Herb Alpert and Vocalist Lani Hall: From American Songbook Faves to Brazilian Bossa Nova at the Park West.  Get half-price tickets for their June 2 7:30 pm performance from Goldstar. 

Nine-time Grammy Award winners Herb Alpert and Lani Hall are a married couple and musical partners responsible — together and separately — for a string of classics that stretches back nearly 50 years. A talented trumpeter, Alpert made his name starting in 1962 with his Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass hit “The Lonely Bull.” Hall, a jazz vocalist, first found success when she teamed with Sérgio Mendes & Brazil 66 for hits like “Mas Que Nada” and unique takes on Beatles numbers such as “The Fool on the Hill” and “Day Tripper.” For this appearance, Alpert and Hall will perform an eclectic program incorporating everything from tunes from their upcoming album, Steppin’ Out, to American songbook favorites like “Puttin’ on the Ritz,” “Anything Goes,” “Moondance” and “La Vie en Rose,” to an Antonio Carlos Jobim medley.

Get Comp tickets to Collaboraction’s 13th annual SKETCHBOOK Festival for all performance through the middle of June with Goldstar.  SKETCHBOOK Festival is packed with world-premiere theater works of various lengths. By presenting these multi-discipline works en masse, the festival seeks to break down the walls that divide theater, music, visual art, video and the internet. The festival brings together the collective talents of more than 150 directors, actors, musicians, designers and artists for this amazing, collaborative event featuring 14 diverse pieces spread over four programs. Please see the full event description for information on each program.

Goldstar has tickets ranging from $10 to $18 (full price is $36) for Raven Theatre East Stage’s production of Brighton Beach Memoirs by Neil Simon.  PITA and I saw this on Broadway, where it was supposed to be followed by the second in his biographical trilogy, Broadway Bound.  Broadway was enamored of special effects that year and ignored this gentle show; it closed shortly after opening.  It really was one of the best shows I’d seen (true-to-life humor).

Neil Simon changed the course of his career when he wrote Brighton Beach Memoirs, the first play of his Tony Award-winning Eugene Trilogy. Never before had Simon’s writing been so personal, reflecting the actual individuals and hardships that defined his Depression-era youth. Brighton Beach Memoirs centers around Eugene Morris Jerome, a Jewish American teenager in the throes of puberty. Complicating Eugene’s coming-of-age are the relatives that crowd his family’s Brooklyn apartment, including his parents, his older brother, his aunt and his two female cousins, one of whom he finds far too attractive for his own good. Critics have praised the play for its humor, but also for its clear-eyed look at the tough choices that faced many American families in the ’30s. Brighton Beach Memoirs has all the force and vitality of real memories — and like them, lingers in the mind for years.

Set in Vienna in 1938 and London during the blitzkrieg, The Pianist of Willesden Lane tells the true story of noted pianist and author Mona Golabek’s mother, Lisa Jura. As a young Jewish pianist, Lisa dreams of a concert debut at the storied Musikverein concert hall. When Lisa is swept up in the Kindertransport to London in an attempt to protect her from the Nazi regime, everything about her life is upended — except her love of music. Golabek performs some of the world’s most beloved piano music in this poignant tribute to her mother’s experience in wartime Europe. Adapted and directed by local favorite Hershey Felder, The Pianist of Willesden Lane is a riveting tale of hope that is a powerful testament to how music can help us survive through the darkest of times.

Goldstar has added performance dates to their inventory of half-price tickets, extending through the end of June.

Movement, speed, physical strength and pure passion take the stage as dance ensemble Shaping Sound — featuring the stars of Oxygen’s hit reality series All the Right Moves — comes to the Harris Theater for Music and Dance in Millennium Park. Emmy-nominated choreographers and So You Think You Can Dance superstars Travis Wall, Nick Lazzarini, Teddy Forance and Kyle Robinson lead this dynamic company of contemporary dancers from SYTYCD, Dancing With the Stars and world-renowned dance companies. Their exhilarating collaboration makes for a visually stunning mash-up of genres and styles.

just hand me another donut…

Lifeline Theatre brings to Chicago Alexandre Dumas’ The Three Musketeers, adapted by ensemble member Robert Kauzlaric and you can see it for FREE with tickets to preview performances through the first week of June. Originally commissioned by the Illinois Shakespeare Festival in 2010, it’s been further developed for its Chicago premiere at Lifeline. Fourteen actors play the more-than 50 roles in this epic swashbuckler. Pursuing his dream to join the Musketeers, young d’Artagnan leaves home and travels to Paris, where he befriends the legendary Three Inseparables: Athos, Porthos and Aramis. While his acts of bravery catch the eye of King Louis XIII, they also cause him to become ensnared in the deadly schemes of Cardinal Richelieu and the treacherous Milady Clarik. When the love of his life is kidnapped on the eve of war, d’Artagnan must weigh his loyalties and question the meaning of honor in an age of moral ambiguity. Journey along from Paris to London, from countryside taverns to glittering palaces, from a bucolic Gascon farm to the siege of La Rochelle, in this epic tale of passion, intrigue and adventure.

