Court jesters keep fund-raiser lively
'Sound of Music' spoof brings down the house
Hyde Park's Court Theatre is often lauded for its stripped-down performances of classic shows.
"We take things people have seen a million times, scale them back and get to the root of the stories to examine them in a new light," said actor Ben Dicke.
But on Friday night, the company decided to go just for laughs.
So when it staged a 10-minute adaptation of "The Sound of Music" -- including clipped and catty versions of every major song and scene in the musical -- it brought the house down at the group's fund-raiser at the Four Seasons Hotel, 120 E. Delaware.
The biggest laugh: when a cast member coached the 250 guests -- who had each paid up to $1,000 to attend the gala -- to sing along to "So Long, Farewell" with a drawn out, operatic goodbye.
"You guys are playing the parts of wealthy socialites at a party," he said. "Do you think you can you do that?"
The one-hour tribute to the musicals of Rodgers and Hammerstein included another laugh-out-loud number, when two male ensemble members stepped up to the stage to perform their high-pitched take on "Stepsisters' Lament" from "Cinderella."
The party was emceed by Lawrence Strickling, a former bureau chief for the Federal Communications Commission. Strickling is both the chair of the theater's board of trustees and policy coordinator for Barack Obama's presidential campaign. "I can't remember working harder than this, but it doesn't feel like work," he says of his dual posts this last year. "These are both labors of love, and I get paid the same amount [nothing] for both of them."
Also on the gala's marquee: Nuveen Investments managing director and Court board member Lorna Ferguson. She was honored for playing a role in her company's ongoing commitment to the theater. (Price tag: more than $500,000 in donations over a 20-year relationship.)
Guests included former "All My Children" star Kate Collins, who played Natalie and her evil twin, Janet (and is married to Court's artistic director Charlie Newell) and WLS-Channel 7 general manager Emily Barr, who lives in Hyde Park. The party raised more than $300,000.
