Fuerza Bruta: Look Up is Coming to Chicago

Broadway In Chicago is thrilled to announce the Chicago premiere of the international hit FUERZA BRUTA: LOOK UP (from the creators of De La Guarda), a non-stop collision of dynamic music, visceral emotion and kinetic aerial imagery that resembles nothing less than a fantastic mash-up between aerial theater and a late-night dance party.

FUERZA BRUTA: LOOK UP begins May 21, 2010 at the Auditorium Theatre of Roosevelt University (50 E. Congress).  The historic landmark theatre will have its stage and lobby transformed into an alternate universe, filled with flying performers, pumping beats, engaging dream sequences and a multidimensional swimming pool above the heads of an audience who is on stage in the middle of the action.

“We are excited to bring this show to Chicago in partnership with the Auditorium Theatre,” says Lou Raizin, President of Broadway In Chicago.  “It is an extraordinary experience that may never have come to Chicago due to the unusual technical and physical requirements of this show.  Thinking out of the box was necessary to have this amazing event come to our city.”

“After amazing success with FUERZA BRUTA: LOOK UP in major cities around the world, we are thrilled to bring this very special show to Chicago, one of the country’s premiere cities for live theater and entertainment,” said Steve Howard, President of Exhibitions and Live Shows for S2BN Entertainment.

Tickets for FUERZA BRUTA: LOOK UP range from $50 – $80 and will be a part of the Broadway In Chicago Season Series that will go on sale in February. Group tickets of 15 or more are available now by calling (312) 977-1710 or visiting BroadwayInChicago.com.  The performance schedule for FUERZA BRUTA: LOOK UP is as follows: Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays at 7:30 PM, Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 PM and 10:00 PM, and Sundays at 3:00 PM and 6:30 PM.

Fiddler On The Roof is Opening at Marriott Theatre

The Marriott Theatre begins its 35^th anniversary 2010 season with the internationally acclaimed Broadway musical FIDDLER ON THE ROOF. The production previews February 17^th, opens February 24^th and runs through April 25^th. David H. Bell (OLIVER, SHENANDOAH, THE BOWERY BOYS) will direct and choreograph.

Winner of ten Tony Awards, FIDDLER ON THE ROOF has captured the hearts of people across the globe. A powerful and bittersweet celebration of the human spirit, FIDDLER ON THE ROOF is the tale of a family struggling to maintain their balance in a changing world. It is 1905, on the eve of the Russian Revolution, as Tevye, a Jewish milkman, and his wife search for acceptable husbands for their three lively daughters. While the daughters are determined to break with tradition and marry the men they love, Tevye must choose between their happiness and his beloved traditions that keep the outside world at bay. Meanwhile, the family begins to face larger forces as Jews are being persecuted in their homeland, threatening the very life Tevye strives to preserve.

FIDDLER ON THE ROOF stars award-winning actors Ross Lehman as Tevye and Paula Scrofano as Golde and an all-star cast including Justin Berkobien as Perchik, Dara Cameron as Hodel, David Girolmo as Lazar Wolf, Andrew Keltz as Motel, Jessie Mueller as Tzeitel, Patrick Sarb as Fyedka, Laura Scheinbaum as Chava, and Craig Spidle as the Constable. Also featured are Matthew Crowle, Arielle Leigh Dayan, Rebecca Finnegan, Jennifer T. Grubb, James Harms, Gregory Hirte, Heidi Kettenring, Christian Libonati, Andy Lupp, Matt Raftery, Talia Rawitz and Katie Spelman.

Broadway’s Beauty and The Beast is Coming to Chicago

Broadway In Chicago is thrilled to present the award-winning worldwide smash-hit musical, Disney’s Beauty and the Beast.  Produced by NETworks Presentations, this elaborate theatrical production will come to life on stage at the Cadillac Palace Theatre March 23 – April 4, 2010.

Disney’s Beauty and the Beast features the animated film’s Academy Award®-winning score with music by Alan Menken and lyrics by the late Howard Ashman, with additional songs with music by Alan Menken and lyrics by Tim Rice. The book is written by Linda Woolverton.

The original creators of the Broadway production are together again for this new touring production. The play is directed by Rob Roth and choreographed by Matt West, with Costume Design by Ann Hould-Ward (Tony Award® winner for her work on Disney’s Beauty and the Beast), Lighting Design by Natasha Katz, Scenic Design by Stanley A. Meyer, Sound Design by John Petrafesa Jr. and Music Supervision by Michael Kosarin.

Director Rob Roth: “It has been wonderful to bring the entire original design team back together to work on this new production of Beauty and the Beast. As a director, it is rare to have the opportunity to revisit your work fifteen years later. Hopefully I’ve grown and developed as an artist, along with my collaborators, and we can bring 15 years of experience to this new production. We have remained very close as a team over the years of producing the show around the world, and it has been so much fun getting together to re-explore and re-invent the show for this new NETworks tour.  The theme of ‘Beauty’ is about seeing past the exterior into the heart of someone, and this is reflected in the design for the show, which is about transparency and layers, seeing past one thing and into another.”

Disney’s Beauty and the Beast is the classic story of Belle, a young woman in a provincial town, and the Beast, who is really a young prince trapped in a spell placed by an enchantress.  If the Beast can learn to love and be loved, the curse will end and he will be transformed to his former self. But time is running out. If the Beast does not learn his lesson soon, he and his household will be doomed for all eternity.

Tickets can be purchased at all Broadway In Chicago Box Offices (24 W. Randolph St., 151 W. Randolph St. and 18 W. Monroe St.), through the Broadway In Chicago Ticket Line at (800) 775-2000,

A Return To Haifa: A World Premiere by a Local Playwright

Evanston’s Next Theatre Company, continues its 29^th season with the World Premiere of Return to Haifa by Evanston-based playwright M.E.H. Lewis beginning February 4 at Evanston’s Noyes Cultural Arts Center. The play was inspired by the 1968 Palestinian novella by Ghassan Kanafani. Next’s new Artistic Director Jason Southerland directs the production.

Return to Haifa tells the story of Sarah and Jakob, a young Jewish couple newly arrived in Haifa following liberation from Auschwitz and the long journey to Palestine. Simultaneously we meet Safiyeh and Ishmail, recently married and awaiting the birth of their first child (Khaldun) while settling into their new home in Haifa. But the lives of all four are soon changed forever as the Battle for Haifa in April 1948 forces Safiyeh and Ishmail to flee to Ramallah and, through a cruel twist of fate, leave their newborn child behind to face certain doom. Sarah and Jakob are given the house in Haifa and the baby to raise as they embark on a new life of their own. Nearly 20 years later as Ramallah becomes part of the Occupied Territories and the borders to Israel are once again opened, Safiyeh and Ishmail return to Haifa driven by a haunting curiosity and a need for closure. Once there however, they are faced with a realization more agonizing than the death of their son all those years before…his survival. Return to Haifa is an intensely intimate story about how we draw the lines of home, family and identity across time and politics.

“I’m thrilled that I am able to bring this moving and complex story to life and to share it with audiences as our first World Premiere during my stewardship of Next,” says Southerland. “It’s an ideal first in my mind in that although the story is poignantly set against the backdrop of the birth of the Jewish state, the parabolic metaphors of displacement, identity, family, and loss will assuredly resonate with Chicagoland audiences and beyond.”

The production is a first for Next in that it pairs a local playwright along with a resident director to produce a show for the home stage at Evanston’s Noyes Arts Center.