Spotlight on Reviews

**** Recommended **** Mercury Theatre’s production of "Priscilla: Queen of the Desert" is all about disco music and ‘dancing queens’ in sequined costumes.  It’s totally over-the-top and a fabulously fun time!  Unless you’re a Grinch, you go home laughing and happy.  The whole premise, the adventures of three drag queens driving across the Australian Outback, is insane, but don’t let that get in the way.  No one else does!  People were whooping it up from the first note.  I love "Priscilla Queen of the Desert" and I think you will too!  4 Spotlights. 

**** Highly Recommended **** "Reefer Madness" is a tongue-in-cheek musical satire about the evils of marijuana, based on a 1930’s government-produced film strip.  Don't be put off by the title, this is right up there in my funniest musicals top ten.  Marijuana is mostly legal now, so I can’t figure out why it’s so rarely staged.  Jeff Casey and Kevin Bellamy have embraced the hilarity.  After the show, Reefer Madness got the loudest applause I’ve ever heard at the Towle.  4 Spotlights

★★★★★Over the many years I have been reviewing theater, I have probably seen over 15 different and unique productions of “The Wizard of Oz”, a shortened version of the  1939 Warner Brothers ( distributed by MGM) film that was based on a book called “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz”. The film version truly made Judy Garland a name that will always be remembered, as this classic film seems to be on TV at least once a year.

★★★★★ If you are a lover of the “Blues”, Writers Theatre in Glencoe has something special for you! Most Chicago theater audiences are familiar with Ms Felicia P. Fields ( Porchlight’s “Blues In The Night”, “Let The Good Times Roll” at Northlight and of course “Nothin But The Blues.). She was born to sing the blues and in her new show “Pearl’s Rollin’ With The Blues” conceived by Ron OJ Parson and Ms Fields and directed to perfection by Parson, you are in for a treat.