2’s Got Your Ticket: ‘Mamma Mia’ And ‘Shipwrecked! An Entertainment’
CHICAGO (CBS) — From singing into your hairbrush to theater under the stars, 2’s Got Your Ticket.
Arts and entertainment reporter Vince Gerasole takes a look at two productions whose creatives say their shows are the perfect fit for where we find ourselves at this moment in time, but each for a different reason.
Mamma Mia
Yes, there will be spandex, and all those great Abba songs sung into a curling iron or hairdryer.
“Thank goodness we’ve got that hairdryer in the show,” said Shanna Vanderwerker, choreographer for Music Theatre Works’ production of “Mamma Mia” at North Shore Center for the Performing Arts.
Mamma Mia! is a global phenomenon and arguably the first jukebox musical.
“There’s a lot more to the layers of Mamma Mia,” said the show’s director, Justin Brill.
It artfully weaves the songs of Swedish pop sensations Abba into the story of a young daughter searching for her father, and her frazzled mother confronting a lost love.
“It speaks to the idea of family connection,” Vanderwerker said.
The themes of old friends uniting aren’t unlike the rest of us coming together after months of lockdown.
“The show is rooted in so much joy and celebration,” Brill said.
Shipwrecked! An Entertainment
An authority figure spinning fantastical yarns is at the center of Oil Lamp Theater’s latest outdoor production, “Shipwrecked! An Entertainment,” where audiences sit in socially distanced Adirondack chairs on the grounds of St. David’s Episcopal Church in Glenview.
“This script, in particular, was a great, I think, celebration of the live event of actor and audience,” said director Corey Bradberry.
“Shipwrecked! An Entertainment” is the story of the so-called 19th century swiss explorer or con artist Louis de Rougemont. Presented as an evening with de Rougemont himself, it’s up to the audience to decide if his tales of flying wombats or a man-eating octopus are fact or fiction.
“This play, even though it’s a lot of fun, offers a pretty apt warning to what happens when you accept what’s being told to you at wholesale,” Bradberry said.
Back in 1899, The Wide World Magazine wrote “truth is stranger than fiction but de Rougemont is stranger than both.” You can judge for yourself.
Christian Dior to hold first Middle East exhibition in Qatar - Doha News
Dior and Qatar Museums have announced that the “Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams” exhibition will be held at Doha’s design hub.
A selection of pieces by French luxury fashion house Dior will be on display at the “Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams” exhibit set to be unveiled in Qatar.
The exhibition is the first of its kind for Dior in the Middle East, and will be held at the M7, Doha’s design and innovation hub in Msheireb Dowtown Doha.
The event is a joint collaboration between Dior and Qatar Museums.
The exhibit is the curation of Olivier Gabet, Director of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, and will celebrate over seven decades of creativity and design. Some unique pieces will even make their public debut at the exhibition.
Read also: MIA’s first Palestine exhibition explores historical heritage
Old and new haute couture designs by Christian Dior, as well as those who succeeded him, such as Yves Saint Laurent and Marc Bohan, Gianfranco Ferré, John Galliano, Raf Simons and Maria Grazia Chiuri will be displayed at the event.
Works and decorative objects from the collections of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris will also be available for enthusiasts to see.
On display will be the famous Bar suit, the white satin jacket and a flowering black skirt that launched the New Look in 1947, redefining femininity and Paris as a city of youth. Versions of the iconic Lady Dior bag reinterpreted for the Dior Lady Art project will also be shown.
The displays will also be decorated with motifs from Dior’s 30 Avenue Montaigne address in Paris.
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