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Chicago Tribune
09-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
Whose libretto is it, anyway? Chicago opera company takes on improv
We're at a pizza parlor, listening to 'The Perversity of Captain Morgan.' This opera has everything: drunk pirates, 'horny fish,' a preteen stowaway from Colorado, and a character referred to only as Peasant Susan. Musically, 'Captain Morgan' sounds a bit like Mozart's handiwork — and it's highly possible the potty-mouthed composer himself might have snickered at the absurd plot. It has an overture, with a lighthearted onstage pantomime. It boasts a mix of aria and recitativo secco, or recitative accompanied by the harpsichord (in this case, an electric keyboard playing with a patch). It even ends with a Mozartean, all-cast finale. But this opera isn't from the 18th century. It's very contemporary — as in, it's being made up on the spot. Welcome to Chicago Fringe Opera's 'Op*erratic.' Every Wednesday night at Borelli's Pizzeria in Lincoln Square, cycling troupes of singers improvise a half-hour-long opera based on audience suggestions. George Cederquist, the company's producing artistic director, says he's long used improv as a teaching tool in North Park University's theater department. After honing his skills further through a summer intensive at Annoyance Theatre, he wondered what it might look like to apply what he learned to opera. 'Improv is essentially putting on your own mask before assisting others,' Cederquist told me between sets at Borelli's. 'When you go into a scene making a really strong choice, that allows everybody else in the scene to know what's going on.' After two preliminary improv classes at North Park University earlier this year, 18 singers rehearsed together from March through mid-May to prepare for this summer run of shows. A few participants — like mezzo-soprano Molly Clementz, the matriarch of last week's brood of 'horny fish' — had improv experience. Others didn't. All, however, were fusing opera and improv comedy for the first time. For some cast members, the experience scratched a secret itch. Mezzo-soprano Evita Trembley tried out for her high school improv team but didn't make the cut. (She got some of the evening's biggest laughs as a misbegotten shark-slash-mermaid.) Soprano Allison Mann says she used to play a DIY version of 'Whose Line Is It Anyway?' in her childhood living room. 'So, of course, I jumped on this opportunity,' Mann says. Though Chicago Fringe runs on a tiny budget, it offered the classes to participants for free — an important tenet for Cederquist, who sees the company as counteracting industry 'gatekeepers.' That alone made the risk worth taking for singers like Trembley. 'They made it really accessible to singers — especially now, when everyone's having a hard time financially,' she says. 'In opera, we're all just gigging it out here.' 'Op*erratic' was originally billed as an hour-long improvised opera. That proved to be a lift, so the final version — presented now through July 2 — presents popular short-form improv games, like 'Freeze,' 'Park Bench' and 'Sex with me is like …,' before launching into the main event. Through it all, Brian Rasmussen mans the keys with quick-thinking brilliance. During a 'Freeze' set that involved a giant crab, he breezily plunked out the hook to 'Under the Sea.' Later, as the fish improvised an aria with a falling two-note refrain ('… very , he echoed the same motif in his accompaniment. Rasmussen is already an experienced improviser, mostly in the musical theater world. Improvising like Mozart, though? That was new. 'A lot of times when I'm improvising, it's either a lot of pastiche, or it's just what I would do as a composer. Here, we're imitating a certain style,' says Rasmussen, himself an operatic tenor. 'I'm doing, like, music theory analysis in my head while I'm playing.' Once the cast gained confidence — whether in the idiom, or in improv itself — the next challenge was, ironically, holding back. Singers had to listen closely to make sure they weren't stepping on each other's toes. 'It's just in our nature,' Trembley says. 'We all want to sing, and we want to sing big.' The cast throws all hesitation to the wind by show's end. Like so many great Mozart finales, the finale to last week's show teemed with vocal polyphony. Lines danced in fugue, or interlaced in duos and trios. The central refrain of that grand chorus, by the way? 'She secreted.' Depending on what night you go to 'Op*erratic,' the bodily fluids invoked may vary. But the laughs? Sempre forte. 'Op*erratic' runs 7:30 p.m. every Wednesday through July 2 at Borelli's Pizzeria, 2124 W. Lawrence Ave.; $15 suggested donation, Hannah Edgar is a freelance writer.