With the largest cast ever to visit the United States, Cirque Shanghai returns in triumph to Chicago with Cirque Shanghai: Dragon’s Thunder, its latest and most dazzling show.   Tickets are $16.50 for all performances through the end of May.  Watch some of the finest acrobats in the world leap, tumble and juggle with a flexibility and precision that borders on the unbelievable. The outright daring of acts like “The Chinese Flex Bar” and “Gravity Swings” will take your breath away, while the thunderous beat of the “Dragon Drums” will stir your soul. Back from last year’s show are fan-favorite features like the “Wheel of Destiny” as well as Imperial Thunder, China’s finest daredevil motorcycle troupe. Be amazed, amused and ultimately enchanted by human skill pushed to the limits and beyond in Cirque Shanghai: Dragon’s Thunder.

The mischievous Cat in the Hat joins a cast of everyone’s favorite Dr. Seuss characters, including Gertrude McFuzz, Lazy Mayzie and the Whos of Whoville, to bring the author’s cherished tales to life on stage.  Adapted from the Broadway version especially for young audiences, Seussical‘s stories are linked together by JoJo, a young girl who is a “thinker of strange and wonderful thinks,” and Horton the Elephant, who is out to prove that “a person’s a person, no matter how small.” Each whimsical story is backed by a myriad of musical styles, from Latin to pop, swing to gospel, and R&B to funk. Dr. Seuss’s sense of fun and wonder come through loud and clear, making this a musical that appeals to all ages.

PITA and I saw this show last weekend – we’ve seen it here before and it’s truly a magical production.  I wouldn’t mind going again!  Half-price performances through the first weekend in June.

 Based on Dickens’ beloved character from the novel Oliver Twist, this boisterous musical follows young orphan Oliver from the dreary surroundings of a workhouse to the streets of Victorian London, where he unwittingly falls in with a gang of pickpockets.  Half-price tickets are available for performances through the first weekend in June.  Featuring memorable songs like “Food, Glorious Food,” “Consider Yourself,” “Where Is Love?” and “As Long as He Needs Me,” the endearing tale tackles relatable themes: the search for love, the triumph of right over wrong, the hope for a better world, and the belief that life is worth living. Oliver! premiered in London’s West End in 1960, debuted on Broadway in 1963, and was made into a musical film in 1968.

Manhattan Concert Productions brings two of the country’s most celebrated choruses, the National Children’s Festival Chorus and the National Festival Chorus, to Chicago for a concert of old and new favorites. Guest conductor Henry Leck leads the National Children’s Festival Chorus through Mozart’s Alleluia, Bach’s Der Herr Segne Euch and other hand-picked treats. Then acclaimed conductor-composer Z. Randall Stroope helms the National Festival Chorus for a performance of depth and power. The invigorating program includes Rachmaninoff’s Come Let Us Worship, Telemann’s Laudate Jehovam Omnes Gentes and Stroope’s very own Amor de mi almawhich will be sung in Spanish. Finally Yorkville High School Wind Ensemble will make their debut at Orchestra Hall, playing many of the selections that led to their recent victory at the SuperState Band Competition.  Comp tickets have a $9.50 service fee and $10 tickets have a $7.50 fee.  Full ticket price is $59.  Who says culcha has to be expensive?

Bohemian Theatre Ensemble presents Kiss of the Spider Woman. Terrence McNally, John Kander and Fred Ebb’s musical won seven Tony Awards in 1993, including Best Musical. It’s the story of two cell mates in a Latin American prison — Valentin, a Marxist revolutionary, and Molina, a gay window dresser. Molina survives the torture and humiliation by escaping to a fantasy world of the movies he loved as a child, conjuring a beautiful and beguiling screen enchantress named Aurora as his imaginary diva. The lines between reality and fantasy begin to blur as the relationship between Valentin and Molina becomes more and more complicated, and the danger increases in this mesmerizing classic from the songwriting team that created Chicago and Cabaret and the four-time Tony Award-winning author of Love! Valor! Compassion!  Tickets are available for only $6.25 (plus service fee) for some May/June performances.

Through the beginning of June, get complimentary tickets to The Marvelous Land of Oz ($4.75 service fee). The Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman’s adventures continue in The Marvelous Land of Oz, the sequel to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. With music and book by Anthony Whitaker — who also directs — this family-friendly New American Folk Theatre production is based on the children’s novel of the same name by L. Frank Baum (which was written in Chicago’s Humbolt Park in 1905). In it, young Tip escapes from the witch who has held him captive since birth and sets out on a magical adventure. True to Baum’s original vision, this memorable folk musical mixes puppetry with live actors and a narrator.