Chicago 1979 - Articles Page 7

BWW Reviewer Peter Nason chooses the best musical theatre characters from 1940-2020; see if your favorites are on our list of the best characters from Broadway musicals.

BWW Reviewer Peter Nason chooses the best film musicals since the sound era began; see if your favorites made the list!

Porchlight Music Theatre has announced its 26th season that includes the 2020 - 2021 Mainstage, Porchlight Revisits and New Faces Sing Broadway series. Porchlight's Mainstage and Porchlight Revisits return to the Ruth Page Center for the Arts, 1016 N. Dearborn Street with its annual fundraising concert Chicago Sings Andrew Lloyd Webber launching the season taking place at the Museum of Contemporary Arts, 220. E. Chicago Ave.

Lyric Opera of Chicago announced today that single tickets are on sale for its company premiere of the new-to-Chicago production of Singin' in the Rain in the 2020/21 season.

After an astounding career playing bass and singing for a range of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame artists like Don Felder of The Eagles to the legendary Chicago, Jeff Coffey continues his solo career with his new album Origins: Singers and Songs that Made Me which is a collection of covers of songs that influenced Coffey in his musicianship as well as personal life. Among these is his cover of Kenny Loggins`s 1979 smash hit “This Is It” in which Coffey stays faithful to the original while not being afraid to add his own style to a section or two. The single will be released on this Friday, January 10th.

City Winery Chicago, 1200 W. Randolph Street, announces two-time Grammy Award-winning country artist Rodney Crowell, funk-soul group Robert Randolph & the Family Band and more. The following shows go on sale to the public on Friday, December 13 at noon. Tickets will be available at citywinery.com/chicago.

Hailed as 'the best party in town,' by New York's Cabaret Scenes Magazine, The Nitz/ Howe Experience marked a major milestone in September, 2019. Celebrating its 20th year anniversary, with over 1200 shows at their home base of Chicago's Davenport's, it became the longest running cabaret show in the country.

Steppenwolf's LookOut Series is pleased to announce their Fall/Winter 2019/20 lineup. This eclectic season showcases exciting work from many Chicago-based artists and companies working across disciplines. Step out of the cold and into Front Bar for a drink to warm you up, then head into Steppenwolf's 1700 Theatre for an unforgettable evening of performance. Since its inception, the LookOut series has featured the work of more than 1,000 artists from across Chicago and beyond in more than 350 performances.

Today's top stories: Six will return to Chicago, and more!

Liz Cooper & The Stampede's new EP, Live In Chicago, is out today on the band's own label, Sleepyhead Records, via Thirty Tigers.

Liz Cooper & The Stampede's new EP, Live In Chicago, is premiering today at Glide Magazine. 

Now, as Marianne Faithfull, British pop's queen of survival, Starlite resurrects 1979's Broken English as a thoroughly modern tale of adventure, abyss and hard-won vengeance - one of the most brutally frank albums of its time, made flesh again, in poignant lethally honest character. - David FrickeRolling Stone

AstonRep Theatre Company, under the artistic leadership of Derek Bertelsen and Sara Pavlak McGuire, announces its 2019-20 season, to be presented at its new artistic home, The Edge Theater in Chicago's Edgewater neighborhood.

The national tour of the 2016 Broadway revival of FALSETTOS, once again helmed by director James Lapine, has landed in Chicago with a first-rate production and cast. The mighty touring ensemble of seven captures all the neuroses and emotional journeys of the musical's composite 'Tight-Knit Family.'

As a special 'thank you' to the military, FOUR CHORDS AND A GUN announces current and veteran military members are eligible to receive up to four free tickets to FOUR CHORDS AND A GUN at Broadway In Chicago's Broadway Playhouse at Water Tower Place (175 E. Chestnut) from Thursday, May 23 to Sunday, May 27.

