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Epoch Times
25-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Epoch Times
‘Titanic The Musical'
LINCOLNSHIRE, Ill.—It was supposed to be unsinkable, so when the Titanic hit an iceberg and sank into the icy waters of the Atlantic Ocean, the horrific disaster became the stuff of legend. Now it's playing in a spectacular production at the Marriott Theatre in Lincolnshire, Illinois. Like the films 'A Night to Remember' in 1958 and 'Titanic' in 1997, and a stunning Broadway musical in 1997, this production is based on the April 15, 1912 tragedy in which the RMS Titanic struck an iceberg and sank. Approximately 1,500 passengers perished. The ship left Southhampton, England, and was on its way to New York City when the unthinkable occurred. A Tragedy Dramatized The remnants of the sunken ship were discovered off the coast of Newfoundland in 1985. It ignited cultural interest in the ship and its history. The artifacts found in the wreckage inspired Maury Yeston to compose a stage production. He believed that humanity's attempt to build the Titanic, a technological wonder of its time, was the stuff of dreams and worthy of staging. He persuaded Peter Stone to write a libretto for the show, which opened on Broadway in April 1997 and won five Tony Awards. (L–R) Laura Guley, Erica Stephan, and Victoria Okafor in "Titanic The Musical." Justin Barbin Photography Although the harrowing story of the doomed ship remains the same as that of the 1997 film, the big difference between the silver screen presentation and the Marriott's production is in its main characterization. While the James Cameron film featured the fictional characters of Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Rose (Kate Winslet) as lovers on the ill-fated voyage, the musical is based on the real-life people aboard the ship. J. Bruce Ismay (Adam Pelty) must rise to the occasion, in "Titanic The Musical." Justin Barbin Photography While the original Broadway production had a large scenic design and a full orchestra, the Marriott production has been scaled down to more modest dimensions. It has a small orchestra and an ensemble half the size of the original 43 performers. These modifications make the musical more intimate and heartwarming without robbing any of its power. Indeed, the show, which was mounted in celebration of the Marriott's 50th anniversary, is as spectacular and stunning as the story it tells. Masterfully directed and choreographed by Connor Gallagher, and with Ryan T. Nelson's musical direction, the show is mesmerizing. Edgar Beane (James Earl Jones II) and Alice Beane (Lillian Castillo), in "Titanic The Musical." Justin Barbin Photography While working on Marriott's theater-in-the-round may be more challenging than a typical proscenium stage, scenic designer Collette Pollard does an extraordinary job of creating the feel of a large seafaring vessel. Jesse Klug's lighting with Michael Daly's sound design creates a spellbinding atmosphere of tension and suspense. The combination of those artistic talents delivers an amazing, breathtaking atmosphere of a ship taking on water and twisting on its side. Related Stories 3/31/2025 3/19/2025 The multi-sided stage provides ample opportunities for the cast to create a more authentic "ship-like" experience. Justin Barbin Photography Many in the cast of 21 play more than one role. These superb actors grab our attention and our heartfelt empathy. In the featured role of Capt. Smith, David Girolmo, one of Chicago's most gifted performers, is riveting. Other compelling portrayals include Adam Pelty as J. Bruce Ismay, Darian Goulding as Benjamin Guggenheim, Heidi Kettenring as Ida Straus, Mark David Kaplan as her husband Isidor Straus, Erica Stephan as Kate McGowan, and Charles Lightoller as John Jacob Astor. Ida Straus (Heidi Kettenring) clasps hands with her husband Isidor Straus (Mark David Kaplan) on the ill-fated Titanic, in "Titanic The Musical." Justin Barbin Photography The period costumes by Sully Ratke with wigs and makeup by Miguel A. Armstrong give a strong impression of the class differences between upper level and lower level passengers, as well as a terrific feel for the early 20th century. The performers aren't just in top acting form. They also deliver wonderful vocalizations of Yeston's many beautiful and haunting melodies. While most musicals feature a few good tunes, this 'Titanic' provides over a dozen musical numbers that will move audiences to emotion and even tears. Among them are memorable songs, including 'What a Remarkable Age This Is,' 'To Be a Captain,' 'The Night was Alive,' 'Doing the Latest Rag,' 'The Blame,' 'Autumn,' 'We'll Meet Tomorrow,' and the poignant 'Godspeed Titanic.' Kate McGowan (Erica Stephan) talks with Jim Farrell (Garrett Lutz), in "Titanic The Musical." Justin Barbin Photography Although this popular musical production was a big hit on Broadway, theater companies rarely mount 'Titanic The Musical.' The spectacular show makes huge demands on artistic talent. It's also so costly to produce that only deep pockets can consider presenting it. That the Marriott has mounted the show is an exemplary theatrical achievement. The fact that it is such an awesome, passionate presentation makes it even more credit-worthy. The cast of "Titanic The Musical" emphasize how the event was an unprecedented tragedy. Justin Barbin Photography This is a show that only comes around once in a great while. Rush to see it while you can! 'Titanic The Musical' Marriott Theatre 10 Marriott Drive, Lincolnshire, Ill. Tickets: 847-634-0200 or What arts and culture topics would you like us to cover? Please email ideas or feedback to
