Smile Politely. Speak Directly. A Champaign-Urbana Culture Blog

Taking a plunge into soothing waves of the ocean? Lame. Buying ice cream and savoring it under the warmth of sun? Overrated.

Haven’t you guys heard of quality summer entertainment?

We're talking about the rolling repertory season that serves up romance, suspense and comedy. It’s the one and only Summer Studio Theatre Company.

In it’s 18th season, SSTC continues to look onwards with three meticulous plays: Talley’s Folly, The Last Five Days and The Turn of the Screw.

Produced by the Illini Union Board with an ensemble of 28 students and the despite it's absurd name, the award-winning play, Urinetown: The Musical is well worth the watch. It is a satirical comedy-musical about a community's struggle during a 20-year drought. Here in Urinetown, water consumption is curbed by a single capitalist company, Urine Good Hands, who takes away the town's potty privileges; private bathrooms are banned and citizens are forced use and pay for the public facilities provided. The conflict, however, brought upon this town leads to a revolution. Now this notion isn't completely ridiculous, seeing as how some places in Europe require a small fee to use public restrooms. Urinetown's creator and lyricist, Greg Kotis, was actually inspired by this concept while traveling in Europe and having to pay-per-pee.

Three performances of Urinetown: The Musical will run at 7:30 p.m. on April 11 and 12, and a Saturday matinee at 2 p.m. at Assembly Hall, 1800 S. First St. in Champaign. Tickets are on sale through Illini Union Ticket Central and Assembly Hall Box Office. They range in price from $13-$17 and a $3 discount is available for those with a valid UIUC Student ID.

Downtown Champaign, with its two movie theatres and its many bars, restaurants and cafés seems to be a perfect locale for small film festivals: movie buffs can watch a film and then talk about it over espresso at Café Aroma or chocolate martinis at Kofusion or burgers at the Esquire.

Ebertfest may be the best example of how well suited downtown Champaign is to the small festival. Each year at the end of April, the area from Westside Park to the train tracks is filled with film industry types, movie fans and Roger Ebert groupies (they’re the wildest bunch), wandering about, wearing oversized laminated passes and talking about whether the film they’ve just watched is justifiably “overlooked.”

Yet if Ebertfest is a small festival (which surely it is compared to Cannes, Sundance or even Chicago), the upcoming Latin American Film Festival, celebrating its second year, might best be described as a micro-festival. There are only five films total, showing twice an evening (three on Saturday) from April 4–10.

In the early going of Jesus Christ Superstar, Judas Iscariot works himself to a boil. He’s come to recognize that the entire messianic enterprise that he’s hitched his star to isn’t necessarily a surefire success. In fact, it’s beginning to look like Jesus and his entire band of apostles might be on the verge of disbandment — even destruction — at the hands of the Roman power machine. Judas is scared. After Jesus ignores several of his pleas, Judas bellows, “All your followers are blind/Too much heaven on their minds/It was beautiful but now it’s sour/Yes it’s all gone sour.”

But to say that Judas and Jesus had merely an antagonistic relationship is to ignore the complexity of their friendship, says Matt Fear, who’s directing the Champaign-Urbana Theatre Company’s production of Jesus Christ Superstar at Champaign’s Virginia Theatre Thursday through Sunday.

"In the 21st century, with all of the chaotic things going on around you, you lose sight of the person standing right beside you," Zev Steinberg, senior in Theater at the University of Illinois says.

Sometimes you need a reminder. An important reminder. A musical reminder.

This weekend at Armory Free Theatre, Steinberg directs a cast of 10 other University of Illinois students in the musical A New Brain, a production by William Finn and James Lapine that tells the story of a young man who is facing near-certain death from a brain condition.

Measure for Measure marked Shakespeare’s final comedy before embarking upon the series of tragedies, which confirmed his legacy. Written after the monstrous Hamlet and succeeded by Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth, it seems appropriate that this tale of corruption and immorality stands as the most cynical and disturbingly inconclusive of perhaps any of Shakespeare’s plays, but most certainly of any the comedies.

Measure for Measure opens tonight at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts in Urbana.

It begins with a decapitated cat.

Today begins the Station Theatre’s presentation of Martin McDonagh’s comedic experiment in absurd ultra-violence, The Lieutenant of Inishmore. McDonagh, best known for the award-winning The Beauty Queen of Lenane, is perhaps one of our most gifted contemporary playwrights, and one of our most exceedingly dark.

He has famously claimed that he culls the majority of his inspiration from cinema, particularly the stylized genre experiments of Quentin Tarantino. Like that director, McDonagh’s work explores the tenuous and shadowy relationship between violence, sex, and humor. But unlike, Tarantino, McDonough, at his best, portrays a far more chilling brand of violence, one bereft of easy answers, perpetrated for motivations as thin and frustrating as boredom, pride, or to avenge a decapitated cat.

Inner Voices, a University of Illinois social issues theater group, presents the last of three performances of Endangered Black Girls tonight at Armory Free Theater.

The play was written by Ruth Nicole Brown, assistant professor in Gender and Women's Studies and Educational Policy Studies at the University of Illinois. Brown researches the political socialization of African American girls; her interviews with African American girls form the production's narrative backbone.

During an election season, Henry IV should be required viewing for the voting public. Ever the cynic, Shakespeare portrays politics as a complex of interactions; leadership not for the public good but for lineal obligation, the dangers of dynasty, and the pressure of public image.

It’s a story of rulers mired in greed, arrogance, duty, and betrayal. As appropriate to its time, and perhaps disconcertingly relevant today, Henry IV illustrates the uniquely masculine character of government; the struggle between father and son, and the mercurial friendships between soldiers determine the outcome of a war.

William Shakespeare’s plays have seen more adaptations, re-imaginings, and contemporary reinterpretations than, perhaps, any other artistic works in literary history. He laid the foundations for so much of what came after, that writers and directors must feel some primal urge to put their own face on that looming specter of exalted artistic achievement.

Add to that list Joe Calarco’s bold entry into the canon of Shakespeare derivatives, Shakespeare’s R & J. At the very least, his version of Romeo and Juliet contains little dancing and even less singing. Rather than modernizing the dialogue, this version relies on the bard’s original words, albeit in an abridged fashion.

"Little Shop" is a musical black comedy that tells the story of Seymour, a nerdy florist's assistant, and his quest to satiate a bloodthirsty man-eating alien plant while also winning the heart of the girl of his dreams. Admission is by donation only, although the cast promises that whoever gives $20 or more gets to sit onstage during the show — just out of range, we hope, of Audrey II.

Central High School is located at 610 W University Ave., Champaign.