The Jackie Wilson Story
At the Black Ensemble Theatre
By Dan Zeff
Chicago– Jackie Taylor is a happy lady these days and everyone with a fondness to Chicagoland theater should rejoice with her. Taylor finally has her new theater, a sumptuous multi-story that is the home of Taylor’s Black Ensemble Theatre. The architectural ornament stands just a couple of blocks from the BET’s former home, a grungy basement space in a Hull House outpost.
Taylor’s new
theater cost $19 million and she has raised all but $2 million, an astounding
achievement in these stark economic times. The building will accommodate a
299-seat main stage, a 150-seat studio theater (set to open early next year),
plus classroom space, a rehearsal hall, a dance studio, scene and costume shops,
a wardrobe room, seven dressing rooms, a rehearsal room for musicians, abundant
lobby space on the main floor and at the balcony level, concession areas, and,
crucially, an indoor parking garage. 
The main stage attempts to retain the intimacy of the old Hull House theater, with the playing area projecting into the audience, who sit on three sides. An elevated platform at the rear of the stage serves as the orchestra pit. The décor avoids frills, likely out of a mix of economic realities and Taylor’s desire to operate a building in which the play will always be the thing, not plush curtains and opulent chandeliers.
Now in its 35th season, Taylor’s artistic agenda remains unchanged. The BET is dedicated to musical surveys of black music--its styles, personalities, and place in African American culture. Upcoming productions in 2012 will feature the music of Marvin Gaye, Luther Vandross, the Ladies of Soul (Aretha Franklin, Gladys Knight, Patti LaBelle, Chaka Khan, Diana Ross), and James Brown.
Taylor chose to open her new theater with a revival of “The Jackie Wilson Story,” a huge BET hit from 2000. Regrettably, Chester Gregory II isn’t on hand to recreate his dazzling portrait of Jackie Wilson. Gregory’s success in the role catapulted him onto Broadway and a featured role in “Hairspray.” He’s currently in “Sister Act” in New York City and couldn’t be freed up to recreate the starring role.
The BET has cast Kelvin Roston, Jr., as Jackie Wilson and for spectators who never saw Gregory’s performance, Roston is more than satisfactory. He looks like Wilson facially and has a similar vocal range. He goes through Wilson’s gymnastic dance moves but he lacks Gregory’s dynamism and charisma. The show itself runs much too long at nearly 21/2 hours and the acting level, rarely a BET strong point, is wildly variable. But these shows pay off on the singing, and there are some fine voices in the ensemble, notably Dawn Bless, who plays Wilson’s mother and is on stage primarily to raise the roof with her belting solos. The musical accompaniment, which never disappoints in the BET production, delivers big time with Robert Reddrick leading a swinging jump band.
In truth, the previous BET productions were erratic, with the writing often insecure and the acting skills modest. With its impressive new home, the BET hopefully will raise its level of accomplishment on its stages. There is a vast amount of African American talent in Chicagoland. Just ask patrons of the Victory Gardens Theatre, Court Theatre, and other top tier local companies. The BET has its own pool of performers but it would be nice to see E. Faye Butler and Felicia Fields do a guest turn. With its schedule expanded to six performances a week, the BET should be a showcase for professional musical theater on a level with Drury Lane and the Marriott Theatre. The bricks and mortar are definitely in place.
“The Jackie Wilson Story” runs through January 8 at the Black Ensemble Theatre, 4450 North Clark Street. Performances are Wednesday and Thursday at 7:30 p.m., Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 3 and 8 p.m., and Sunday at 3 p.m. Tickets are $55 and $65. Call 773 769 4451 or visit www.ticketmaster.com.
The show gets a rating of three stars.
Contact Dan at zeffdaniel@yahoo.com.
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http://www.facebook.com/#!/zeffdaniel November 2011
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All In Love Is Fair
At the Black Ensemble Theatre (BET)
By Dan Zeff
Chicago – In a Black Ensemble Theater musical production, the audience can give the book a pass. The plot likely will be ramshackle and the dialogue wooden, but when the performers stop talking and start singing, all’s well with the world.