Yahoo
05-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Today in Chicago History: ‘Grease' is born in a converted trolley barn
Here's a look back at what happened in the Chicago area on Feb. 5, according to the Tribune's archives. Is an important event missing from this date? Email us. Weather records (from the National Weather Service, Chicago) High temperature: 56 degrees (1946) Low temperature: Minus 17 degrees (1979) Precipitation: 0.81 inches (1909) Snowfall: 7 inches (1907) 1954: Lyric Theater of Chicago (later Lyric Opera) debuted to a sold-out audience with a performance of Mozart's 'Don Giovanni' at the Civic Opera House with Nicola Rossi-Lemeni in the starring role. The show repeated the next night. The success of those first two performances made possible a three-week autumn season consisting of 16 performances of eight operas; 12 of those performances sold out. Tribune critic Claudia Cassidy called it 'a big, bold performance with the full quota of stage bands, a performance so Mozartean in its play of light and shadow that it spun all of a piece the splendor of Eleanor Steber's Donna Anna, the silky textured tenor Leopold Simoneau bestowed on Don Ottavio, the mischievous glint of Bidu Sayao's Zerlina, and the other sides of the comic face, from the rue of Irene Jordan's Elvira, the peasant not quite bumpkin that was Lorenzo Alvary's Masetto, and the knowing Leporello of John Brownlee, who used to sing the Don.' 1971: 'Grease' was performed for the first time — at June Pyskacek's Kingston Mines Theatre Co., 2356 Lincoln Ave., Chicago, in a building that was a converted trolley barn. The musical was later adapted for Broadway and the 1978 movie, which Tribune critic Gene Siskel gave three stars. 1999: Anthony Porter, who had come within 48 hours of execution, became the 10th exonerated death row prisoner in Illinois, thanks in part to Northwestern journalism students. Anthony Porter, ex-death row inmate whose case was 'Exhibit A' in prompting Illinois to halt executions, dies at 66 Subscribe to the free Vintage Chicago Tribune newsletter, join our Chicagoland history Facebook group, stay current with Today in Chicago History and follow us on Instagram for more from Chicago's past. Have an idea for Vintage Chicago Tribune? Share it with Kori Rumore and Marianne Mather at krumore@ and mmather@
Chicago Tribune
05-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
Today in Chicago History: ‘Grease' is born in a converted trolley barn
Here's a look back at what happened in the Chicago area on Feb. 5, according to the Tribune's archives. Is an important event missing from this date? Email us. Weather records (from the National Weather Service, Chicago) High temperature: 56 degrees (1946) Low temperature: Minus 17 degrees (1979) Precipitation: 0.81 inches (1909) Snowfall: 7 inches (1907) 1954: Lyric Theater of Chicago (later Lyric Opera) debuted to a sold-out audience with a performance of Mozart's 'Don Giovanni' at the Civic Opera House with Nicola Rossi-Lemeni in the starring role. The show repeated the next night. The success of those first two performances made possible a three-week autumn season consisting of 16 performances of eight operas; 12 of those performances sold out. Tribune critic Claudia Cassidy called it ' a big, bold performance with the full quota of stage bands, a performance so Mozartean in its play of light and shadow that it spun all of a piece the splendor of Eleanor Steber's Donna Anna, the silky textured tenor Leopold Simoneau bestowed on Don Ottavio, the mischievous glint of Bidu Sayao's Zerlina, and the other sides of the comic face, from the rue of Irene Jordan's Elvira, the peasant not quite bumpkin that was Lorenzo Alvary's Masetto, and the knowing Leporello of John Brownlee, who used to sing the Don.' 1971: 'Grease' was performed for the first time — at June Pyskacek's Kingston Mines Theatre Co., 2356 Lincoln Ave., Chicago, in a building that was a converted trolley barn. The musical was later adapted for Broadway and the 1978 movie, which Tribune critic Gene Siskel gave three stars. 1999: Anthony Porter, who had come within 48 hours of execution, became the 10th exonerated death row prisoner in Illinois, thanks in part to Northwestern journalism students. Want more vintage Chicago?
