The Year in Review: The best theater of 2015

It was an exceptionally good year on Chicago stages. In fact, my initial list for the “10 best of 2015” contained a solid 60 shows, and it was agonizing to have to whittle it down so dramatically.

Among the many things to be said about theater in this city is the astonishing age range of the talent pool. There was Mike Nussbaum, about to turn 92, as the irrepressible anchor of Arthur Miller’s “The Price” at TimeLine Theatre. And then there were a slew of actors still in their teens (most notably Caroline Heffernan in “Good for Otto” and Nicholas Dantes in “Billy Elliot”), as well as the remarkable youth ensembles of the Albany Park Theatre Project (in “Feast,” at the Goodman Theatre), and the Senn Arts Magnet School High School’s The Yard, in conjunction with The Hypocrites (in “The Fourth Graders Present an Unnamed Love-Suicide”), who turned in uncannily brilliant performances in roles that required them to dominate the stage.

Here is the final list, and I confess to cheating a bit by including a few ties, and omitting three exceptional touring productions: The altogether sparkling “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder,” Cirque du Soleil’s magical “Kurios,” and a late arrival, “Baritones Unbound,” a terrifically entertaining vocal history, from the Gregorian chant to Broadway, at the Royal George Theatre through Jan. 3.

“Direct from Death Row: The Scottsboro Boys” at Raven Theatre. Stunningly directed by Michael Menendian, and featuring a dazzling cast of young African-American actors almost entirely new to me, this was a riveting, witty, highly theatrical take on a fabled case of racial injustice. Its recounting of the story of nine black teenagers falsely accused in 1931 of assaulting two white Alabama women was, as its subtitle so aptly put it “an evening of vaudeville and sorrow.”

David Rabe’s “Good for Otto” (a scorching look at the patients and therapists at a mental health clinic in a small New England town), tied with Mat Smart’s “The Royal Society of Antarctica” (a hilarious and deeply touching tale of the social outcasts working in one of the most isolated places on Earth). Both these plays — world premieres with large and uniformly excellent casts — were produced by The Gift Theatre, a storefront that has become a real hotbed of audacious work.

“Moby Dick,” David Catlin’s thrilling, physically daring, consistently imaginative stage adaptation of the Herman Melville classic, as only Lookingglass Theatre can do it, featured Christopher Donahue as a tormented Captain Ahab, and an altogether unforgettable performance by Anthony Fleming II as the exotic Queequog.

“The Project(s)” at American Theatre Company, director PJ Paparelli’s remarkable chronicle of public housing in Chicago — an impassioned, multifaceted work of oral history brought to life by an exquisitely fine-tuned cast. The show deservedly won raves, and was then tragically scarred by Paparelli’s death, at age 40, in a freak car accident in Scotland.

“The Revel” at The House Theatre of Chicago, Damon Keely’s fierce, rhythmically charged adaptation of Euripides’ “The Bacchae” — with galvanic music by Jess McIntosh and direction by Leslie Buxbaum Danzig — transposed the ancient Greek tale of rebellious women under the spell of a god to the Appalachian Mountains, and had a young preacher casting his spell. The show cast a spell over me, too.

“Oklahoma!” at the Paramount Theatre, Aurora, was a production that exemplified why this amazing operation’s Broadway Series has, in just a few years, been able to attract 30,000 subscribers. Director Jim Corti used his unique magic to make this Rodgers and Hammerstein classic feel completely fresh (and feminist) without ever distorting the original. I was hooked from the moment the golden-voiced Colte Julian (the best Curly ever), strode down the aisle singing “Oh, What a Beautiful Morning.”

“Men of Soul” at Black Ensemble Theatre was one of the most exhilarating revues in the company’s recent history, with a black and white cast conjuring to perfection everyone from James Brown and Prince to Tom Jones and Joe Cocker.

“The White Road” at Irish Theatre of Chicago (formerly the Seanachaí Theatre Company), was a world-premiere adventure drama by Karen Tarjan about Ernest Shackleton’s ill-fated attempt to cross Antarctica from sea to sea via the South Pole. With a notably ingenious set, and a wonderfully eccentric ensemble under the ever-inventive direction of Robert Kauzlaric, the show took its audience on a grand (and frosty) journey.

“Ride the Cyclone,” a haunted and haunting 90-minute musical by Jacob Richmond and Brooke Maxwell, began life in Canada but found its ideal interpreters (including director-choreographer Rachel Rockwell and musical director Doug Peck) at the Chicago Theater Upstairs. The virtuosic Chicago cast — with a particularly breathtaking performance by Emily Rohm — spun a carpe diem story about the members of a student choral group killed in an amusement park ride accident and given the chance to compete for a return ticket to life. At turns funny, creepy and sad, the show is very likely bound for New York where I just hope it won’t be blown out of scale.

“Billy Elliot” at Drury Lane, was another Rachel Rockwell triumph. In a way that only enhanced the Broadway original, this Billy Joel musical was played with total truth and proved heartbreaking, angry and triumphant at every turn. A real beauty.

“Blood Brothers” at Theo Ubique Cabaret Theatre, where director Fred Anzevino, his knockout musical director Jeremy Ramey, and a splendid ensemble cast took a musical that never quite worked on Broadway and turned it into a heart-wrenching tale of nature versus nurture as exemplified by a pair of English siblings separated at birth. Tying with this production was the same theater’s surprising, kitsch-free revival of “Jesus Christ Superstar.”

Honorable mentions:

“Grand Concourse” (Steppenwolf Theatre); “Pocatello” (Griffin Theatre); “Side Man” (American Blues Theater; “Charm” (Northlight Theatre at the Steppenwolf Garage); “Last Train to Nibroc ” (Haven Theatre at Theater Wit); “After Miss Julie” (Strawdog Theatre); “Spill” (TimeLine Theatre); “Outside Mullingar” (Northlight Theatre); “The Royale” (American Theater Company); “Shining Lives: A Musical” (Northlight); “Travesties” (Remy Bumppo Theatre); “The (curious case of the) Watson Intelligence” (Theater Wit); “The Rose Tattoo” (Shattered Globe Theatre); “The Addams Family Musical” (Mercury Theater Chicago); “The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane” (Chicago Children’s Theatre).