HollywoodChicago.com Hookup: Theater & Comedy

Top Chicago Theater Picks For March 27, 2008: ‘Driving Miss Daisy,’ ‘Dead Man’s Cell Phone,’ ‘Bronte’

HollywoodChicago.com — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 21:56:22 -0700

CHICAGO – Free or half-price Chicago theater and comedy tickets. No catch. Just click the link, take just a moment to make a free Goldstar account (or log into your existing Goldstar account) and you’re on your way.

This week, we feature the Pulitzer Prize-winning play “Driving Miss Daisy,” the quirky comic adventure “Dead Man’s Cell Phone” at the Steppenwolf, the Victorian literary drama “Bronte” at the Victory Gardens Greenhouse Theater, Neil LaBute’s acclaimed “In a Dark Dark House” at the Profiles Theatre and the first full-length Tennessee Williams play “Candles to the Sun” also at Victory Gardens.

For each of the Chicago productions we feature below, Goldstar requires you to create a free account, which takes but a minute. You’ll then have access to all the free and half-price tickets to top-quality productions that your heart desires. Here are this week’s selections and deals!

Title: “Driving Miss Daisy”
Venue: Mayslake Peabody Estate in Oakbrook, Ill.
Dates: April 2, 3 and 9, 2008
Full Price: $16-$26 Partner Price: $8-$13!
Description: First Folio presents Alfred Uhry’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play “Driving Miss Daisy”. This story details the relationship between an elderly Jewish matron and her African-American chauffeur over the span of several decades. Uhry has created two outsiders who come to a mutual respect based on their independence, strength and integrity.
Snag your “Driving Miss Daisy” tickets now!

Title: “Dead Man’s Cell Phone”
Venue: Steppenwolf Upstairs Theatre
Dates: March 27 to June 1, 2008
Full Price: $40-$68 Partner Price: $20-$34!
Description: Jean is sleepwalking through her life until she answers a dead man’s cell phone. It turns out to be a wake-up call that sends her on a date with the dead man’s brother, a drinking binge with his wife and a mysterious rendezvous with his mistress as Jean rediscovers herself.

Snag your “Dead Man’s Cell Phone” tickets now!

Title: “Bronte”
Venue: Victory Gardens Greenhouse Theater
Dates: March 28 to May 2, 2008
Full Price: $40 Partner Price: $20!
Description: This inventive drama examines the lives of three of the most studied and discussed writers of all time. Spurred by their brother’s tumultuous personal life, Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte write from their remote home on the Yorkshire moors. The real and the imagined collide as the characters the sisters have created come to life.

Snag your “Bronte” tickets now!

Title: “In a Dark Dark House”
Venue: Profiles Theatre
Dates: March 28 to May 11, 2008
Full Price: $15-$30 Partner Price: $7.50-$15!
Description: On the grounds of a private psychiatric facility, two brothers find themselves brought face to face with each other’s involvement in their traumatic past. In Neil LaBute’s powerful new play, these siblings must struggle to come to grips with their troubled legacy both inside and outside their dark family home.

Snag “In a Dark Dark House” tickets now!

Title: “Candles to the Sun”
Venue: Victory Gardens Greenhouse Theater
Dates: March 27 to April 25, 2008
Full Price: $25 Partner Price: $12.50!
Description: Eclipse Theatre Company presents the Chicago premiere of the first full-length Tennessee Williams play “Candles to the Sun”. Set during the Great Depression in Alabama’s coal-mining region, the play paints a portrait of the bleak lives of the miners’ families and their attempts to unionize.
Snag your “Candles to the Sun” tickets now!

By ADAM FENDELMAN
Editor-in-Chief
HollywoodChicago.com
adam@hollywoodchicago.com

Top Chicago Theater Picks For Feb. 21, 2008: ‘A Big Blue Nail,’ ‘Skin in Flames,’ ‘Botanic Garden’

HollywoodChicago.com — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 10:21:13 -0700

This week, we feature the phantasmagorical tale “A Big Blue Nail” at the Victory Gardens Theater, the mysterious drama “Skin in Flames” at Stage Left Theatre, “Botanic Garden” at the Victory Gardens Theater from Academy Award winner Olympia Dukakis, the award-winning musical “Ain’t Misbehavin’” at the Center for Performing Arts and the Pulitzer Prize-winning drama “The Time of Your Life” at the Viaduct Theater.

Title: “A Big Blue Nail”
Venue: Victory Gardens Biograph Theater
Dates: Feb. 21 to March 2, 2008
Full Price: $37-$45 Partner Price: $18.50-$22.50!
Description: This is a phantasmagorical tale that examines explorer Robert Peary’s fame as the first man to reach the North Pole, which obscured the contributions of Matthew Henson (his African-American cohort who could rightfully claim the title). Now at the end of his life with the estranged Henson knocking at his door, Peary is swept into a hallucinatory nightmare on the chaotic Polar Sea, the coast of Maine and the terrifying landscape of his guilt-ridden mind.

Snag your half-price “A Big Blue Nail” tickets now!

Title: “Skin in Flames”
Venue: Stage Left Theatre
Dates: Feb. 21 to March 29, 2008
Full Price: $20-$25 Partner Price: Free-$12.50!
Description: In this award-winning drama by Guillem Clua (translated from the Catalan), a young girl looks gently into the camera lens – her clothes and hair aflame – thrown through the air by an exploding bomb. Twenty years later, the photojournalist returns to this war-torn country and agrees to an interview with an upstart female reporter who challenges his standing as a national hero. But the hotel room where they meet holds more secrets than either expects.
Snag your “Skin in Flames” tickets now!

