Chicago Spotlight: March 2007

March in Chicago is as busy a theater month as any, but with a minimum of big-name offerings on tap, theatergoers can concentrate on the work of some smaller companies.

A number of recent New York hits come to the Windy City this month: Will Eno’s solo play Thom Pain (based on nothing) (Theatre Wit at The Viaduct, March 12-April 14), Noah Haidle’s disturbing Mr. Marmalade (Cornservatory, March 22-April 29), the Tony Award-winning national tour of Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?(LaSalle Bank Theatre, March 27-April 18), and David Lindsay- Abaire’s wrenching family drama Rabbit Hole at the Goodman Theatre (March 19-April 15).

The Goodman will also present the world premiere of Jose Rivera’s Massacre (Sing to Your Children), which received an initial reading at NYC’s LAByrinth Theatre Company (March 24-April 22).

The House Theatre of Chicago had a big hit earlier this winter with The Sparrow; now this play with music about a Midwestern teenage girl with super powers will reopen at the Steppenwolf Garage Theatre (March 15-April 24).

March will wax just a tad political as Striding Lion Interarts Workshop presents its original work, Gerrymander, at the National Pastime Theater (March 9-April 1). The Striding Lion folk describe it as an opera buffo inspired by indicted former Congressman Tom DeLay, and his efforts in 2003 to redraw the map of Texas congressional districts in favor of Republicans. Later in the month, The Second City will debut its 94th mainstage revue, Between Barack and a Hard Place (opens March 22), which is expected to take an early look at 2008 presidential politics.

Without question, classic plays appear to be in robust health in Chicago. There’s a rethinking of Shakespeare’s melancholy Dane in Hamlet Remixed at New World Repertory (March 3-31), the intriguing Marionette Macbeth at Chicago Shakespeare Theater (March 14-25); George Bernard Shaw’s Mrs. Warren’s Profession at Remy Bumppo Theatre (at Victory Gardens Greenhouse, March 11-April 22), Lillian Hellmann’s Toys in the Attic at Blind Faith Theatre (at The Viaduct, March 16-April 15); Raven Theatre’s production of Chekhov’s The Sea Gull (March 25-May 27), and Northlight Theatre’s Wild West spin on She Stoops to Conquer (March 28-April 29).

Musical theater is represented by an intimate staging of The Wiz by White Horse Theatre (at Theatre Building Chicago, March 3-25), and the area premiere of the musical version of My Favorite Year, with a score by Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens, at Bailiwick Repertory (March 11-April 14). Also on tap are Something’s Afoot, the popular murder mystery musical, Drury Lane Oakbrook Terrace (March 22-May 20), and Memphis Soul: the History of Stax Records, a musical revue of the great R&B label, Black Ensemble Theater (from March 25).

If you want to see naked men on stage, there will be three appropriate productions: Peter Schaffer’s modern classic Equus, presented in an intimate staging at Actor’s Workshop Theatre (March 16-May 22); Elizabeth Egloff’s The Swan, a romance about a man trapped in a swan’s body, at Trap Door Theatre (March 23-May 5); and the self-descriptively named Barenaked Lads Take Off Broadway, a slightly gay romp at Bailiwick Repertory (from March 26).