Concerts

First, some mathematical context: I’ve seen A Chorus Line at least 18 times since 1976, the year the first national tour rolled into Chicago. Prior to last week, I was certain the brilliant show about aspiring Broadway hoofers held no more surprises. How could it? I’ve known every word, lyric, cadence, and character in this show (conceived by original director/choreographer Michael Bennett, book by James Kirkwood and Nicholas Dante, music by Marvin Hamlisch, lyrics by Edward Kleban) since I was 13—i.e., for more than three-quarters of my entire life. And then Drury Lane’s production, directed by Jane Lanier, happened. 

A Chorus Line Through 3/19: Wed 1:30 PM, Thu 1:30 and 8 PM, Fri 8 PM, Sat 3 and 8 PM, Sun 2 and 6 PM, Drury Lane Theatre, 100 Drury Lane, Oakbrook Terrace, 630-530-0111, drurylanetheatre.com, $85-$95

The production is an adrenaline rush from start to finish. We’re still set firmly in the 1970s, but the stories of the “kids” on the line resonate with a power that’s only intensified over the years. The production is an emotional roller coaster you won’t want to exit. Every number is a showstopper, from Mike’s (Sam Linda) taptastic solo “I Can Do That” to the glittering, all-hands-on-deck ensemble finale “One.” 

In a cast of standouts, Ivory Leonard IV is incandescent as a comet as high-school standout Ritchie, a fireball of athleticism and rhythm who brings heat, power, and mighty subtext to every move and every line. Sara Andreas makes the Herculean dance/vocal solo “The Music and the Mirror” a blazing testament to artistic passion and a remarkable display of grace and endurance under pressure. 

Sawyer Smith delivers comedy and pathos in the revelatory, comedically irresistible Bobby, a self-described “strange” kid who embraces his strangeness early, fiercely, and without reservation. And when Yesy Garcia sends “What I Did for Love” soaring toward the gods, it’s a benediction for the brutal, beautiful business of show.

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First, some mathematical context: I’ve seen A Chorus Line at least 18 times since 1976, the year the first national tour rolled into Chicago. Prior to last week, I was certain the brilliant show about aspiring Broadway hoofers held no more surprises. How could it? I’ve known every word, lyric, cadence, and character in this show (conceived by original director/choreographer Michael Bennett, book by James Kirkwood and Nicholas Dante, music by Marvin Hamlisch, lyrics by Edward Kleban) since I was 13—i.e., for more than three-quarters of my entire life. And then Drury Lane’s production, directed by Jane Lanier, happened. 

A Chorus Line Through 3/19: Wed 1:30 PM, Thu 1:30 and 8 PM, Fri 8 PM, Sat 3 and 8 PM, Sun 2 and 6 PM, Drury Lane Theatre, 100 Drury Lane, Oakbrook Terrace, 630-530-0111, drurylanetheatre.com, $85-$95

The production is an adrenaline rush from start to finish. We’re still set firmly in the 1970s, but the stories of the “kids” on the line resonate with a power that’s only intensified over the years. The production is an emotional roller coaster you won’t want to exit. Every number is a showstopper, from Mike’s (Sam Linda) taptastic solo “I Can Do That” to the glittering, all-hands-on-deck ensemble finale “One.” 

In a cast of standouts, Ivory Leonard IV is incandescent as a comet as high-school standout Ritchie, a fireball of athleticism and rhythm who brings heat, power, and mighty subtext to every move and every line. Sara Andreas makes the Herculean dance/vocal solo “The Music and the Mirror” a blazing testament to artistic passion and a remarkable display of grace and endurance under pressure. 

Sawyer Smith delivers comedy and pathos in the revelatory, comedically irresistible Bobby, a self-described “strange” kid who embraces his strangeness early, fiercely, and without reservation. And when Yesy Garcia sends “What I Did for Love” soaring toward the gods, it’s a benediction for the brutal, beautiful business of show.

