CAMELOT Theatrical Special Effects

Our Chicago trip was a sycophantic dream. We stayed at the Club Quarters hotel at 111 Adams Street in the exact center of downtown Chitown and I cannot recommend it highly enough to anyone with business, monkey or otherwise, in the Loop. I give it five stars: location, location, location, luxury and price. With surrounding hostelries commanding 220 to 350 scooties a day in the Loop, here sits this little jewel at only 169 bones per evening. The lounge and clubroom are elegant, staff is fawning, rooms are immaculate and fully-equipped yet cozy and the attached English pub, the Elephant and Castle, is wonderful and has Strongbow Cider on tap as well as everything Brit (and I've been to a lot of pubs in Blighty.) But location: the CQ is a ten-minute walk from everything in the Chicago Loop. We tossed our car key to the valet who, for an additional 36 clams a day, vanished our car for two days. We didn't need it.

On our arrival evening, August 1st, we had dinner reservations at the Great Street Restaurant on the top floor of the Renaissance Hotel with seven members of the cast of "Wicked." They circulated from table to table as we ate a lovely three-course meal and were relaxed and chatty. We learned some terminology that I didn't know before: the difference between a lead, a standby, an understudy and a "swing." (Leads perform major roles in every show. Understudies perform other roles but are ready to "bump up" to a more important role if that actor is missing. Standbys know the major roles and are ready to "fill in." Swings know all of the minor roles of their sex and are ready to replace understudies when they "bump up." So: leads and understudies perform every day. Standbys and swings perform only when needed.) When your show is pulling in around half-a-million dollars per performance, you need to protect that income. I am still holding out for a similar system in community theatre but we're lucky to find leads. God help us if one gets hit by a truck. It must be nice to know that your role is covered four ways and that, if you're feeling mizzy you can call in sick and the show goes on. Natch, we got autographs.

Our seats for "Wicked" were second-row front dead center. Lauren (my wife) kept fighting the impulse to reach out and grab the conductor's ponytail as it bounced and swayed an arm's length away. Glinda's bubbles burst on our noses and Elphaba spit on us, plus I got to see up the skirts of all the girls. I see why they prohibit photographs. (Just kidding... well, actually not.) We loved the show and a lot of the score. Some of the music is Tim Ricey/Disney cartoonish and some of it keeps running in your head, like the song "Popular" which is pretty much the "blonde joke" central theme of the show.

On Thursday we walked to the Harold Washington Library Center (ten minutes away) and were shocked to learn that the three-to-four days work I had expected in scanning three months of newspaper archives and taking notes could be accomplished by the two of us in only four hours by pushing the "print" button and having copies dropped into our laps. When I asked about the cost, I was told "Why, it's all free, of course. Just call if you need more paper." I took the Chicago Public Library home with me and will now leisurely peruse the hundreds of articles we copied here at our lakeside retreat. Wow! What a city!

That left us time to go to the top of the Sears Tower (ten minutes away) and see the sights. Lauren had never been up there before and was impressed.

Thursday night, another fine restaurant (The Italian Village) across from the Chase Tower, then on to the Chase Auditorium to watch the live taping of our favorite NPR radio show, "Wait, Wait... Don't Tell Me." Nice theater, seats 400 to 500 and it was a full house, all liberal Democrats I'm sure so we were right at home. It was fun to see all the stars in person including Carl Kassel, the voice of NPR news for decades who actually flies in to Chicago from his home in Washington D.C. every week just to do this show. The special guest, via phone, was 90-year-old Phyllis Diller and it was a fun experience.

Then back to our hotel (ten minutes away) to find Adams and LaSalle Streets cordoned off by the police for the filming of "Batman, The Dark Knight." Natch they let us through the cordon to get to our hotel and we took seats at the window of the Elephant and Castle hoping to see maybe Christian Bale or some of the actors and film crew at work but no luck, they were working a block down the street. As we sat there, in the door walked the entire cast of "Wait, Wait... Don't Tell Me" who stay at our hotel! Carl Kassel even came over and sat with us so I got to grill him about his career in broadcasting and how he manages his schedule and the paradigm shift from world news to improv comedy every week. Natch, we got autographs from everybody!

So, sycophantic endeavors over and smothered in celebrity, we spent a relaxing Friday lakeside on the Gold Coast and then a leisurely two-day trip home. Now the hard work begins but boy... was that a fun trip!

posted by C. J. # 10:13 PM