Chicago is a regular stop on the big-name entertainment circuit, whether it's the national tour of Broadway shows such as Rent and Cabaret or pop music acts such as U2 or the Dave Matthews Band (both of whom sell out multiple nights at stadiums when they come to town). High-profile shows such as Disney's Aida and Mel Brooks's stage version of The Producers had their first runs here before moving on to New York. Thanks to extensive renovation efforts, performers now have some impressive venues where they can strut their stuff. The Auditorium Theatre, at 50 E. Congress Pkwy., between Michigan and Wabash avenues (tel. 312/922-2110; www.auditoriumtheatre.org) is my pick for the most beautiful theater in Chicago -- and it's a certified national landmark, too. Built in 1889 by Louis Sullivan and Dankmar Adler, this grand hall hosts mostly musicals and dance performances. Even if you don't catch a show here, stop by for a tour.
The city's other great historic theaters are concentrated in the North Loop. The Ford Center for the Performing Arts/Oriental Theater, at 24 W. Randolph St. (tel. 312/782-2004), and the Cadillac Palace Theater, at 151 W. Randolph St. (tel. 312/384-1510), book major touring shows and are well worth a visit for arts buffs. The Oriental's fantastical Asian look includes elaborate carvings almost everywhere you look; dragons, elephants, and griffins peer down at the audience from the gilded ceiling. The Palace features a profusion of Italian marble surfaces and columns, gold-leaf accents à la Versailles, huge decorative mirrors, and crystal chandeliers.
The Shubert Theatre, 22 W. Monroe St. (tel. 312/977-1700) was built in 1906 as a home for vaudeville; today it books mostly big-name musicals and sometimes comedy performers. The Chicago Theatre, 175 N. State St., at Lake Street (tel. 312/443-1130), is a 1920s music palace reborn as an all-purpose entertainment venue, hosting everything from pop acts and magicians to stand-up comedy. Arie Crown Theater, in the McCormick Place convention center at 23rd Street and Lake Shore Drive (tel. 312/791-6190), books musicals and pop acts; a renovation has improved what were terrible acoustics (Elton John once interrupted a performance to complain about the sound), but this is still a massive, somewhat impersonal hall. Since all these theaters are quite large, be aware that the cheaper seats will be in nosebleed territory.
Symphony Center, 220 S. Michigan Ave., between Adams Street and Jackson Boulevard (tel. 312/294-3000), is the building that encompasses Orchestra Hall, home of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Expanded and renovated a few years back, the building now includes a six-story skylit arcade, recital spaces, and the fine-dining restaurant Rhapsody. While the CSO is the main attraction, the Symphony Center hosts a series of piano recitals, classical and chamber music concerts, a family matinee series, and the occasional jazz or pop artist.
Chicago has a few other major venues for traveling shows, but they are not as convenient for visitors. The Rosemont Theatre, 5400 River Rd. in Rosemont, near O'Hare Airport (tel. 847/671-5100), is a top suburban stop for musicals and concerts. The North Shore Center for the Performing Arts in Skokie, 9501 Skokie Blvd. in the northern suburb of Skokie (tel. 847/673-6300), is home to the well-respected Northlight Theater, the Skokie Valley Symphony Orchestra, and a series of touring acts, including comics, dance troupes, and children's programs.
Classical Music
For current listings of classical music concerts and opera, call the Chicago Dance and Music Alliance (tel. 312/987-1123).
Additional Offerings
The Apollo Chorus of Chicago (tel. 312/427-5620; www.apollochorus.org) is best known for its annual holiday-season performance of Handel's Messiah at Orchestra Hall. Founded in 1872, 1 year after the Great Chicago Fire, the oldest all-volunteer civic chorus in the country began life as an all-male chorus but now is composed of men and women. They stage concerts throughout the year at various venues.
Bella Voce (tel. 312/461-0723; www.bellavoce.org) is an a cappella choir that re-creates ("imitates" doesn't do justice to the performers' amazing skills) the musical style of 16th-century English religious singers. Their repertoire used to be mainly liturgical, but it has grown to include an eclectic array of works, from Eastern European and Chinese folk songs to 20th-century ecclesiastical pieces. Performances take place mostly in churches across the Chicago area from October to May.
The Chicago Chamber Musicians (tel. 312/225-5226; www.chicagochambermusic.org), a 14-member ensemble drawn from performers from the CSO and Northwestern and DePaul universities, presents chamber music concerts at various locales around the city. While the season runs October through May, you can always find the CCM performing free noontime concerts on the first Monday of the month (except Sept and Mar) at the Chicago Cultural Center. The Chicago String Quartet, in residence at DePaul, is also affiliated with the group.