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Big Fish bombed on Broadway. Based on Tim Burton’s 2003 movie version of Daniel Wallace’s 1998 novel Big Fish: A Novel of Mythic Proportions, the show, with a score by Andrew Lippa and a book by John August, opened on Broadway on October 6, 2013, and only ran 98 regular performances and earned for its pains zero Tony nominations. Yet, in October 2019, I saw a revival of this show, produced by BoHo Theatre, that was so magical, it made me wonder why the show had bombed. Marriott Theatre’s sluggish and uninspired current revival, directed by Henry Godinez, gave me some insights. 

Big FishThrough 3/19: Wed 1 and 7:30 PM, Thu 7:30 PM, Fri 8 PM, Sat 4 and 8 PM, Sun 1 and 5 PM; also Thu 3/9 and 3/16 1 PM: Wed 3/8 and 3/15 and Sun 3/19 1 PM only; ASL interpretation Thu 3/16 7:30 PM; Marriott Theatre, 10 Marriott Dr., Lincolnshire, 847-634-0200, marriotttheatre.com, $59-$64

The story, about a father and son’s fraught relationship, is at heart an intimate one. Yes, the central character is larger than life; he loves telling tall tales about his life and exploits. He claims to have met and saved a giant, kissed a real mermaid, had his death foretold by a witch, etc. But the feelings smoldering underneath the tales are the kind more easily communicated in a storefront theater, not in Marriott’s banquet-hall-sized theater-in-the-round. This goes double for Lippa’s sweet and restrained but forgettable tunes.

It doesn’t help that the two most important actors in the show, Alexander Gemignani (Edward Bloom, the father) and Michael Kurowski (Will Bloom, the son)—don’t fully inhabit their parts. Gemignani never for a moment convinces as the fascinating, big-talking, dream chaser at the center of it all. Nor does Kurowski. Playing a son who has spent his life feeling neglected by his dad, Kurowski never seems more than mildly peeved at all of his father’s nonsense (which may even include having a long-term mistress). The lack of chemistry between these two takes all the fire out of the show. Heidi Kettenring, in contrast, turns in a stellar performance as Edward’s long-suffering wife. If only Gemignani and Kurowski had matched her energy and commitment, this show might have been magic.

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Behind a great artist, there’s often a great manager. The average fan likely never thinks about the people who manage their favorite musicians, but they’re the ones typically handling the behind-the-scenes work on the business side of the entertainment industry. Whether they’re booking performances, negotiating contracts, or just acting as voices of reason for the artists they represent, managers are unsung heroes. In Chicago, one of these unsung heroes is Beleshia McCulley, also known as Lyrical, founder of Lyrical Eyes Management and the 323 Music Group label.

Lyrical initially stepped into Chicago’s creative community as a singer, vocal coach, and poet before switching lanes. So while she’s only been taking on clients with Lyrical Eyes since 2012 and running her label since 2015, she’s been deeply rooted in the Chicago music scene for more than 16 years. Among the artists she’s helped bolster—whether by managing them, signing them to 323 Music Group, or simply advocating for them—are Lil Durk, Ravyn Lenae, and Chief Keef.

“I’ve always had a way with words, so that’s how I got into poetry and singing. When my daughter decided she wanted to be a music artist, I felt like I couldn’t allow somebody else to come in and manage her,” Lyrical says. “Knowing what I was good at, which was words, singing, and having been an artist myself, I wanted to protect her and surround her with the right people. So that’s how managing really started for me.”

Artist management is not a task for the weak. The entertainment industry is notoriously ruthless. Many people in the field will take advantage of colleagues who aren’t sufficiently careful, stealing credit from them or worse—and the situation is even tougher for a woman in a male-dominated industry. Lyrical says lots of people are just overall difficult to work with, and she’s been pushed out of projects she worked hard at building. It didn’t take her long to realize that the game can be dirty. She tried to make her start in the business while working for others, but the main thing she got out of that experience was a chip on her shoulder. Soon she decided to start her own management company and indie label.

