Alan Wilder, the long-time Steppenwolf Theatre ensemble member, was taken ill Friday night during an American Blues Theater performance of "Rantoul and Die" at the Victory Gardens Biograph.  Wilder was removed by paramedics. Saturday's performance was cancelled.

Wendy Whiteside, artistic director of American Blues, said Sunday that Wilder was "resting comfortably and doing much better."

 
THEATER REVIEW: "Rantoul and Die" ★★½ Through May 22 by American Blues Theater in the Richard Christiansen Theater at the Biograph, 2433 N. Lincoln Ave.; Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes; Tickets: $32-$40 at 773-871-3000 or www.victorygardens.org. With Francis Guinan and Kate Buddeke.

There's plenty going on in the title of Mark Roberts' black comedy “Rantoul and Die.” There's a built-in reference to the town in central Illinois (population 13,674), an apparent pun on tool-and-die makers, and a suggestion that we might be in for a good rant or two.

Happily, the main deliverer of those blue-collar rants in this American Blues Theater production, directed by Erin Quigley, is Francis Guinan, who starts this play off with a bang as the kind of goofy, hard-bitten dude who likes to put those who must listen to his monologues into an asphyxiating headlock, which certainly ensures at least an attentive audience of one.

“Rantoul and Die,” was seen in 2009 at the Lilian Theatre in Hollywood (Roberts is an accomplished TV writer, whose credits include “Two and a Half Men”). I suspect this bit of Midwestern gothic — a play that the Rantoul Area Chamber of Commerce will not be embracing anytime soon — is better suited to Los Angeles, where , middle aged, small-town Midwesterns whose lives revolves around Dairy Queens and dysfunctional relationships are always good for a laugh at safe remove. When you get within a couple of hours' drive of the real Rantoul, there needs to be a closer relationship with truth than this play fully appreciates.

Kimberly Senior will direct Clifford Odets' "Waiting for Lefty" as part of a new American Blues Theater season dedicated to the American worker.

The classic title will open the American Blues season in September. Also on tap:

• "Ripped: The Living Newspaper Project."  A show based on the famous Federal Theater Project intitiative, updated to reflected the news of today. This is, in essence, a festival of short, topical plays by multiple authors. "Love Me Some Amnesia." The world premiere of a new play by James Still, directed by Meredith McDonough. It's slated for the spring of 2012 and will feature both Joe Foust and Dennis Zacek in the cast.
• A reprise of the holiday radio-style attraction, "It's a Wonderful Life." Marty Higginbotham will direct again.

American Blues Theatre performs at the Richard Christiansen Theatre inside the historic Biograph Theatre on Chicago's North Side.

 
THEATER REVIEW: "It's a Wonderful Life: Live at the Biograph" ★★★½ Through Dec. 31 in the Richard Christiansen Theater, 2433 N. Lincoln Ave.; Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes; Tickets: $32-$40 at 773-871-3000 or www.victorygardens.org. With Kevin R. Kelly (George Bailey) and John Mohrlein (Mr. Potter and Clarence).

If you're headed to a show called “It's A Wonderful Life: Live at the Biograph,” a seasonal perennial in Sweet Home Chicago that concludes with the cast handing out milk and cookies, it's a pretty good bet you're invested in tradition, if not full-on childhood regression.

“Look out the window and see the snowflakes fall,” said Ed Kross (or, in the 1940s lingo he easily assumes as your genial studio host, Edward Kross III), at the start of Sunday afternoon's performance of the American Blues Theater production of the live, Golden Age of Radio-style version of the beloved 1946 cinematic Christmas classic.

Kross, a retro fellow even in mid-July, was cocking his head towards the huge and very real windows that occupy one wall of the Richard Christiansen Theater inside the historic Biograph — windows that looked like scant protection from a frigid urban landscape of genuine white stuff. Blowing.

Lincoln Avenue looked like Siberia. Or Pottersville. Or the inside of the collapsed Metrodome.

