Ravinia concert schedule released – partial listing

Ravinia has announced its complete lineup for 2010 featuring 117 events and more new faces than ever before. BUY TICKETS NOW by supporting* the not-for-profit festival. Public sales begins April 22 exclusively at www.ravinia.org

Here’s a partial listing of (possible) concerts/performances that theatre-goers might be interested in.  Entire schedule here.

 

JUNE Performances

6/4
Chicago Children’s Choir

6/6
Earth, Wind & Fire

6/10 and 6/11
Concert Dance, Inc./World Premieres

6/12
Steve Martin Performing With The Steep Canyon Rangers

6/17
Backstreet Boys

6/27
Bobby Mcferrin

 

JULY Performances

7/3
A Prairie Home Companion/Garrison Keillor

7/10
Cheap Trick/Squeeze

7/11
CSO/Gershwin Concerto In F/Copland
Appalachian Spring/Bernstein Symphony No. 2

7/14
The Swell Season from the Oscar-Winner Film Once

7/17 and  7/18
Sting / Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra

7/20
Peter And Paul Pay Tribute To Mary

7/21
The B-52s

7/23
CSO/Eschenbach Plays Mozart/Hits From Bernstein’s Candide

7/30
The Music Of Abba (Lawn Screen)

7/31
CSO/Sondheim Hits/Patti Lupone, Audra Mcdonald, George Hearn, Michael Cerveris/Gala Concert

 

AUGUST Performances

8/2
Chanticleer

8/4
Broadway Star Kelli O’Hara, One-Woman Show

8/7
CSO/Così Fan Tutte, Matinee

8/8
CSO/The Marriage Of Figaro, Matinee

8/13
CSO/Annie Get Your Gun

8/14 – 8/15  (3 separate shows)
Patti Lupone/Brian Stokes Mitchell

8/22
Crosby, Stills & Nash

8/25
Swingin Balladeer Tony Andriacchi

8/29
Carrie Underwood

9/1
An Evening With The Beach Boys

9/6
Labor Day Spectacular/"1812" with Cannons

9/7
Hershey Felder In Maestro: The Art And Music Of Leonard Bernstein

Think Fast: Michael McKean, Jonas Brothers, CSO and ‘Peter Pan the Musical’

This is great news: Michael McKean – who did such a brilliant job in Steppenwolf’s world-premier of Tracy Letts’ Superior Donuts – will reprise his role as donut shop owner on Broadway, set to open October 1st.  More here, here and here.

I’m so relieved to hear that the Jonas Brothers will “Rock” again.  Now I finally can get back to blogging.

What’s the impetus behind CSO’s artistic decline at Ravinia?  The Sun-Times says the choice of maestros at the podium is to blame.

The NYTimes’ Ben Brantley expounds on the interaction of the rude,  obnoxious children audience at a productions of Peter Pan in London’s West End: “Postcard from London: Pipsqueaking at Peter Pan”.  Ending up the piece, Brantley quips this final paragraph concerning a French boy seated behind him: I’m not sure the little boy behind me was impressed, though. He whispered (in English) in those hissing tones that bring to mind an angry radiator throughout the first act. In the second, he snored, but most gently. For that I was grateful.

Speaking of Peter Pan, it’s been announced that the multi-media-heavy extravaganza production will launch its theatre tour across the pond here in Chicago, May 2010.  In a tent!  Read the entire story at Chris Jones’ Theater Loop blog.  (Aside: no word on how profitable the show will be, though I heard Blago said that it’s “F*cking Golden!”)

Think fast: Using social media to generate audiences and market your theatre production, Antiques Roadshow, Ravinia hot dog hawkers

 

Mashable.com, the go-to social media industry site, examines how Broadway is using social media to talk to their hardcore fans and, in the process, drawing in future audiences.  Particularly, Mashable takes a look at the use of Ning.com to create Facebook-type sites for fans of your show – one example being Altarholics.com, for fans/groupies of the musical Altarboyz (now playing at Noble Fool-Pheasant Run in St. Charles).  An excerpt: With companies like Ning making it so easy to build your own network, shows like Rock of Ages, Shrek, and Altar Boyz, which is one of my productions, have been able to create the ultimate niche social network for their ultimate fans. By doing so, they can identify their most powerful ambassadors and communicate with them constantly. The niche network strategy only works with shows (or products) that have customer bases that are naturally drawn to social media. In other words, you won’t see a revival of Hamlet creating ToBeOrNotToBeFans.com; there’s nothing more depressing than a playground with no one on the swings. The umbrella niche of all of these micro-networks are sites like BroadwaySpace.com, which serves as a funnel for Broadway fans.

PBS’s Antiques Roadshow (count me in as a fan) has announced their first $1-million appraisal – four pieces of Chinese carved jade and celadon from the Chien Lung Dynasty (1736-1795).  It was conservatively praise at $1.07 million.

Ravinia Festival’s backstage blog highlights the fact that July is National Hot Dog Month.  And in honor of this, the park will feature hot dog hawkers for select performances.  Be sure to check out the rest of their blog while you’re at it!