Axios
20-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Axios
Three routes to Titanic fun in the Chicago area
Folks who loved the Titanic exhibit at Old Orchard last year can embark on more nautical disaster-themed fun this spring. The big picture: Fans can pair a Titanic dinner and show at the Marriott Theatre in Lincolnshire, which is presenting "Titanic The Musical," along with themed meals at sister restaurant Three Embers. Or stay in town for the musical spoof "Titanique" by Porchlight Music Theatre at Water Tower Place. Dig in: For the run of "Titanic The Musical," Three Embers has transformed into the White Star Grill, serving period dishes including chicken Lyonnaise ($29) topped with caramelized onion in a wine reduction. "We took that directly from the first-class Titanic menu," restaurant manager Tiffany Javior tells Axios. "For dessert, we have peaches with chartreuse jelly. It's one of my favorites, because it's light, but it's still rich." Other Titanic items include steak & ale pies ($15) and salmon mousseline ($36). They also offer a three-course meal for $49 and a dinner theater package that starts at $81. Bonus: The restaurant brims with social media-friendly props, letting you goof around and pretend you're really on a ship. On stage: After dinner, folks can catch the accompanying show featuring spectacular period costumes and a solid musical cast. But don't be like me and search for Jack and Rose. The musical features many cute couples but is unrelated to the blockbuster movie. For Titanic laughs, check out Porchlight's" Titanique" in which a Celine Dion-like character purports to tell the ship's real story through her iconic songs.
Chicago Tribune
18-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
Review: In ‘Titanic the Musical' at the Marriott, the music alone is reason enough to make a voyage
At times you wonder if the musical director had threatened to remove all lifeboats from the rehearsal room, such is the vocal force of the Marriott Theatre's new production of 'Titanic the Musical.' The pervasive current view of this 1997 Broadway musical with a score by Maury Yeston and a book by the late Peter Stone is that the narrative of the show (which is not connected to the James Cameron movie that came out that same year) suffers from an over-familiarity of anything and everything to do with the wreck of the RMS Titanic on its maiden voyage on April 15, 1912. That's undeniably true. Such is its titanic place in popular culture that you currently can choose from this seriously epic revival in Lincolnshire, or decide instead to head downtown and see the amusing parody ' Titanique.' And if you go to Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, you can visit an interactive and artifact-laden museum inviting you to stick your hand in a bucket of water to get a sense of the deadly chill of the North Atlantic. All of this stuff draws from the same disaster, of course. And all have to be careful not to cross the bounds of good taste, given that all of the fame draws from an incident in which some 1,500 souls perished. In the case of 'Titanic the Musical,' you get what we journalists call a tick-tock account of what happened, from an optimistic boarding in Southampton to the aftermath of the notorious fatal encounter with the iceberg. The songs are distributed between the bosses (Adam Pelty is owner J. Bruce Ismay, David Girolmo is Captain E.J. Smith and Christopher Kale Jones is ship designer Thomas Andrews), passengers (such as the second-class pair played by Lillian Castillo and James Earl Jones II and the sweet older couple essayed by Heidi Kettenring and Mark David Kaplan) and the crew (Darian Goulding, with a huge voice that could drown out a ship's turbines, is the stoker). Since everyone is aware of how the story ends, we all spend the whole show in a state of knowing a lot more than the characters, which can be a pleasurable state in any piece of dramatic art. Certainly, nobody has to work to follow what transpires. I, for one, don't necessarily need to hear this sad and familiar story again. But this show has a truly magnificent score (as recently heralded when the show was performed, concert-style at New York's City Center), especially when it comes to its choral anthems, many of which are scored for the entire ensemble. Beyond 'Les Misérables,' very few other shows compare. Dramatically, the music functions here as a lifeboat of its own, especially in those huge numbers like 'In Every Age.' And this cast of premiere Chicago vocalists, from Garrett Lutz to Kelli Harrington to Eric Amundson, sing as though they would otherwise go down with their ship. I'd describe the experience as one of encountering a giant wall of sound, except that Marriott stages shows in the round and the director here, the very skilled Connor Gallagher, also had the task of turning a show that often invites actors just to plant their feet on deck and open their mouths into something that works in that format. 1 of Erica Stephan and Garrett Lutz in "Titanic the Musical" at the Marriott Theatre in Lincolnshire. (Justin Barbin) I was mighty impressed by how well Gallagher thread that particular needle, as well as how well he keeps the stakes high and makes the stage feel ship-like in every possible way. I wish Marriott had added a few players to its small but here over-amplified band, given the particular demands of this title and the cumulative power of the singers it cast, but this production still offers a formidable musical experience, coming at you with more emotional intensity and existential gravitas than any other time I've seen this particular show. 