“You have to build your own team. A lot of people come in with the purpose of getting to the bag, but I realized my purpose has nothing to do with getting the bag. My purpose is to help people get closer to their goals,” she says. “That put me into a different perspective, to understanding that I was the bag, and [I] pushed myself. I feel like Briahna [Gatlin] of Swank Publishing and I are the women that’s really behind Chicago music, and we’ve done a lot of things [where] we still don’t get the recognition that we deserve.”

Lyrical has made a name for herself in the industry, but she’s never let her career define her. During our conversation, she emphasizes that she’s first and foremost a woman of God and a mother. She approaches life and relationships with an elegant grace, driven by the dedication to do right by people and help them reach their full potential. Whatever you might’ve been through, she’s probably experienced it herself and can help walk you through it.

“I believe in speaking purpose into people’s life. I believe in introducing them to God, who’s saved my life. I try to stop people from doing shit before they do it, because I know what it looks like,” Lyrical says. “I am just an advocate for preaching to people that what’s for you is for you, and if you choose to give up today, you don’t know what was coming next week. So I think when it comes to my community, I’m keeping myself up by just being able to give other people purpose.”

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The parking lot is full, illuminated by a fading yellow sign adorned with a tiki drink and a palm tree. Unassumingly tucked away in North Riverside, just west of Chicago, Chef Shangri-La is preparing for a lively night—not uncommon for the suburban mainstay. The entire restaurant is bustling, packed with families that fill the festively decorated, tiki-inspired dining room. Specialty cocktails and massive portions of Cantonese classics line the tables as customers fill the restaurant with astonishing energy. And to keep the place running smoothly, the owners, Dr. Lisa and Irv Abrams, are fixed to the host stand, inviting customers into their 47-year-old restaurant. 

Even though boozy tiki drinks like the Mai Tai or Dr. Fongs and the expansive Cantonese menu alone could justify the crowd, the main attraction begins shortly after 7 PM. Elvis has entered the building. The restaurant is suddenly quiet and the King himself serenades the tipsy dining room. The live entertainment occurs within the crowd, facilitating an intimate, far more engaging experience than an onstage performer. Suddenly, it’s clear why Chef Shangri-La upholds its distinctive, timeless legacy and why customers keep coming back. 

Chef Shangri-La opened in 1976 when Lisa’s parents, Paul and Susie Fong, decided to leave their original Chinatown eatery. The Fong family purchased this modest corner building in North Riverside, despite a significantly smaller kitchen and dining room. Still, Paul hoped the new building would give him the opportunity to create his perfect restaurant. Somehow in this limited kitchen, Lisa remembers her father cooking some of her favorite meals—occasionally a 14-course spread.

“Prior to the opening, they set out to make this the ‘chef Shangri-la,’ interpreted by my father as the ‘chef’s utopia’ of what heaven was like for a chef, and designed it with Hawaiian decor, because who doesn’t like Hawaii?” says Lisa. “My mother really liked the idea because her grandmother was originally Hawaiian.”

Paul’s recipes continue to live on at Chef Shangri-La, filling a massive menu that features beloved items such as Shrimp La Fong and Tahitian Mango Passion Pork. The Fong family has also crafted an impressively creative boozy drink list with the specialty Dr. Fongs at the top, humorously named after Lisa when she had yet to complete her doctorate. When Paul passed away in 2012, Susie and her children ran the restaurant alone until she fell ill in 2019, leading her to approach Lisa’s husband Irv to take over the restaurant. 

“The absolute reason we came to take over the Chef is my mother,” says Lisa. “She had wanted to have the restaurant continue, and her wish, as it had been for many years, was she wanted to leave behind a whole extended family to be able to return to the Chef to have holidays and birthdays and anniversaries together and to keep the Fong family traditions alive and well.”

The Fongs carved out a family legacy in North Riverside, but Chef Shangri-La’s impact is embedded in the community due to its generational footprint. Guests are made to feel special. Simply by visiting, it’s apparent that you’ve entered a well-established, emotionally rich cornerstone. Beyond the drinks, the food, the retro atmosphere, and the performance, there is a real history that lives on—and that’s the true accomplishment for any restaurant that stays open for more than a decade, let alone nearly five.