And so it
is with “All in Love Is Fair,” the latest BET show to celebrate some facet of
black popular music. This time the theater is inspired by rhythm and blues
songwriter and crooner Luther Vandross, who died in 2005 at the too young age
of 54. About half of the evening’s numbers were composed or co-composed by
Vandross.
As the show’s title indicates, the songs are all about love, the kind of passionate love that allows singers to wear their hearts on their sleeves, belting out number after number until the walls seem to shimmer from the decibel account and the enthusiasm of the audience.
As usual, BET artistic director Jackie Taylor is the writer, director, and producer. Her show calls for a large cast of 13 and every one of the men and women possesses rafter-raising vocal power. The only qualifier is that we have to get through some pretty low-wattage dialogue to get to the songs.
The 13-member ensemble plays five couples and a threesome, all connected romantically. One couple has been married for 50 years, another for three months (sufficient time to discover they hate each other). One of the couples is gay and two others are, as they say, “in a relationship.” The threesome involves two young women both in love with the same man, who finds it difficult to pick between the two eager lasses.
The location of the action is the fictional town of Love, Illinois, “population mixed.” That means there are two white characters and 11 African Americans on stage representing the town. But the race element is not exploited, the show being all about music and not social criticism.
A character called Miss Katie serves as the audience’s guide in Love, Illinois, and also is one of the “relationship” people as a twice-married single woman. She keeps putting off her boyfriend, who has been ready to marry her for three years. She’s a sassy type who provides most of the show’s humor.
This is more than enough information about the narrative, which exists to provide the connecting tissue between the songs. While Vandross dominates the score, there are also songs by Alan and Marilyn Bergman (“The Way We Were”), Carole King (“You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman”), and the team of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller (“Fools Fall in Love”) among others. Each song commemorates the agonies and ecstasies of love with blast furnace intensity. This is no show for murmuring singers like Perry Como or Tony Bennett. Vocalists who lack a white-hot singing style need not apply.
Jackie Taylor has stocked her cast with a baker’s dozen of full-throated vocalists. The acting level may sometimes be rudimentary, but there can’t be any complaints about the singing. Selecting a favorite is out of the question, but I’d pick Zachary Boyd as first among equals for his deeply felt “Power of Love/Love Power” rendition. Jenny Lamb, the white girl, had the crowd roaring with her take-no-prisoners deliver of “All the Man That I Need,” curiously her own solo of the night. These two will have to represent the remainder of the honor roll of performers—Donald Barnes, Dawn Bless Comer, Carrie, Vasily Deris (the white guy and an audience favorite), Daryl Brooks, Katrina V. Miller, Lyle Miller, Dwight Neal, Rhonda Preston, Aerial Williams, and Lawrence Williams.
Broadway producers would kill for the kind of audience response the show received at its opening. Patrons throughout the theater were chanting and waving in response to each incendiary singing explosion. At times my attention was torn between the vocal fireworks on stage and the gesticulating and whooping among the spectators. There were two shows going on for the price of one and you had to love it.
The singers are supported by a terrific R&B band situated above the stage, led by drummer/musical director Robert Reddrick. There isn’t a more vibrant pit band anywhere in Chicagoland theater right now.
“All in Love Is Fair” runs through May 16 at the Black Ensemble Theater, 4520 North Beacon Street. Performances are Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m. Tickets are $45 and $47.50. Call 773 769 4451 or visiting www.ticketmaster.com.
The show gets a rating of 31/2 stars. March 2011
Contact Dan at zeffdaniel@yahoo.com.
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The Other Cinderella
At the Black Ensemble Theater(BET)
By Dan Zeff
Chicago – Back in 1976, Jackie Taylor founded the Black Ensemble Theater and her first BET production was “The Other Cinderella,” a musical adaptation on the Cinderella fairy tale told as a modern black pop culture riff. “The Other Cinderella” launched the BET as the place to go for explorations of modern black music.
