"The Mommies — A Musical Blog" is currently playing in Orlando and opens soon in Chicago at the Royal George Theatre Center — along with several other cities. Tickets go on sale soon.

On Sunday, “White Noise,” an edgy new musical about a neo-Nazi singing group, closed several weeks earlier than hoped. But the Royal George Theatre already has a replacement booked for its main stage: “The Mommies — A Musical Blog.”

Not much carryover audience, I'd venture.

That diametric change in programming reflects a fact of life for a theater that rents out its space. But the fascinating contrast of those two shows also reflects the huge variance in the ways theater artists consider, or don't consider, their audience.

Along with its creative problems, “White Noise” had to overcome the tricky issue of persuading people to plunk down their money and spend some quality time with white supremacists. Even if the book gets fixed (it badly needs fixing, although the performances were mostly strong and the score already contains a little clutch of terrific songs), it's not hard to see that this issue will dog the show, which is still pondering a Broadway run. “White Noise,” which was produced by Whoopi Goldberg, is a cautionary tale and makes the valid point that neo-Nazis still exist and permeate mainstream culture. It also has guts. Still, it has to figure out its audience.

“Mommies” creator Jeanie Linders does not have to figure out her audience. She already did. Before she created the show. It is mothers, ages 22 to 42 and living with young children. You might notice the title makes that pretty clear.

Dixie has elongated her Chicago engagement. "Dixie's Tupperware Party" is swimming in enough plastic to keep the lights on longer. The show, performed by Kris Andersson, will now play the Royal George Theatre cabaret though June 12,

 
MacKenzie Mauzy rehearses the musical "White Noise" at the Royal George Theatre. The musical begins previews Friday and opens April 9. (Brian Cassella/ Chicago Tribune)

NEW YORK — The studios of Ballet Hispanico are nestled on a quiet, bucolic street on the Upper West Side, far from the 42nd Street crush. On a March Friday afternoon, the thermometer roars past 70 degrees. Parents and their children from the nearby Abraham Joshua Heschel School linger delightedly on the sidewalk, lining up together for ice cream. The way to the upstairs space leads past a multi-ethnic collection of pint-size ballerinas — drinking in the sudden warmth and collectively evoking something painted by Degas. The elevator doors open near the rehearsal room for “White Noise.”

“Hello,” someone says, chirpily. “Lovely day for a white-supremacist musical.”

That’s not exactly the official subtitle of the risky, edgy new show that begins previews Friday at the Royal George Theatre in Chicago, with aspirations for both a long Chicago run and Broadway as an ultimate destination. But the songs include such titles as “Master Race,” “Life, Liberty and Happiness” and “Live for the Kill.” Someone sings the line, “I want to welcome you to Auschwitz.” And the line, “With a blinding light / We’ll turn black to white.” And in the script, one of the early numbers is introduced as follows: “It’s about ethnic cleansing. With a hell of a beat.”

The show — which was completing its run of New York rehearsals and running through some sections that beautiful Friday — focuses on two aspiring pop stars: beautiful young sisters with a copious amount of talent but a strong connection to racism and fascism, and a nasty looking band mate, a boyfriend and co-conspirator named Duke.

Big Bang (White Noise)

THEATER REVIEW: "Dixie's Tupperware Party" ★★½ Through May 15 in the Royal George Cabaret, 1641 N. Halsted St.; Running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes; Tickets: $44-$49 at 312-988-9000 or www.dixiestupperwareparty.com

If you think that Tupperware — that famous plastic product line mostly sold at parties — does not offer many opportunities for double entendres and sexual innuendo, then you have not met Dixie Longate, the motor-mouthed alter-ego of the actor-writer Kris Andersson.

Dixie, currently tossing her touring curls and partying for dollars in the Royal George Cabaret, takes the familiar sales pitches of the food-storage business — the sizes of openings, degrees of thickness, the joys and perils of collapsibility, the need for fresh meat, the importance of always keeping some fresh dip convenient for your lonely chip — and turns them into a campy, interactive, R-rated solo show that has willing audience members up on stage trying to open cans of cranberry, or lick a piece of plastic, or seal the rim of their Tupperware faster than another team.

For a very hefty portion of the sober populace, this will be about as appealing as ponying up for a Tupperware party with strangers. Without any Tupperware included.

And you really have to love interacting with your fellow audience members (more than I do) to feel wholly comfortable at this show. Sweet Dixie has her guests singing, wearing name tags and holding hands (and that's just the minimum participatory requirement). At one point of Tuesday night's opening, I was trying to maintain my quiet studied neutrality — after being delighted at the empty seat next to me — when a friendly hand snaked back to me from a grinning fellow in the row ahead. Not much choice there except to grab hold and sing. Brava Dixie, I suppose.

“Dixie’s Tupperware Party,” starring Kris Andersson, runs through May 15 at the Royal George Cabaret, 1641 N. Halsted St.; 312-988-9000 and theroyalgeorgetheatre.com.

As the national organization Theater Communications Group has reported, women buy roughly 70 percent of all the theater tickets sold in the United States. They frequently drag along a man, of course. But those dudes sometimes balk. And thus at the commercial end of the theater business, men are viewed in roughly the same way that, say, the seafood chain McCormick & Schmick's views people who don't like fish.