“My favorite part of running the restaurant is hearing stories about how great a chef Paul Fong was and how families continue to dine with us over the last 46 years,” says Irv. “Lisa and I can carry out Mom’s wishes to deliver a great product and allow our customers to feel like they are on a tropical vacation.” 

Chef Shangri-La 7930 W. 26th St., North Riverside708-442-7080chefshangri-la.com

Chef Shangri-La’s live performances originated as fan dances, hula routines, and other Hawaiian-inspired shows, but in 2013, Elvis impersonators became a regular attraction. The longest-standing Elvis performer is Michael St. Angel, who performs on the fourth Friday of every month. St. Angel started performing when Chef Shangri-La first introduced Elvis to the lineup and feels a special and familiar connection to his performances there. He dances and sings between the tables, greeting newcomers, birthday celebrators, and die-hard regular customers—which ties the knot on a memorable experience. 

“I am proud to say that the first year they began offering live entertainment, I was one of the first, if not the first, solo performer who entertained there,” says St. Angel. “To date, the Fong family and I have been together since early 2013, so we’re celebrating our ten-year anniversary together.

“Overall,” he continues, “the crowd at Chef Shangri-La is energetic, and people are there to have a good time. It’s a great vibe there—Hawaiian/tiki themes, powerful tropical drinks, good food, etc. Toss in Elvis and you have the recipe for a memorable night, for sure. Since I’ve been performing there for so long, I have met many friends and fans from this one spot who not only have followed me elsewhere but also make a point of returning to Chef Shangri-La when I am there, which makes my performances all the more special and familiar.”

By 2019, Chef Shangri-La acquired a lineup of several other performers, including Billy Joel, Michael Jackson, and Tina Turner impersonators, among others. For several years before the pandemic, the family hosted Fong Fest—an annual music festival held in the restaurant’s parking lot. This year, Fong Fest will finally return in September, complete with more than 50 tropical drinks and Chinese appetizers. The Abrams family intends to carry on Paul and Susie Fong’s legacy, and so far, Chef Shangri-La remains the comforting “utopia” it set out to be. Maybe it’s the booze, but when you visit Chef Shangri-La, you want to stay a while. And you’ll likely return with friends, no matter how long the drive is out to the suburbs. 

“My mother is always with us in spirit and in the restaurant, and she wants us to continue to the next generation,” Lisa said. “Many others want to demolish this old building and turn it into condominiums or apartments, like the current community is also hoping, I think, but we’re hanging in there strong as ever.” 

During the pandemic, Irv and Lisa managed to keep Chef Shangri-La alive thanks to outdoor dining and entertainment. Plus, Irv and Lisa began bottling Dr. Fongs and the other signature drinks by quarts and gallons for customers to enjoy at home.

Lisa continued, “I want the customers to come with their families, young and old, friends, and colleagues to enjoy good Cantonese food like they are in Hawaii, get more happy with our fancy tropical drinks, and have a great time. I also want them to leave here and say, ‘When can we come back again?’”

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Appropriation, wordplay, riffs on news headlines, improv skits, and a grab bag of absurdist tropes get thrown in a hat to very uneven ends in Curious Theatre Branch’s set of four half-hour plays responding to Caryl Churchill’s This Is a Chair.

This Is Not a ChurchillThrough 2/25: Fri-Sat 8 PM, Facility Theatre, 1138 N. California, facilitytheatre.org, $15 or pay what you can

In Beau O’Reilly’s The Umbrella Disguise,several odd characters emerge from behind the titular object and recite inchoate monologues and dialogues. If there’s a larger point, it was lost on this viewer other than to note the gratitude as each exited the stage. In Jayita Bhattacharya and Ira S. Murfin’s (Not) What We Talk About When We Talk about Love,a different set of characters sketch out scenes riffing on titles of noted short stories by Raymond Carver, Flannery O’Connor, and others. It’s compelling and often reminded me of those writers, though not of Churchill in particular. Chris Bower’s How to Fix Your Fatigue (Do This Every Day) employs a more complex overlapping structure, with recurring characters returning to the stage multiple times. The most memorable are two androids who repeatedly quiz one another about what they see when they look up at the moon. Chris Zdenek’s This Is Not a Play by Caryl Churchill Titled, “This Is a Chair” is a succession of desperately unfunny improv-style skits that each fall well short of the laughs and/or resonance they’re reaching for.