The Chicago Sinfonietta (tel. 312/236-3681; www.chicagosinfonietta.org), with its racially diverse 45-member orchestra and a wide-ranging repertoire, seeks to broaden the audience for classical music. In the past, the group has followed a Beethoven piano concerto with a piece featuring a steel drum. Playing about 15 times a year at Orchestra Hall and other venues throughout the city, the orchestra often takes a multimedia approach to its multicultural mission, accompanying its performances with art slides from the Art Institute and the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum.
Music of the Baroque (tel. 312/551-1414; www.baroque.org), a small orchestra and chorus that pulls members from both the CSO and the Lyric Opera orchestra and that features professional singers from across the country, performs the music of the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries, appropriately in Gothic church settings in Chicago neighborhoods. The group has made several recordings and has introduced works by Mozart and Monteverdi to Chicago audiences.
A critically acclaimed chamber music ensemble, the Grammy-nominated Vermeer Quartet actually makes its home at Northern Illinois University in De Kalb, about 60 miles west of Chicago. But it's considered the city's top string quartet by many because of its long-running connection with Performing Arts Chicago (tel. 773/722-5463), a nonprofit group that stages theater and concert events (many by international avant-garde troupes) throughout the year. Its repertoire ranges from works by Mozart to Haydn to modern composers. Call for details on upcoming concerts.
A Do-It-Yourself Messiah--Fancy yourself an ecclesiastical crooner? Should you be in town over the holidays, don't skip the LaSalle Talman Do-It-Yourself Messiah, an extraordinarily popular and rousing rendition of the Handel classic. Now staged at the opulent Civic Opera House (although, for years, Orchestra Hall provided the setting), the program enlists audience members as part of a 3,500-voice chorus, which is accompanied by a volunteer orchestra and four professional soloists. The roof-raising aural power that fills the theater guarantees goose bumps. This is a hot, hot, hot ticket, so call early for reservations at tel. 773/776-4300 (www.lasallebank.com/messiah).
Dance
Chicago's dance scene is lively, but unfortunately it doesn't attract the same crowds as our theaters or music performances. So although some of our resident dance troupes have international reputations, they spend much of their time touring to support themselves. Although visiting companies such as the American Ballet Theatre and the Dance Theater of Harlem stop in Chicago for limited engagements, dance performances in Chicago tend to occur in spurts throughout the year. Depending on the timing of your visit, you may have a choice of dance performances -- or there may be none at all.
Many local dance troupes also face the challenge of finding places to perform; until recently, the city had no major dance venue. That situation will finally be resolved thanks to Millennium Park -- the high-profile cultural and recreational center in Grant Park -- which features a state-of-the-art 1,500-seat music and dance theater. If all goes as planned, many of the troupes listed here will be performing at the theater this year. For complete information on local dance performances, call the Chicago Dance and Music Alliance information line at tel. 312/987-1123. Another phenomenon that has enlivened the local scene is the scintillating Chicago Human Rhythm Project (tel. 773/296-1108). An annual tap-dance festival and nonprofit foundation created in 1990, it brings together tap and percussive dancers from all over the world for a series of workshops and outreach programs in July and August at locations throughout the city and suburbs. The Athenaeum Theatre, 2936 N. Southport Ave. (at Lincoln Ave.), hosts the annual Dance Chicago, a highly engaging month-long festival showcasing the talents of up-and-coming contemporary dance companies and choreographers. It usually takes place in October or November. Call the theater at tel. 773/935-6860 for information.
Theatre
Ever since the Steppenwolf Theatre Company burst onto the national radar in the 1970s and early 1980s with gritty, in-your-face productions of Sam Shepard's True West and Lanford Wilson's Balm in Gilead, Chicago has been known as a theater town. As Broadway produced a steady stream of bloated, big-budget musicals with plenty of special effects but little soul, Chicago theater troupes gained respect for their risk-taking and no-holds-barred emotional style. Some of Broadway's most acclaimed dramas in recent years (Goodman Theatre's revival of Death of a Salesman and Steppenwolf's The Grapes of Wrath, to name just two) have been hatched on Chicago stages. Steppenwolf and Goodman have led the way in forging Chicago's reputation as a regional theater powerhouse, but a host of other performers are creating their own special styles. With more than 200 theaters, Chicago might have dozens of productions playing on any given weekend -- and seeing a show here is on my must-do list for all visitors.