With the BET moving to a new home next year, the time seemed ripe to revisit the show. For those who missed the 1976 premiere or any of the later revivals, now’s your chance to catch a rollicking, hip, and potently sung production in musical theater settings.
“The Other Cinderella” follows the basic narrative of the fairy tale and still finds room for references to Judge Mathis, Prince and “Purple Rain,” and Payless Shoe Stores. As for the music, it’s all there—soul, rhythm and blues, pop, reggae, Motown, disco, and hip hop. At the artistic helm is Taylor—book writer, composer, and director.
The storyline goes through the usual drill. Young Cinderella is mistreated by her cruel stepmother and nasty stepsisters. There is a fairy godmother who helps Cinderella go to the ball where she meets a prince. She flees the ball at midnight (11:45 p.m. at the BET), leaving that fateful slipper behind. The loved-sick prince canvases the kingdom for the foot that fits the slipper. It all ends happily, with Cinderella getting her prince and the stepmother and stepsisters being agreeably humiliated.
“The Other Cinderella” takes place in the Kingdom of Other, an all-black land ruled by a king who desperately wants his son to find a wife. The story shuttles back and forth between the palace and Cinderella’s home, the connecting character being a jive inner city lad who wins a lottery to become a page to the royal family. The ‘hood comes to the palace.
This is a very “now” take on the story. None of this “Once upon a time” stuff. The fairy godmother is West Indian. The stepmother works for the U.S. post office. Into the narrative wanders a pretty blonde young woman named Dorothy from Kansas. That gives the show a chance to lampoon black-white cultural stereotypes, especially when Dorothy belts out the “White Girl Blues.”
The book has generally taken a backseat to the music in BET shows, but the dialogue for “The Other Cinderella” is much stronger than average, funny and heavy on the sass. The shrill stepsisters are a hoot as they take time off from putting down Cinderella to verbally shredding each other. Connoisseurs of streetwise insults will have a grand time.
The ensemble is large—14 performers—every one a quality singer. The score, mostly written by Taylor and Michael Ward, is heavy on let-‘er-rip vocalizing, which is red meat to the cast of belters led by Rhonda Preston as the stepmother and Robin Beaman and Katrina Miller as the stepsisters. Rarely have stage villains provided so much pleasure. Candace Edwards is just right as an unusually feisty Cinderella, not just a waif who huddles in the corner meekly absorbing abuse. This gal gives as good as she gets verbally. She’s just outnumbered.
Rueben Echoles has been a dynamo singer/dancer/comedian in numerous previous BET presentations and he contributes his usually wise guy energy as performer and choreographer. Daniel Simmons and Joshua N. Banks play Echoles’s companions from the ‘hood, channeling Jimmy Walker from “Good Times.” Deja Taylor is a scintillating fairy godmother with her Caribbean accent. Christina Cain was having a great time boogying Dorothy. Cain is a real triple threat as singer, dancer, and comic actress. Niina Coleman added a bit of ghetto social realism to the story as Echoles’s kid sister who hangs around with the wrong crowd.
The palace characters consist of Trinity Murdock (the king), Noreen Stark (the queen), Lawrence Williams (the prince), Mandy Lewis (lady in waiting), and Michael Bartlett as her significant other and a royal attendant. The royal characters aren’t as much fun as the Cinderella group but their singing was fine.
“The Other Cinderella” could stand a 20-minute trimming, especially in the second act at the palace. A love ballad by the lady and waiting and the attendant just soaked up time. But the sheer vitality of the performances and the droll wit of the dialogue ultimately carry the day. And high props to the rocking five-piece band led by musical director-drummer Robert Reddrick, along with pianist Mark Moultrup, guitarist Herb Walker, bassist Tracey Anita Baker, and Andrea Moore on keyboards.