Can’t say what any of these have to do with Churchill aside from using the title of her play as a springboard for whatever the writers would’ve written anyway.

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Alexis J. Roston’s sixth go-round playing jazz legend Billie Holiday in the last year of her life is beautifully layered, heartbreaking, and still affirming of the great vocalist’s accomplishments, against a multitude of odds. After a decade on and off in the role, Roston is now a codirector in Mercury Theater’s production of the Lanie Robertson one-act Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill; she’s said her lived experience (having now lived longer than Holiday) informs her matured approach to the role. Set in the Mercury’s intimate Venus Cabaret Theater, the venue replicates a small club in Philadelphia, one of the only places left for Holiday to perform after her New York City cabaret card was revoked. After some waiting around, we’re told “Ms. Day is on her way, they wouldn’t let her through the front door,” and she eventually barges backstage, big coat and dog in tow.

Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill Through 3/12: Fri 8 PM, Sat 3 and 8 PM, Sun 3 PM, Mercury Theater Venus Cabaret, 3745 N. Southport, 773-360-7365, mercurytheaterchicago.com, $60-$70 (premium tables for up to four people $259-$299, including a bottle of sparkling wine)

What follows is a magnetic greatest hits concert, where gorgeous vocal performances of songs like “When a Woman Loves a Man” and “God Bless the Child” are interspersed with the sad and rueful storytelling of a woman who faced unimaginable racism, sexism, and trauma throughout her short life. While an intentionally “off the rails” performance due to the performer’s addiction and mental health could lead to voyeuristic pity, Roston’s sparkle and vulnerability create room for empathy and admiration for Holiday, who is still standing and singing despite it all. You leave wishing Holiday knew her legacy and feeling deeply unsettled by how songs like “Strange Fruit” are still so topical.

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In the musical stage adaptation of Mo Willems’s Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! (book by Willems and Mr. Warburton, music by Deborah Wicks La Puma, and lyrics by Willems), a down-on-his-luck pigeon (Brade Bradshaw) is fed up with never getting to do anything fun. He’s an underdog who wants nothing more than to feel heard. When he meets the passionate local Bus Driver (Karla Serrato), he decides that his purpose is to drive the bus.

From there, Pigeon’s neighbors try to convince him, primarily through song and dance, that there’s no way he can drive the bus. It’s a fun, simple story with a lot of heart and plenty of pertinent life lessons for young people.

Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! Through 2/26: Sat 10 AM, 1 PM, and 3 PM, Sun 1 PM; also Fri 2/20 7 PM; Sat 2/11 10 AM and 1 PM only; Greenhouse Theater Center, 2257 N. Lincoln, 773-404-7336, yptchi.org, $25 ($19 under 12). NOTE: all performances currently sold out. Contact box office for information on cancellations and wait lists.

Among the standout features in this Young People’s Theatre of Chicago production (directed by Randy White) is Jackie Penrod’s set design, which depicts a colorful abstraction of Chicago, allowing the audience to imagine Pigeon and his friends in their backyard. 

The young audience was enthralled with Pigeon’s journey at the show’s opening performance. They cheered him on, felt his pain, and swayed to the show’s bright songs (sung live to recorded music). While there is no question that the show is for younger children, adults can undoubtedly appreciate the pure joy of Pigeon’s world and the central message that there’s plenty of time to find your place and learn to fly.

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Table Tennis Anyone? First off table tennis is not code for anything. I’m looking for a regular table tennis partner Mon, Wed and/or Fri, after 3 p.m. to play at KillerSpin on Clark Street downtown. This is for serious practice. I was a 1200 rated player 20 years ago when I last played [email protected].

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