Animal Crackers News

HER BARK IS WORSE THAN HER BITE Animal Crackers' Molly Brennan stars in the bawdy Madame Barker Holiday Variety Show, from 500 Clown.

Every American war has its distinctive anthems, and on due consideration, the one that seems most appropriate for our almost simultaneous escalation and withdrawal in Afghanistan is Groucho Marx's entrance song in Animal Crackers: " Hello, I Must Be Going ." In a sense, "Hello, I Must Be Going" is the appropriate song for an empire in decline.

"We live in an age of memoir," says Ben Yagoda, who traces their development in his new book, Memoir: A History .

How does an Episcopalian from Kansas City wind up the star of a Yiddish revue in the Big Apple? Like the old joke about Carnegie Hall, the answer is "Practice, practice." Thus, 41-year-old KC native Shane Bertram Baker stars in the New Yiddish Repertory Theatre's presentation of "The Big Bupkis: A Complete Gentile's Guide to Yiddish Vaudeville," ...

Eleanor Ringel Cater has been a film critic in Atlanta for 29 years. Her column appears every Friday.

A decade ago, Jessie Mueller and Doug Peck were performing in musicals at Evanston Township High School.

Madness and mayhem reign onstage in The Goodman Theatre's current revival of Animal Crackers , based on the 1928 Broadway musical by George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind that starred the Marx Brothers.

On the day Frank Ferrante turned 22, he received a birthday present that would change his life.

Filled with antiquated notions of love and humor, this production has a kind of tenderness that is rare in modern comedy, and makes you understand the incredible tenacity of cheerfulness through the Great Depression.

The who's who of Chicago society converged on the Palmer House Hilton last Friday night as the venerable landmark hosted two notable events on the same evening: the Goodman Theatre's annual gala and the Joffrey Ballet's Couture and Cocktails.

Everybody asks about the tattoos. "Everybody," stresses Molly Brennan, the heavily inked artist tapped to play the Professor - the Harpo Marx role - in the Goodman Theatre's much-buzzed-about staging of Animal Crackers.

The restaurant scene in Monty Python's Meaning of Life. a Hollywood has provided us with any number of memorable food-related moments.

Broadway's Tony Yazbeck, Jonathan Brody, Mara Davi, Stanley Wayne Mathis and Chicago favorites Molly Brennan and Joey Slotnick are among performers in Goodman Theatre's Sept.

29-31 at the Aragon Entertainment Center in Chicago. Tickets go on sale 10 a.m. Saturday through Ticketmaster, 745-3000. I'd love to see rock's venerable poet tackle "Monster Mash" for his Halloween concert.

Chicago can claim a world record thanks to thousands of people who showed up to see a Groucho Marx movie wearing his signature glasses and nose.

Broadway's Tony Yazbeck, Jonathan Brody, Mara Davi, Stanley Wayne Mathis and Chicago favorites Molly Brennan and Joey Slotnick are among performers in Goodman Theatre's upcoming revival of Animal Crackers , the musical that was a vehicle for the four Marx Brothers.

"Hooray for Joey Slotnick!" Director Henry Wishcamper has tapped Goodman Theatre, Chicago native Joey Slotnick for the lead role of the African explorer "Captain Jeffrey T. Spaulding"a 'the heightened vaudevillian persona created by Groucho Marx for the 1929 stage and screen originala 'in Goodman Theatre's season opening musical Animal Crackers, ...

More than 20,000 people turned out for Tuesday night's showing of the Marx Brothers' classic "Duck Soup" in Grant Park.

Casting is now complete for the Goodman Theatre's upcoming production of the Marx Brothers musical Animal Crackers , which will begin performances at the Chicago venue Sept.