Such folks are never going to drive a couple into that particular eatery. McCormick & Schmick's knows this. But it still puts a steak on the menu for one reason: it fears the carnivore with the veto.

That's why shows like “Monty Python's Spamalot,” which just smashed all box office records at Drury Lane Theatre, do great business. Most of the time, it's still a woman propelling the ticket purchase. But the arts-afeard guy can be told that this is an Eric Idle thing, or an “Addams Family” thing, or a “South Park” thing (hello, “The Book of Mormon” on Broadway) so he doesn't try to put the kibosh on the whole trip in favor of an excursion to Dick's Sporting Goods.

THEATER REVIEW: "John Leguizamo Warms Up" ★★★ Through Feb. 12 at Royal George Theatre, 1641 N. Halsted St.: Running time: 2 hours, 40 minutes; Tickets: $40-$45 at 312-988-9000 or www.ticketmaster.com

In a laudable bit of marketing candor, John Leguizamo has billed the intimate, low-tech Chicago tryout for his impending Broadway show “Ghetto Klown” as “John Leguizamo Warms Up.” An interim step, prior to arrival in New York, might be wise: “John Leguizamo Cuts it Back.”

Most one-man shows reflecting the biographical struggles of showbiz personalities against such perennial demons as mercurial agents, forbidding fathers, rapacious studios, ego-maniacal movie-stars, typecasting and their own self-destructive personalities can sustain 90 minutes. The finer ones, especially if booze is involved, can stretch to two acts and a couple of hours. On Thursday night in Chicago, Leguizamo clocked in at around 2 hours and 40 minutes under the direction of Fisher Stevens. And all he drank was a couple of beers.

The length was not a matter of pregnant pauses or tardy transitions. Not at all. The World According to John, or a laudably energetic trek back through a genuinely distinctive career that now stretches for some 30 years and ranges from hit movies to flops, and from TV travails to a suite of revealing one-man shows, is not without major helpings of energy or dish.

 
On Wednesday night, some intrepid theatergoers were determined to get to see "John Leguizamo Warms Up." They took a turn into the Royal George Theatre, paid $1, checked their equipment, and borrowed a pair of house slippers.

"John Leguizamo Warms Up" is Feb. 1-12 at the Royal George Theatre Center, 1641 N. Halsted St.; $40-$45 at 312-988-9000 and www.theroyalgeorgetheatre.com

The actor-comedian-monologist John Leguizamo (“Moulin Rouge,” “Summer of Sam”) has a long history in Chicago — his groundbreaking solo show “Spic-o-Rama: A Dysfunctional Comedy” was staged in the old Goodman Theatre studio in 1992, and over the last two decades, as his career exploded, he’s brought all his one-man shows to town. On Tuesday, Leguizamo debuts a new solo show called “John Leguizamo Warms Up” (directed by Fisher Stevens) at the Royal George Theatre in Chicago, where he’ll play for two weeks. On Feb. 21, he begins performances of as new show called “Ghetto Klown” on Broadway at the Lyceum Theatre in New York.

Q: In July 2001, you told me in an interview that “John Leguizamo Live” was the last solo show you were ever going to do. And yet here we are again.

A That’s really funny and really tragic. I did want to make that show my last one. But 10 years is a really long time. I always write down everything that happens to me. I write down these anecdotes and stories. All of a sudden, I had this collection of stuff about my career. I am interested in the journey of the artist — makes you want to put yourself in the firing line again and again.

Dates have been released for the previously reported Chicago engagement of "Dixie's Tupperware Party,' the new comedic attraction headed to the cabaret space at the Royal George Theatre. The show will begin March 18; tickets went on sale earlier this week.

Penned by a Los Angeles actor named Kris Andersson, "Dixie's Tupperware Party" is a entertainment that contains an actual Tupperware party (the thrower of the titular fete is one "Dixie Longate," a role played in drag by Andersson himself). It's an adult piece; Dixie comes up with all kinds of creative uses for Tupperware — that plastic, direct-marketed relic of a former age.

The show has already appeared off-Broadway and is initially booked in Chicago through May 15. 

The writer-performer John Leguizamo is to perform his latest solo show "Ghetto Klown" at the Royal George Theatre in Chicago Feb. 1-12, immediately prior to its Broadway engagement at the Lyceum Theatre, beginning Feb. 21 and opening March 22.

However, the title "Ghetto Klown" won't be used in Chicago, even though the material will be the same. The show (which is directed by Fisher Stevens) will be billed as "John Leguizamo Warms Up."

"We didn't want people to think that the full set and all the production values will be present in Chicago,"  the lead producer Arnold Engelman, said in an interview. "This is a chance for John to warm up. He loves Chicago. And that's why we are keeping the ticket prices to $40 and $45."

That's less than half the cost of a typical Broadway ducat, and the Royal George offers a more intimate encounter with Leguizamo than is possible at the Lyceum. Leguizamo has a long history of performing his semi-biographical comedic riffs in Chicago, long before his shows were Broadway products.  His first show here, "Spic-O-Rama," was produced 19 years ago in old Goodman Studio Theatre. Other Leguizamo shows seen in Chicago include "Freak" and "Sexaholix ... A Love Story."

Tickets go on sale Thursday at noon through Ticketmaster or the Royal George Theatre box office.