City Lit's 40th Season to explore key moments in American history through fact, fiction and fantasy. Productions will include the Chicago premiere of Peter Parnell's ROMANCE LANGUAGE, a revival of Kristine Thatcher's VOICE OF GOOD HOPE, and world premiere adaptations of Robert F. Kennedy's THIRTEEN DAYS and Owen Lister's THE VIRGINIAN

Four Chords and a Gun is an intense black comedy about the infamous punk band the Ramones written by John Ross Bowie (“The Big Bang Theory”, “Speechless”). The play reveals the drama-filled 1979 recording session that led to The Ramones album, End of the Century, produced by the eccentric gun wielding Phil Spector. The Canadian premier of this sometimes funny, sometimes wrenching, always gritty, story of how the world's greatest Punk album came to be is directed by long-time Toronto Star theatre critic and Stratford Festival director Richard Ouzounian. Hey Ho Let's Go! to a play about the Ramones followed by a concert. Not a f***ing musical.

What makes a Broadway theatre? Technically any venue with 500 seats or more, located along Broadway in New York City's Theatre District is a Broadway theatre, and the art that is produced in these special places is widely considered the highest form of theatrical entertainment in the world. Today, forty-one theatres are technically Broadway houses, each with their own rich history. Below, we're giving you the scoop on the life of every one of them!

Supermodel and actress Christie Brinkley heard the call of Broadway again when she joins the national tour of the Tony Award-winning hit musical Chicago as Roxie Hart. Her next stop, after Phoenix, is Las Vegas for a limited seven-show engagement at The Venetian Theatre in The Venetian Resort Las Vegas from April 10-14.

She Remembers Everything, Rosanne Cash's highly anticipated follow-up to her triple-Grammy-winning masterpiece The River and The Thread is a powerfully insightful and strikingly universal collection of new songs. Both confessional and cathartic, the material reverberates with an urgency of a woman who has found and owns her story and her voice, and who is driven to speak when time feels ever shorter. Songs from this record, released in 2018, will be featured in concert along with selections from Norma Rae - the musical she is writing with John Leventhal (book by John Weidman) based on the 1979 hit film. Don't miss this unique night of music at the Van Wezel on Thursday, April 25, 2019 at 8 p.m.!

Formed in 1979, Medu Art Ensemble organized a front of cultural and artistic resistance to South Africa's apartheid policy of racial discrimination. Medu means 'roots' in the Sepedi language. As their name suggests, the collective operated underground, drawing exiled South African and international visual, music, and literary artists to work across the South African border in Gaborone, Botswana. At its height, the Medu collective numbered more than 50 members.

A 40th Anniversary reunion benefit concert of the 1979 hit Broadway production of They're Playing Our Song will be held on Monday, February 11th at 7:30 pm at the Music Box Theatre (239 West 45th St.) and will star the Broadway cast members Lucie Arnaz as 'Sonia Walsk' and Robert Klein as 'Vernon Gersch'.

The Specials, one of the most electrifying, influential and important bands of all time, have just released their new album Encore, their first new music in 37 years via Island Records. The album's arrival has been welcomed with widespread critical acclaim and an acknowledgement that The Specials' music is every bit as vital and relevant today as it was 40 years ago. This year also marks the 40th anniversary of the formation of The Specials and the legendary Two-Tone label in Coventry in 1979, and also marks 10 years since the band reformed to play some of the most vital and joyous live shows in recent memory.

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater returns to Chicago March 6-10, commemorating the company's 60th anniversary and the 50th anniversary of its first performances at the Auditorium, its Chicago home. During these special engagements, Ailey gives Midwest premieres to Rennie Harris' Lazarus, the company's first ever two-act ballet; Wayne McGregor's Kairos; and Jessica Lang's EN. The company also performs the Timeless Ailey program, a curated selection of classic pieces by company founder and visionary Alvin Ailey.

Just in time for the holiday season, THE WOMAN IN BLACK is inviting guests to try something new this year with a holiday ticket package. For those looking to bond over a spine-tingling live theater performance, THE WOMAN IN BLACK will include a drink from the bar with the purchase of a ticket using the code HOLIDAY through January 6, 2019. An experience surely not to miss, the production has been called "Spectacular" by the Chicago Sun-Times, and "Brilliant" by Chicago Theater Review, receiving rave reviews from critics across the board.