'Titanic the Musical' has a lot of music and relatively little book. Erica Stephan's lively Irish dreamer Kate is perhaps the most developed character, albeit also something of a trope in a show full of them, but Stone's main intention was to commemorate the whole community, if that's the word, and come up with enough dignity to avoid any sense of maudlin exploitation. In the end, it was Yeston, the oft-underrated composer who is still very much alive, who fulfilled that expectation spectacularly well. That's why this show, when produced at this high level, still has so much artistic heft to go with its ever-bankable title. Chris Jones is a Tribune critic. cjones5@ Review: 'Titanic' (3.5 stars) When: Through June 1 Where: Marriott Theatre, 10 Marriott Drive, Lincolnshire Running time: 2 hours, 25 minutes
Chicago Tribune
24-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
Column: Marriott Theatre has delivered fun and escape for a half-century
There's nothing like spending an evening lost in a dreamy musical to take one far and away from today's bedlam. On the stage, one sees the human spirit stronger than our current ceremonial ministries and the despair they cultivate. Such amusement is needed for many, and over the weekend they flocked to the Marriott Theatre in Lincolnshire, which has served dishes of theatrical pleasure for half a century. As German playwright Bertolt Brecht pointed out decades ago: 'From the start it has been the theatre's business to entertain people … it needs no other passport than fun.' Fun is what the Marriott, celebrating 50 years of live and award-winning theater, delivers annually. The fantastic cast, crew and orchestra of 'Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat' certainly infected a packed house with their passionate renditions and stirring dance numbers. The rousing offering injected new life into the visionary chestnut Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyricist Sir Tim Rice first offered audiences in 1969. For the Marriott, it was the third staging of 'Joseph,' which first took the in-the-round venue in 1985, again in 2000 and lastly, until this month, 2009. The production runs through March 30. As part of the year-long theatrical celebration, the resort's signature eatery, Three Embers Restaurant, which overlooks some of the grounds of the 175-acre Marriott Lincolnshire Resort, has introduced a rotating pop-up dining spot that is slated to be an extension of what's being presented on stage. For example, during the run of 'Joseph,' Joseph's Dream Grill features menu items such as koshari, the comforting vegan bowl of lentils and chickpeas which happens to be the national dish of Egypt. Those familiar with the Biblical telling of 'Joseph' and the treachery bestowed on him by his brothers know why the meal is being served. What other food delights the pop-ups have in store this theater cycle only the chefs at the resort know for certain. Other Marriott productions scheduled for this golden anniversary year include 'Titanic the Musical'; the world premiere of 'Always Something There,' an '80s-centric jukebox musical; 'Catch Me If You Can: The Musical,' based on the 2002 film of the same name starring Leonardo DiCaprio; and 'Million Dollar Quartet Christmas,' which should find Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and Elvis Presley crooning yule favorites beginning on Nov. 5. Nothing heavily dramatic here, but something to whet theater-goers' appetites to spend an evening or matinee surrounding the near-1,000 seat stage being entertained by Actors Equity union professionals. It's a formula that has worked for the producers and audiences since the stage first was christened in December of 1975. The Marriott hotel clan, now Marriott International based in Bethesda, Maryland, eyed the once-rural property between Routes 21 and 22, and the Des Plaines River in the late 1960s. The luxury resort, which includes the 18-hole Crane's Landing Golf Club, opened in April 1975. The Marriotts must have liked Lake County. A year later, they opened Marriott's Six Flags Great America in Gurnee, which since then has been owned by various entertainment entities. When the resort opened, the village of Lincolnshire soon replaced unincorporated Half Day as the main government agency. Across the street from the resort was the Chicagoland Airport, once a satellite landing field during World War II for Glenview Naval Air Station. Concrete landing strips were unearthed and eventually turned into the sprawling Lincolnshire Corporate Center. The Marriott is one of the most successful regional theaters in the nation, presenting close to 250 stage productions the past 50 years. The number of its subscribers, who purchase advance seats to all the annual productions, amounts to some 30,000, according to one estimate. Many of those theater-goers span not only Lake County, but also Cook and McHenry counties, along with Kenosha County in Wisconsin. The resort and theater have become destinations for those seeking a bit of county culture. Like other county attractions — the Historic Genesee Theatre in Waukegan, known for presenting global, national and regional music acts, and the iconic Volo Auto Museum — come to mind, the Marriott Theatre is a gem. For 50 years, it has been the gift that keeps giving us top-notch productions, allowing us to see close-to-home entertainment. That lets us spend an evening absorbed in high-quality stagecraft, leaving behind worries about our national characters' propensity to ham it up.
