<\/p>\n
It\u2019s always a \u201cWhite Christmas\u201d somewhere in Chicagoland.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve kept a diary, potentially incomplete. Marriott staged this show in Lincolnshire last year. Drury Lane in both 2021 (although a slightly different version) and 2015 (starring Sean Allen Krill, now on Broadway in \u201cChess,\u201d<\/a> and Erica Stephan, currently in \u201cAmadeus\u201d<\/a> at Steppenwolf). A downtown tour in 2017. Marriott Lincolnshire in 2011. A different downtown tour in 2010. You get the idea. I saw a Broadway production in there somewhere, too.<\/p>\n Always with the general, the soldiers, the barn, the showfolk and the snow.<\/p>\n This year, it\u2019s the turn of the Paramount Theatre in Aurora to stage the musical version of the 1954 VistaVision movie with Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney, Vera-Ellen and Bing Crosby, as souped up by various additions from the venerable Irving Berlin catalog. For years, I\u2019ve refused to write \u201cIrving Berlin\u2019s White Christmas\u201d (although that is the official title of the show created in 2000 for the Tony Award-winning Muny in St. Louis) as I see that as an example of estate-creep, where every composer\u2019s grandkids want to stick a name in front of the actual title and force everyone to comply. But, for the record, it\u2019s \u201cIrving Berlin\u2019s White Christmas,\u201d technically.<\/p>\n Certainly in musical reality, too, Berlin numbers here include \u201cBlue Skies,\u201d \u201cI Love a Piano,\u201d \u201cSisters,\u201d \u201cCount Your Blessings (Instead of Sheep),\u201d \u201cI\u2019ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm\u201d and other ditties from the 1,500 songs the prolific Irving Berlin wrote. The plot (I mean, why bother?) features three romantic duos starring folks with the urge to merge: a double act hoping to couple with a sister act and an old general who suddenly discovers the woman who has kept his inn warm all these years. So to speak.<\/p>\n Were you not generous enough to be reading me, you could have looked much of that up in this era of artificial intelligence, shudder. But not the eye-witness account of what transpired in Aurora, where I can report a stellar \u201cWhite Christmas\u201d directed by the longtime Chicago actor-turned-director Stephen Schellhardt. So much so, in fact, that I first cut and pasted my customary three-star review (it\u2019s invariable a sweet show) and added another demi-stella.<\/p>\n Why? For one thing, the whole \u201cWhite Christmas\u201d experience is just better in a historic venue like the Paramount with the room and the budget (for now, anyway) for a full-sized, 15-piece orchestra. Second, I really liked Jeffrey D. Kmiec\u2019s exceedingly classy design, which put me in mind of Derek McLane\u2019s work on \u201cJust in Time\u201d on Broadway. Thirdly, in a show that generally is very well sung by the likes of Evan C. Dolan, Sophie Grimm and Jessie J. Potter, there is a vocally thrilling performance from Alex Syiek as Bob Wallace, which is the core role here. Syiek booms out \u201cHow Deep is the Ocean\u201d (always a weird metaphor in this particular show) with sufficiently questioning excitement for seasonal goose bumps.<\/p>\n Fourth, David Girolmo plays the grumpy old General like he\u2019s playing George S. Patton, and that\u2019s the mechanism to deliver the show\u2019s message about selflessness at Christmas. We will overlook how all these soldiers get to rural Vermont on Christmas with like a day\u2019s notice. Heck of a big inn, I always think.<\/p>\n And yes, it snows. There\u2019s a nice little Kmiec trick to roll out some digital flakes to make you think the theater is dodging this most serious of responsibilities, only for the magical Paramount ceiling to function like its original architects intended, as a dispenser of delight.<\/p>\n Paramount has had<\/a> a rough few months, battling for funding<\/a> with the previously supportive City of Aurora. The end of such affordable tickets and concession prices is a likely consequence.<\/p>\n After the show, I walked around a little. There was only one block downtown that was brightly illuminated and filled with families, only one block spilling out happy suburban folks of all stripes, only one block with pedestrian traffic, some of which was walking toward a restaurant or two. Aurora puts this at risk at the city\u2019s peril.<\/p>\n Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.<\/em><\/p>\n