CHICAGO READER
Here is what the Chicago Reader says “SMOKE ON THE MOUNTAIN, Provision Theater’s gospel musical can be an awfully sweet treat–but every time my teeth started to itch, one of writer Connie Ray’s hairpin turns to comedy saved the day. Set in 1938, the show transforms the audience into the congregation of a Baptist church at its first-ever Saturday night sing, hosted by the annoyingly earnest Reverend Oglethorpe. His invited guests, the musical Sanders family, play and sing a range of traditional numbers, from the familiar (”Rock of Ages”) to the oddball (”The Filling Station”), the touching (”Blood Medley”) to the rousing (”Angel Band”). In between, family members relate their generally hilarious inspirational stories. Director Tim Gregory keeps things precise but light, and all the performers are chock-full of the musical and comic spirit. –Laura Molzahn Through 6/8: Thu-Sat 8 PM, Sun 3 PM, Viaduct Theater, 3111 N. Western, 773-506-4429, $20-$25, industry shows Thu,
Looptopia — Less Than 5 Days to Go May 6, 2007
Posted by Steve in : The City, Chicago, The Cultural Conversation, The Arts in the City , add a comment
This week on May 11, LOOPTOPIA will be America’s first dusk-to-dawn cultural and artistic spectacle showcasing the vibrancy and excitement of Chicago’s historic Loop neighborhood through musical and theatrical performances, unique shopping and dining opportunities, indoor programs, outdoor exhibitions, architectural tours, artistic installations and mesmerizing light displays. Of course, we already know this is the coolest, hippest place to live but come join us for an all night cultural party! This is the kind of stuff that we thrive on at Park Community Church, where artists of every sort of media attend to find out more about God and grow in their spiritual journey.
(the picture to the right is from WNEP Theater’s Soiree DADA, who will take to the street during LOOPTOPIA on Friday, May 11th. Bask in the sunshine of their love at The Plaza at Chase Tower, between 7:15 - 7:45pm.)
Inspired by “White Night” events in Rome, Montreal and Paris, LOOPTOPIA will feature over (more…)
Beast on the Moon — “Tribune: Well Worth the Trip” April 16, 2007
Posted by Steve in : Weblog , add a commentThe Chicago Tribune’s Kerry Reid has weighed in and as expected the reviews for Provision Theater’s “Beast on the Moon” are excellent:
‘Beast on the Moon’
A bittersweet, affecting and beautifully acted tale of immigrant life, Provision Theater’s production of Richard Kalinoski’s “Beast on the Moon” is well worth the trip to the Irish American Heritage Center. Set in Milwaukee during a span from the early 1920s to the mid-1930s, the story traces the troubled relationship between Aram Tomasian, a photographer, and his “picture bride,” Seta. Armenians who survived the Turkish genocide a few years earlier and now striving to have their own child, Seta and Aram have chosen very different ways of dealing with their lingering grief.
Tim Gregory gracefully directs their fumbling attempts to create a real marriage out of those differences. Tiffany Scott delivers one of the most effortlessly engaging and moving performances I’ve seen so far this year as Seta, and her shifts from a terrified bride to self-possessed young housewife unfold with subtle grace and poignant truthfulness. Levi Holloway captures the hollow-eyed grief and rage of Aram, a good man paralyzed by his past. Kalinoski’s decision to include a grownup narrator feels unnecessary to the insular world of the play, but this small distraction doesn’t detract from this charming and sometimes heartbreaking production.
Through April 29 at Irish American Heritage Center, 4626 N. Knox Ave (MAP) Tickets are $25 at 773-506- 4429.
The Word is Out: Chicago Attracts the Young and Educated March 24, 2007
Posted by Steve in : The City, Chicago, Breaking News , add a comment
The Chicago Trib ran an article this month looking at the changing demographics of Chicago and the surge of post-college 20Somethings who are flocking to this great city of Chicago. People are finally beginning to see what an awesome place Chicago is to live and be missional!
The article starts off, “ As thousands of Chicagoans leave the city each year, a countervailing force is moving in: twentysomethings, whose growing presence in and near the city’s center is attracting companies to start or expand operations downtown. Kenneth Johnson, a demographer and sociology professor at Loyola University Chicago who has studied the trend, estimates Chicago’s twentysomething population at 450,000, surpassed only by New York and Los Angeles, which also are experiencing influxes of new college grads. The young newcomers, Johnson said, hail from the suburbs as well as cities such as Philadelphia, Detroit and Cleveland.
“Companies are finding that the key asset is no longer the highway interchange, coal vein or port,” said Richard Florida, a professor of urban policy at George Mason University. “Now, it’s this educated, skilled, innovative talent. Companies are moving to be near the kind of people that Chicago is attracting in droves.” (more…)