Title: “Botanic Garden”
Venue: Victory Gardens Greenhouse Theater
Dates: Feb. 22 to March 8, 2008
Full Price: $35 Partner Price: $17.50!
Description: Directed by Oscar-winning actress Olympia Dukakis, “Botanic Garden” is the story of Kate. She faces the daunting and humorous prospect of her first date since the death of her husband. Kate takes a stark look at her present and the choices she must make.
Snag your “Botanic Garden” tickets now!

Title: “Ain’t Misbehavin’”
Venue: Center for Performing Arts at Governors State University
Dates: March 1, 2008
Full Price: $33 Partner Price: $16.50!

Description: The joint will be jumpin’ when the Tony Award-winning musical revue “Ain’t Misbehavin’” transforms the theater into a Harlem jazz hall. It’s an evening of dazzling, jazzy fun with Fats Waller favorites like “Honeysuckle Rose,” “Tain’t Nobody’s Bizness If I Do” and “It’s a Sin to Tell a Lie”.

Snag half-price “Ain’t Misbehavin” tickets now!

Title: “The Time of Your Life”
Venue: Viaduct Theater
Dates: Feb. 22 to March 2, 2008
Full Price: $25 Partner Price: $12.50!
Description: It’s 1939 in San Francisco. Surrounded by a world on the brink of war and ravaged by depression, Nick’s Pacific Street Saloon attracts an assortment of “important nobodies” who share the common bond of searching for purpose. Their dreary routines of survival are sparked by brilliant flashes of hope and beauty as the events of a single day change their lives forever.
Snag your “The Time of Your Life” tickets now!

By ADAM FENDELMAN
Editor-in-Chief
HollywoodChicago.com
adam@hollywoodchicago.com

Top Chicago Theater Picks For Feb. 14, 2008: ‘Heat Wave,’ ‘Augusta,’ ‘Columbinus’

HollywoodChicago.com — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 12:01:41 -0700

CHICAGO – Following the popularity of our HollywoodChicago.com Hookup: Film offering (free advance-screening movie passes!), we’ve had numerous requests from readers to offer the same kind of deals for local theater and comedy, too. We are now pleased to bring you the HollywoodChicago.com Hookup: Theater & Comedy as a result of a new partnership with Goldstar.

Similiar but a bit different than our partnership with FilmMetro.com for HollywoodChicago.com Hookup: Film, this new package features our top selections for the best theater and comedy shows just about to raise their curtains specifically in Chicago. While these obviously can’t all be offered for free, some are free and most are half price!

We are confident about our decision to partner with Goldstar for this important offering. Founded in 2002 in Los Angeles, Goldstar is comprised of Internet professionals from Warner Bros., Yahoo!, etc. who have been working in e-commerce since before it was called e-commerce.

For each of the Chicago productions we feature below, all they ask is for you to create a free account, which takes but a minute. You’ll then have access to all the free and half-price tickets to top-quality productions that your heart desires. Here are this week’s selections and deals!

Title: “Heat Wave”
Venue: Pegasus Players at O’Rourke Center
Dates: Feb. 21 to 24, 2008
Full Price: $15 Partner Price: Free!
Description: Based on the book “Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago,” Steven Simoncic’s moving new play looks at the heat wave of 1995 that took the lives of 739 Chicagoans. Simoncic presents a vivid portrait of a city in crisis but with its resources and humanity firmly intact.
Snag your free “Heat Wave” tickets now!

Title: “Columbinus”
Venue: Raven East Stage
Dates: Feb. 14 to March 15, 2008
Full Price: $25 Partner Price: Free-$12.50!
Description: “Columbinus” is a fascinating examination of human behavior based on interviews with Columbine residents. The play first creates a general world of adolescence and then morphs into the factual events leading specifically to the school shootings. “Columbinus” asks: “Why do people treat each other the way we do?”
Snag your half-price “Columbinus” tickets now!

Title: “Augusta”
Venue: American Theater Company
Dates: Feb. 14 to 24, 2008
Full Price: $30-$35 Partner Price: $15-$17.50!
Description: American Theater Company presents the Chicago premiere of Richard Dresser’s “Augusta,” which is directed by “Saturday Night Live” alum Nora Dunn. This searing dark comedy puts the clash between working people and corporate America under the microscope. Two women and their boss scheme with and against each other as they strive to make a housekeeping service their ticket to success. As the trio’s desperation moves them to test ethical limits, Augusta confronts the real meaning of getting ahead.
Snag your half-price “Augusta” tickets now!

Title: “Good Boys and True”
Venue: Steppenwolf Downstairs Theatre
Dates: Feb. 15 to 16, 2008
Full Price: $55-$68 Partner Price: $27.50-$34!

Description: Steppenwolf Theatre Company presents the world premiere of Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa’s “Good Boys and True”. When Brandon Hardy – a highly regarded student at an elite prep school – is embroiled in a scandal that threatens his future, his mother must investigate to separate fact from fiction.

Snag your half-price “Good Boys and True” tickets now!

Title: “Talking it Over”
Venue: Lifeline Theatre
Dates: Feb. 11 to March 16, 2008
Full Price: $25 Partner Price: $12.50!

Description: When steady Stuart marries the enigmatic Gillian, his impetuous school chum, Oliver, senses that three has become a crowd. But who will end up on the outside as this love triangle struggles to find balance? This darkly comic look at friendship, loyalty and love is at once funny and brutal.

Snag your half-price “Talking it Over” tickets now!

By ADAM FENDELMAN
Editor-in-Chief
HollywoodChicago.com
adam@hollywoodchicago.com