STARVING FOR THEATER? FEAST ON THIS!
It’s not just for Chicagoans anymore. Time and again, we have trumped that Chicago theater is the most exciting in the country. Not just because of the array and number of companies, but the affordability. Theater artists in Chicago do theater for theater’s sake — and for ours. Case in point: TimeLine Theatre’s smash hit To Master the Art, a story that recalls the adventure and romance of Julia and Paul Child’s journey of discovery to Paris during the 1950s. Being L.A.-based, your editor-in-chief was unable to catch the production that Stage and Cinema said is “full of wonder and revelation.”
Now, TimeLine has announced that it will offer a new remote view performances of To Master the Art, featuring Karen Janes Woditsch as Julia Child (Before Broadway was shut down by the pandemic, she was playing Professor McGonagall in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.) Written by William Brown and Doug Frew and directed by Mr. Brown, this “gem of graceful, natural and witty dialogue” will run May 12–June 7, 2020.
“Misters Brown and Frew,” Larry Bommer wrote for Stage and Cinema, “show us gangly, insecure Julia’s coming of chef as she studies, with a trio of bumptious G.I.s intent on improving their hometown grub, at the Cordon Bleu, impressing perfectionist M. Bugnard, master of the kitchen. This seeming snob is the keeper of the keys to gustatory heaven, but he’s nonetheless open to surprise when an American matches him in literal good taste. Unstoppably, a deeply driven Julia connects with two French women who share her dream and their recipes: The result is the culture-melding classic, Mastering the Art of French Cooking and the rest is history and ‘Bon Appetit!'”
Simply purchase a ticket for a specific date and time, just like a live performance — but know that you will have a one-week window starting with that performance date to complete your one-time viewing. As a ticketholder, you will receive one hour before curtain time for your purchased performance a link and password, which will expire seven days later.
For our Chicago readers, TimeLine has posted a list of local French restaurants offering “remote dining” (aka curbside pick-up or delivery) including Bistro Campagne, La Petite Folie and Le Bouchon to name a few. Every ticket purchase confirmation now includes links to these restaurants to a) encourage you to make a French Chef themed dinner+theater night of it and b) show some support for the many restaurants that are struggling to get by, much like Chicago’s theaters at the moment.
Likewise, anyone who wants to bone up on their Julia Child history (did our L.A. readers know she was from Pasadena?) can revisit her original cooking show The French Chef before or after watching the play. It’s free to stream for PBS On Demand and Amazon Prime subscribers. More details here.
Tickets ($15 or $25 pay-what-you-will, inclusive of all ticketing fees) reflect a regular performance schedule: Tuesdays through Fridays at 7:30 p.m., Saturdays at 4 p.m. and 8 p.m., and Sundays at 2 p.m (all CST). Only 99 tickets are available for each streamed performance, reflecting the number of seats in TimeLine’s theatre. With that flexibility to complete your viewing within one week, you are encouraged to purchase for the earliest date available to ensure that as many people as possible will have an opportunity to enjoy this production.
In conjunction with remote view performances, TimeLine is offering three opportunities for patrons who have already viewed the production to gather via Zoom for an online video conference moderated by dramaturg Maren Robinson and featuring members of the To Master the Art artistic team. These discussions will begin at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, May 26; Wednesday, June 3; and Thursday, June 11; and will last for one hour.
photos by Lara Goetsch
To Master the Art
TimeLine Theatre in Chicago
Tues-Fri 7:30 CST; Sat @ 4 pm and 8 pm CST; Sun @ 2 pm CST
ends on Sunday, June 7, 2020
for remote view tickets and information, call 773.281.8463 x6 or visit TimeLine
the Box Office is currently working remotely;
staff may need to return messages rather than answer calls directly
