“Since first premiering the ballet in New York last spring, we’ve revised some staging and added new costumes which we feel will enhance the overall production, as well as the audiences’ experience, ” says American Ballet Theatre’s (ABT) Artistic Director Kevin Mckenzie. The production, a new take on the classic “The Sleeping Beauty” is coming to Chicago’s Civic Opera House, and is staged by McKenzie as well as former ABT ballerina Gelsey Kirkland and Michael Chernov. The timeless fairy tale of the beautiful Princess Aurora comes to life set to Tchaikovsky’s famous score and features sets and costumes by Tony Award-winners Tony Walton and Willa Kim. ABT’s eighty-plus-member company will be accompanied by a live sixty-five-member orchestra. Different dancers will play the prince and princess each night. (William Scott)
At the Civic Opera House, 20 N. Wacker, (312)902-1500. This production is now closed.
The Beauty Myth: A Review of "School Girls; or, the African Mean Girls Play" at Goodman Theatre Set in 1986 in the Aburi Girls Boarding School in Ghana, five teenagers gossip and primp as they prepare for beauty pageant auditions the following day. The social hierarchy of "mean girls'' is quickly established, as Paulina, the prettiest and best singer, alternately boasts about her superiority and denigrates her classmates for what she considers their inferiority.
Fools With Heart: A Review of The Rivals at American Players Theatre "The Rivals" has burrowed deep into the culture thanks largely to the inspired character of Mrs. Malaprop, the ignorant, but intellectually confident rich aunt who continually chooses words that sound like the ones she ought to use but miss the mark.