Two of the biggest stars of the local theater scene entered the 21st century in new, custom-built homes downtown. The Goodman Theatre, hidden from view behind the Art Institute of Chicago for years, moved to a new theater complex on Dearborn Street, just north of Randolph Street, in the fall of 2000. A bit farther to the east, the marvelous Chicago Shakespeare Theatre company performs in a welcoming space on Navy Pier that the Bard himself would recognize -- its design is based on the theater where his plays were originally performed. It's not just highbrow stuff that's flourishing downtown; the Noble Fool Theater offers an eclectic selection of comedy and cabaret entertainment in its new home at Randolph and State streets, in a building recently renovated by the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
For a complete listing of current productions playing on a given evening, check the comprehensive listings in the two free weeklies, the Reader (which reviews just about every show in town) and New City, or the Friday sections of the two dailies. The League of Chicago Theatres' website (www.chicagoplays.org) also lists all theater productions playing in the area.
Getting Tickets--To order tickets for many plays and events, call Ticketmaster Arts Line (tel. 312/902-1500), a centralized phone-reservation system that allows you to charge full-price tickets (with an additional service charge) for productions at more than 50 Chicago theaters. Individual box offices will also take credit-card orders by phone, and many of the smaller theaters will reserve seats for you with a simple request under your name left on their answering machines. For hard-to-get tickets, try the Ticket Exchange (tel. 800/666-0779 outside Chicago, or 312/902-1888).
Half-Price Tickets -- For half-price tickets on the day of the show (on Fri. you can also purchase tickets for weekend performances), drop by one of the Hot Tix ticket centers (tel. 312/977-1755), located in the Loop at 78 W. Randolph St. (just east of Clark St.); at the Water Works Visitor Center, 163 E. Pearson St.; in Lincoln Park at Tower Records, 2301 N. Clark St.; and in several suburban locations. Hot Tix also offers advance-purchase tickets at full price. Tickets are not sold over the phone. The Hot Tix website (www.hottix.org) lists what's on sale for that day beginning at 10am.
In addition, a few theaters offer last-minute discounts on their leftover seats. Steppenwolf Theatre Company often has half-price tickets on the day of a performance; call or stop by the box office 1 hour before showtime. The "Tix at Six" program at the Goodman Theatre offers half-price, day-of-show tickets; many of them are excellent seats that have been returned by subscribers. Tickets go on sale at the box office at 6pm for evening performances, noon for matinees.
Off-Loop Theatres--Chicago's off-Loop theaters have produced a number of legendary comedic actors, including comic-turned-director Mike Nichols (The Graduate, Postcards from the Edge, Primary Colors), as well as fine dramatic actors and playwrights. David Mamet, one of America's greatest playwrights and now an acclaimed film director and screenwriter, grew up in Chicago's South Shore steel-mill neighborhood and honed his craft at the former St. Nicholas Players, which included actor William H. Macy (Fargo, Boogie Nights, Pleasantville).
The thespian soil here must be fertile. It's continually mined by Tinseltown and TV, which have lured away such talents as Macy, John Malkovich, Joan Allen, Dennis Franz, George Wendt, John and Joan Cusack, Aidan Quinn, Anne Heche, and Lili Taylor. But even as those actors get lured away by higher paychecks, there's always a whole new pool of talent waiting to take over. This constant renewal keeps the city's theatrical scene invigorated with new ideas and new energy. Many of the smaller Chicago theater companies place great emphasis on communal work: everyone takes part in putting on a production, from writing the script to building the sets. These companies perform in tiny, none-too-impressive venues, but their enthusiasm and commitment are inspiring. Who knows -- the group you see performing in some storefront theater today could be the Steppenwolf of tomorrow.
Theater for All--Visitors with disabilities will find that some local theaters go the extra mile to make their performances accessible. Steppenwolf, Goodman, and Lookingglass theaters offer sign-language interpretation for deaf patrons and audio-described performances for visually impaired audiences. Bailiwick Repertory runs a regular series of plays featuring deaf actors. Victory Gardens Theater, which has a long-standing commitment to accessible theater, has special performances throughout the year that are customized for audiences with different disabilities. The theater even offers deaf patrons special glasses that project captions of dialogue onto the frame of the glasses.
Comedy & Improv
In the mid-1970s, Saturday Night Live brought Chicago's unique brand of comedy to national attention. But even back then, John Belushi and Bill Murray were just the latest brood to hatch from the number-one incubator of Chicago-style humor, Second City. From Mike Nichols and Robert Klein to Mike Meyers and Tina Fey, two generations of American comics have honed their skills in Chicago before making their fortunes as film and TV stars. Chicago continues to nurture young comics, drawn to Chicago for the chance to hone their improvisational skills at Second City, the ImprovOlympic, and numerous other comedy and improv outlets.
