Big openings: ‘Dear Evan Hansen’ anyone?
No sooner are seasonal festivities over than Chicago theater opens back up for business. There are scores of winter openings. But here — in alphabetical order — are 10 shows to look forward to in particular in the first three months of 2019.
It’s the Year of Chicago Theatre, don’t you know? Start it off with a bang or three.
“An Inspector Calls”: Director Stephen Daldry’s massively successful and profoundly revisionist 1992 National Theatre of Great Britain revival of J.B. Priestley’s Edwardian detective thriller (it subsequently played Broadway and at the Chicago Theatre in 1995) blew away all conventional notions of this play, and moved this director’s formidable career to a whole other level. It’s back and, as part of a National Theatre tour, coming to shock you again at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater. I’ve long regarded this production as one of the greatest stagings of its generation; let’s hope this internationally touring resurrection will live up to the memory. Feb. 19 to March 10 at Chicago Shakespeare Theater on Navy Pier; www.chicagoshakes.com
“Dear Evan Hansen”: Only in Chicago for four weeks (don’t wait to get tickets), the first national tour of one of the few recent Broadway shows really to land with a teen audience will be a big winter draw. Even without Ben Platt, its original star, “Dear Evan Hansen” is likely to be a beautiful night at the theater. When I saw the piece on Broadway, I described it as “the first great American musical about social media — a democratizer, comforter, amoral facilitator of witch hunts and general pox Americana that has upended everything from family mealtime to who gets to occupy the Oval Office.” Still true. Feb. 12 to March 10 at the Nederlander Theatre, 24 W. Randolph St.; 800-775-2000 and www.broadwayinchicago.com
“A Doll’s House, Part 2”: Robin Witt’s direction of a string of storefront successes in Chicago has been superb. In 2019, she gets her chance at the Steppenwolf Theatre, directing the improbably but hugely enjoyable Broadway hit from the wacky but resonant playwright Lucas Hnath. Herein, Hnath imagines, Henrik Ibsen’s famous Nora (of “A Doll’s House” fame) gets the chance to walk back through the door she so famous slammed — and settle some old scores. You can sit on the stage. Jan. 31 to March 17 at Steppenwolf Theatre, 1650 N. Halsted St.; 312-335-1650 and www.steppenwolf.org “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow is Enuf”: The playwright Ntozake Shange, who lived and worked in Chicago for a productive while, died in 2018 at the age of 70. But she left behind this revolutionary “choreo-poem,” a seminal work of theater wherein seven performers essay a composite character, a single black woman, exploring different aspects of herself through poetry, music and movement. Director Seret Scott, whose recent work at the Drury Lane Theatre in Oakbrook Terrace has impressed, is at the helm of this much-anticipated Court Theatre revival of a show that changed Broadway back in 1976. March 14 to April 14 at the Court Theatre, 5535 S. Ellis Ave.; 773-753-4472 and www.courttheatre.org “How to Catch Creation”: Director Niegel Smith, whose work last year on Suzan-Lori Parks’ “Father Comes Home From the Wars (Parts 1, 2 & 3)” was superb, returns to town to helm the Chicago premiere of a play by Christina Anderson (an academic who teaches playwriting at Brown University) about a man, recently released from prison, who desperately is trying to put his life back together. Jan. 19 to Feb. 24 at the Goodman’s Albert Theatre, 170 N. Dearborn St.; 312443-3800 and www.goodmantheatre.org
“Nina Simone: Four Women”: The title of this musical play references a famous Nina Simone song first recorded on the 1966 album “Wild is the Wind” and skewering the archetypal roles black women are forced to play. First seen in Minnesota in 2016 and critically acclaimed, Christina Ham’s play is set in 1963 in the ruins of the bombed-out 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala. Sydney Charles, a rising star in Chicago, plays the title role. Jan. 24 to March 2 at Northlight Theatre at the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts, 9501 Skokie Blvd., Skokie; 847-6736300 and www.northlight.org
“On Clover Road”: Gwendolyn Whiteside and Philip Earl Johnson, fine actors both, star in American Blues Theater’s first Chicago production of a noirstyle thriller from the structurally savvy scribe Steven Dietz (long a favorite at Chicago theaters). First seen in 2015 at the Contemporary American Theatre Festival in West Virginia, the piece is all about a desperate mother who fears she has lost her daughter to a cult and agrees to meet a “deprogrammer” in an isolated motel. Feb. 1 to March 16 at Stage 773, 1225 W. Belmont Ave.; 773-7543103 and www.americanbluestheater.com
“The Producers”: Even after all these years, it’s hard to beat this Mel Brooks screen-to-stage masterpiece for satirical laughs. It will be fun to see how and if director Jim Corti and his Paramount Theatre stars (Blake Hammond and Jake Morrissy) are able to make the show come alive again in a very different era. And you can expect both the original orchestrations and lavish production numbers. Feb. 6 to March 17 at Paramount Theatre, 23 E. Galena Blvd., Aurora; 630896-6666 and www.paramountaurora.com
“Red Rex”: The sixth play in Ike Holter’s cycle of Chicago plays (seen all over the city) has the potential to hit comedically — and maybe painfully — close to home for those close to the city’s theater community. In Holter’s latest, a small theater company moves into an abandoned Chicago storefront with what they think will be a new hit show likely to make all their artistic careers. But there is a question about how much it truly reflects the community which everyone claims to serve. Jan. 19 to March 2 at Steep Theatre, 1115 W. Berwyn Ave.; 773-6493186 and steeptheatre.com
“St. Nicholas”: Star-driven productions are relative rarities in Chicago, and to fans of the longrunning television drama “Downton Abbey,” Brendan Coyle (the loving but dangerous Mr. Bates) is most certainly a star. Conor McPherson’s drama is a strange and remarkable play (I last saw it in New York many years ago with Brian Cox in the only role) about a middle-aged theater critic, of all things, and the dreams and nightmares that plague him as he sits in the dark, however new or old the year. Jan. 9-27 at the Goodman’s Owen Theatre, 170 N. Dearborn St.; 312-443-3800 and www. goodmantheatre.org