“The Other Cinderella” runs through January 9 at the Black Ensemble Theatre, 4520 North Beacon Street. Performances are Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m. Tickets are $45. Call 773 769 4451 or visit www.ticketmaster.com.
The show gets a rating of 31/2 stars.October 2010
Contact Dan at zeffdaniel@yahoo.com.
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My Brother’s Keeper
At the Black Ensemble Theater(BET)
By Dan Zeff
Chicago – The Black Ensemble Theater has carved a niche for itself on the Chicagoland theater scene by exploring the lives and careers of famous contributors to African American musical culture, presenting reasonably faithful impersonations of noted pop, blues, rock, and gospel singers.
The current presentation, called “My Brother’s Keeper,” sets itself a particularly daunting challenge for the BET. The show portrays the lives and career of the Nicholas brothers, perhaps the most spectacular dance team of the twentieth century. No audience could expect BET dancers to replicate the brilliance of the Nicholas duo. But the show needs to display hoofing that could at least approximate the wonders of a Nicholas performance, and that is asking a lot.
The BET production stars Rashawn Thompson as Fayard Nicholas and Rueben Echoles as brother Harold (Echoles also wrote the show’s book and serves as choreographer). Both men give a heroic effort, going for the jumps, splits, and back flips, as well as the machine gun tap dancing, that made the Nicholas brothers so spectacular. The originals remain inimitable, but Echoles and Thompson give audiences a persuasive demonstration of what all the excitement was about back in the 1930’s and 1940’s, when the brothers ruled the specialty dancing roost in American show business.
“My Brother’s Keeper” gives value just for the dancing, but the show benefits from an unusually strong book, normally the weak spot in a BET presentation. The narrative increases in interest as the evening progresses, starting with the brothers as youngsters and continuing for a half century, concluding with a coda that brings the biographies up to date with Harold’s death in 2000 and Fayard’s death in 2006.
The story pays particular attention to the turbulent marriages that dominated the personal lives of the brothers, especially the stormy relationship between Harold and the tragic Dorothy Dandridge. There are also glimpses of the racism the brothers endured, even when they were at their apex in show business. The storyline is buttressed by cameo appearances by such contemporary black entertainment stars as Cab Calloway and Bill “Bojangles” Robinson.
The story is told by multiple narrators, beginning with mother Viola Nicholas. The tale gets a little sentimental at times, but the dialogue is solid, especially when Dorothy Dandridge is on stage. The large 15-member ensemble acts decently and sings and dances with energy. The performance level may not be Broadway level, but it gets the job done.
The physical production focuses on a stairway bordered by ramps that allow the brothers sufficient vertical and horizontal space to do their thing. A swinging eight piece band under music director Robert Reddrick performs above the stage.
The supporting cast is led by Kylah Williams as Dorothy Dandridge. Williams looks very much like Dandridge and she’s the best singer and actor in the show. At times the musical is really more about her. Dandridge died at the age of 42 under mysterious circumstances after leading a troubled life marred by disastrous romantic entanglements and racism. The Nicholas brothers certainly had their frustrations, but they enjoyed a long career highlighted by international acclaim and considerable financial rewards. Not many black entertainers outside the jazz scene of the 1930’s and 1940’s could claim as much, including Dorothy Dandridge.
The production benefits from a spot-on portrayal of Cab Calloway by Daryl Brooks, who led the show’s best musical number, “Jumpin’ Jive.” There is also good work by Dawn Bless as Viola Nicholas and Melanie McCullough as Fayard’s wife, Geri, among others.
Jackie Taylor is the director and costume designer. Carl Ulaszek designed the set, Denise Karczewski the lighting, and Ron White the sound.
“My Brother’s Keeper” runs through May 16 at the Black Ensemble Theater, 4520 North Beacon Street. Performances are Friday and Saturday night at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m. Tickets are $45. Call 773 769 4451 or visit www.ticketmaster.com.
The show gets a rating of 31/2 stars.
Contact Dan at zeffdaniel@yahoo.com . April 2010