And with that, Kross gave a Frank Capra-esque swoop of his arm and a thick curtain slowly blacked out the cold, capitalist vista of Lakeview — though which all in the house had just painfully trudged — and allowed us to settle into our seats and retreat into the warm womb of Clarence and Zuzu, audiograms and Foley effects, carols and fake commercials, and the comforting grand illusion that one's own life actually means something in the great scheme of things.

American Blues Theater and the longtime director Marty Higginbotham have this show down cold — or, more aptly, down warm. I hadn't seen their richly detailed and exceedingly clever production since the American Theater Company ensemble walked out en masse and reformed under their previous name — a state of affairs that has led to two competing productions of “It's A Wonderful Life: The Radio Play” staged annually at two different theaters that are barely a mile or so apart. (I'll get back to that other one next year, assuming I've not got my wings by then.)

But the 2010 American Blues edition delivers all you could possibly want from this conceit. Kevin R. Kelly, a likeable but unsentimental George Bailey, really does seem to fall apart and then find himself that fateful night in Martini's bar. Gwendolyn Whiteside wholly captures Mary, that perfect small-town wife from a vanished era. And the inimitable John Morhlein milks every satanic gurgle from the evil Mr. Potter and then redeems himself moments later as Clarence.

Aside from the quality and sincerity of the acting, what makes this family-friendly show special is the sense of community it develops so quickly.

That's partly the material, of course. But as much as any theater company in town, American Blues is on a mission. There's no sense of the slick or the flippant or the pre-packaged — this is retail Chicago theater, where the actors are determined to move one heart at a time. They treat it as a moral imperative. And at one point Sunday, there were so many moist eyes in the house, the actors took to handing out hankies. Had they been offering time machines and real-estate listings for Bailey Park, Lost America, there would have been many takers. Better than going back outside.

 
• SEE ALSO Kerry Reid's chart of 32 more holiday shows | HOLIDAY THEATER SLIDESHOW

It's that time of year, when no real Chicagoan can resist at least one live holiday-themed production. Isn't that one of the joys of living here? Read on for our most anticipated shows of the season.

‘Irving Berlin's White Christmas'
For the last several years, Chicago has lacked a downtown holiday attraction that wants only to be a nostalgic, come-together, something-for-everyone capper for a day spent in the Loop, chasing down gifts, peering at window decorations and scurrying, arm in arm, past the persistent bell-ringers. This year, a new touring production of the seasonal granddaddy of all screen-to-stage musicals will be pulling up through the snow to the Bank of America Theatre. And it had better deliver.
• Dec. 15 to Jan. 2 at the Bank of America Theatre, 18 W. Monroe St.; $25-$98 at 800-775-2000 and www.broadwayinchicago.com

‘The Nutcracker'
Far from your typical balletic, party-dress-and-toys spectacle, the House Theatre of Chicago's unique take on this classic story goes straight for the jugular when young Clara loses someone dear. But this tough girl fights her way back and takes the audience on an embracing emotional journey without seasonal peer in Chicago. House's deeply moving “Nutcracker” has been absent since its 2007 premiere; we're glad to see it return.
• Through Dec. 26 at the Chopin Theatre, 1543 W. Division St.; $25 at 773-251-2195 and www.thehousetheatre.com

‘Winter Pageant'
By far the best pick for anyone whose holiday group combines adult hipsters with very young children, Redmoon's Winter Pageant offers tactile activities for all, along with a light and whimsical story about a group of seniors who decide to relaunch their old rock band and head out into the winter.
• Through Jan. 2 at Redmoon Central, 1463 W. Hubbard St.; $20-$22 ($10 for children) at 312-850-8440 or www.redmoon.org

‘A Christmas Carol'
The stellar Goodman version of “A Christmas Carol” hasn't been doing big business for years without close attention to the heart and soul of the Dickensian story and a determination to make it come alive for Chicagoans. This year's edition has a new Scrooge in John Judd, one of Chicago's finest actors. Now, about that new set the Goodman keeps promising ...
• Through Dec. 31 at the Goodman Theatre, 170 N. Dearborn St.; $25-$76 at 312-443-3800 and www.goodmantheatre.org