Chicago Tribune
19-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
Review: ‘Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat' sings to the rafters at the Marriott Theatre
'Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,' the show blowing bubbles of family-friendly joy at the Marriott Theatre in Lincolnshire, has been there my entire reviewing life. Chicago first embraced this Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice irreverent Biblical creation with the help of some 500 performances from a bare-chested Donny Osmond back in the mid-1990s, which, some readers will be shocked to hear, is now 30 years ago. Feels like yesterday to me ('I close my eyes, pull back the curtain …'). Any show that was so successful for so long in downtown Chicago that an Osmond was persuaded to move himself and his family to Wilmette is a piece of theater that deserves respect. One of our best family stories from that 'Jospeh' era came when Osmond called our house just as my wife, who had stared for years at his picture on her bedroom wall, happened to be taking out the trash. She came back in just as he clicked off (I was out, too). She listened to the voicemail with no return number and fell to her knees in sorrow at the missed opportunity. 'Joseph' giveth and 'Joseph' can taketh away. Director Amber Mak's new production is so popular, and the theater so heavily sold, that your humble correspondent ended up, for the first time in decades of reviewing there, on the front row. I suspect the actors, to the limited extent they cared, would have preferred otherwise. Since this cast is packed with wry veterans of our musical theater scene like Lorenzo Rush Jr. (offering up a tasty Pharaoh cocktail that is one part Elvis, one part Prince and 900 parts himself), George Keating (at his Old Testament best), Lillian Castillo (in the chorus, for heaven's sake) and Leah Morrow (workin' it as one of the bros), I felt like I got sent the occasional 'yes, here I am doing 'Joseph'' look. And proudly so, folks. Proudly so. Look at the palpable pleasure you are bringing to grandparents and grandkids and any and all lovers of bouncy melodies, lyrical travesties and short running times, with an intermission. Mak reinvents no wheels in this venerable theater-in-the-round. But she does fashion a very sweet frame wherein we first meet a young girl (the great Avelen Lena Choi, who is racking up more Chicago theater credits than Donny) and her dad (Devin DeSantis, all stellar vocals, wavy hair and just a smidgeon of self parody). He and the girl's mom, played by Kaitlyn Davis (Carole King in Marriott's superb 'Beautiful') morph into Joe and the narrator respectively as the show unspools in her playroom. It's fun to see the show through a child's eyes (as many kids in the audience clearly appreciated) and Mak shrewdly mitigates the show's more, ahem, problematic aspects when it comes to cultural depictions, not that any of it made actual sense at any point in the show's history. But I come to praise 'Joseph' and what a well-toned, heartfelt production like this one does for a tired, stressed-out audience, not to bury it. More influential than you think, this show had the first-ever megamix, the most tuneful and easily digested recitatives in Broadway history, lots of self-awareness ('We've read the book and you come out on top') long before it became fashionable, and a lift-off-the-roof power balled in 'Close Every Door to Me,' written waaaay before 'Defying Gravity' or even 'Memory.' De Santis knows it's a gift and he leans in. He sounded great from the front row. Chris Jones is a Tribune critic. cjones5@ When: Through March 30 Where: Marriott Theatre, 10 Marriott Drive, Lincolnshire Running time: 1 hour, 50 mins.