‘The Nativity'
Now called simply “The Nativity,” Congo Square Theatre Company's inclusive, Afro-centric declaration of the good news of the season is always among the most rousing of Chicago Christmas experiences. This highly crafted, biblically centered celebration of the spiritual heart of Christmas can move folks of all faiths.
• Dec. 3-31 at the Goodman's Owen Theatre, 170 N. Dearborn St.; $30-$40 at 312-443-3800 and www.goodmantheatre.org

So should this rule apply to the arts? Should cultural institutions — organic and homegrown as so many of them are — strive to hire local for their creative leadership?

The topic is ripe in Chicago.

When Dennis Zacek, the artistic director of the Victory Gardens Theater, announced his retirement this month, he did not take the usual tack of demurring as to who should be his successor. In several candid interviews, Zacek said his associate artistic director, Sandy Shinner, should immediately ascend to the top artistic job. Shinner has worked in the Chicago theater for more than 30 years — Zacek asserted that that was a key qualification for the job. Yet the chairman of the Victory Gardens board, Jeff Rappin, insisted that due diligence required the theater to conduct a national search for Zacek's replacement. There were howls of dissatisfaction from many of those associated with the theater.

Meanwhile, the board chairman of the Next Theatre has come out in favor of hiring locally. As the Evanston-based theater moves to find a replacement for its short-lived artistic director Jason Southerland, who came from a Boston theater, Judy Kemp said the directors plan to look only in the Chicago area for Southerland's successor. Southerland was fired after a scandal involving his not securing the rights to the play “Return to Haifa.” Next was burned — almost fatally — by an out-of-town hire. It has circled its wagons. And it doesn't plan to take that chance twice.

THEATER REVIEW: "Tobacco Road" ★★★ Through June 20 in the Richard Christiansen Theater at the Biograph, 2433 N. Lincoln Ave.; Running time: 2 hours; Tickets: $32-$40 at 773-871-3000 or www.americanbluestheater.com. With Suzanne Petri, Gwendolyn Whiteside, Matthew Brunlow and Laura Coover.

Even though it came burnished with Broadway credentials, the hardscrabble story of Georgia sharecroppers did not sit well with Mayor Edward J. Kelly in 1935, who found Jack Kirkland's dramatic version of the 1932 Erskine Caldwell novel to be “just a mass of filth” and thus unfit for his clean-living Chicago. The theater-producing Shuberts fought back and obtained a temporary injunction against the censorious mayor, but Kelly eventually had his way in court, arguing that a community should be able to determine its own standards of decency.

Such an intervention is unlikely this time around, although there's no question that “Tobacco Road” is still capable of stirring the flesh and the soul. The actual novel, which was based on Caldwell's own childhood experience in rural Georgia, was very much a unstinting but mostly compassionate look at starving sharecroppers scrambling around in the desperate dirt, ready to sell their own children for a turnip or a piece of salt pork. But when it came to the play, one of the longest running shows in Broadway history, social realism took a backseat to pulpy sensationalism and forbidden sensuality. You could argue — heck, I'd argue — that “Tobacco Road” was mostly just one in a long line of shows exploiting sweaty, sexualized Southern stereotypes, allowing New Yorkers to both feel superior to these ill-educated folks and gawk at all the dirt-caked flesh flailing around. The experience was not unlike going to the zoo. Perhaps Kelly actually had a point.

To its credit, the American Blues Theater and director Cecilie Keenan are trying in this very interesting, intimate and earnest new production to downplay the sensationalist aspects of the script and restore the rarely revived “Tobacco Road” to the realm of social realism. Clearly, everyone involved wants this show to serve as a straight-up metaphor for the plight of the family farmer. The Lester family may have been littler more than squatters in the eyes of the law (and the banks that own their land), but they still had a primal connection to the earth. And that should count for something.

Fair enough. That's certainly where Caldwell was going. But given the script — with its sexually ripe teenagers and sensationalist unspooling of events involving shock, death and betrayal — that's a tough row for any set of actors to hoe. Even the John Ford film version found this world to be mostly comedic, and there's no question that Kirkland was interested in giving the urban sophisticates what they expected. One wishes a new and more truthful adaptation could have been forged from the novel.

That said, American Blues has a lot of heavy-hitting actors throbbing under all of Kirkland's mud — this is the first major production for the company created by an ensemble of actors that split from American Theater Company, their former home. In particular, Carmen Roman and Dennis Cockrum throw their raft of skills and deep emotional souls into the honest depiction of Ma and Pa Lester, a deeply flawed couple whose economic circumstances conspire against their desire to hold their family together and control their own destiny. Cockrum shrewdly plays against type where he can, avoiding the outer edges of violence and deepening his character with a palpable sense of longing.

Other colorful characters abound, including the hot-to-trot preacher Sister Bessie Rice (also deftly underplayed by Kate Buddeke) and her beau, the mercurial Lester child Dude (Matthew Brumlow), whose skill set mostly runs to wrecking cars. Meanwhile, two young women run around the yard. One, the feral Ellie May, has a cleft lip, and Gwendolyn Whiteside plays her as a young woman whose deformity is a source of both sexual frustration and useful ironic detachment. The other, the beautiful Pearl, isn't so lucky. And Laura Coover manages to downplay the feisty rebelliousness in favor of a character whose beauty masks desperate fear.

This is the kind of show these actors, these fine actors, very much wanted their theater to do. Its programmatic mission change was, in part, why they left. And the commitment to truth and the depiction of the working person's perennial plight is what makes this powerful and worthwhile. Had Mayor Kelly walked through the doors of the Richard Christiansen Theater and seen actors trying to find the truth in all the filth, he might just have felt differently.

The Chicago actress Gwendolyn Whiteside (left) has taken over the artistic helm of the American Blues Theater.

"It will be an exciting challenge to say the least," Whiteside said. American Blues is the group composed of former ensemble members of the American Theater Company, who reorganized under the company's original name following a dispute with ATC's current artistic leadership.

Whiteside (an ensemble member) said this weekend that the upcoming American Blues production of Jack Kirland's "Tobacco Road" will feature a large number of ABT ensemble members, including Kate Buddeke (fresh from "Superior Donuts" on Broadway), Carmen Roman, Dennis Cockrum, Matthew Brumlow, Suzanne Petri, Jim Leaming and Whiteside herself. Laura Coover is also in the cast.

The show (under the direction of Cecilie Keenan) is slated for the end of May in what will (by then) be the Richard Christiansen Theatre at the Victory Gardens Biograph. It will be ABT's first major outing and a lot is riding on its success.

Whiteside also said that the ensemble plans to celebrate its 25th anniversary on July 12.

Ashley Bishop, left, Gwendolyn Whiteside and Kevin R. Kelly in American Blues Theater’s radio version of “It’s a Wonderful Life,” being staged not far from American Theater Company’s production.

On Dec. 6, Chicago Public Radio will broadcast the American Theater Company production of “It’s a Wonderful Life: The Radio Play,” an adaptation of the beloved Frank Capra movie performed as if we were all watching a classic live taping from the golden age of radio drama.

It is interesting that WBEZ picked the American Theater Company production. There was a choice out there. WBEZ could have broadcast the American Blues Theater production of “It’s a Wonderful Life: Live at the Biograph,” an adaptation of the movie performed as if we were all watching a classic live taping from the golden age of radio drama.

The ATC production is staged at the theater’s longtime home at 1909 W. Byron St., in Chicago’s North Central neighborhood. The ABT production is staged at the Biograph Theatre at 2433 N. Lincoln Ave. in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood.