A New Brain is Recommended!
Chicago Reader
Chicago Theater Beat
Chicago Stage Standard
Hollywood Chicago
Chicago Reader
Reviewed by Zac Thompson
One minute struggling composer Gordon Schwinn is complaining about his gig writing songs for a kids’ TV show; the next he’s collapsed on the floor with what turns out to be a life-threatening brain disorder. Songwriter William Finn drew on his own health scare to create this 1998 musical (cowritten with James Lapine), which manages to stay buoyant even as Gordon stares down his own mortality and limitations as an artist. M. William Panek’s staging for the Brown Paper Box Company can feel cramped and clumsy, especially during the dance numbers choreographed by Danny Spagnuolo. But the show is redeemed by a bold, big-voiced cast, led by Jason Richards, who makes Gordon seem dyspeptic and filled with longing at the same time.
Hollywood Chicago
Reviewed by Patrick McDonald
If you hear the melodic choral sounds of an amazing ensemble cast emanating from the North Side of Chicago, then it is sure to be the Brown Paper Box Company’s production of “A New Brain.” This scintillating musical is performed with mesmerizing exaltation by a formidable cast.
Performed in a the simple black box of Rivendell Theatre in the Edgewater neighborhood, “A New Brain” is a celebration of creativity, life and love. Its origins are in the biography of William Finn – who wrote the music and lyrics, and co-wrote the book with James Lapine – and who in reality suffered the same traumatic brain operation depicted in the musical. The Brown Paper Box Company’s interpretation brings the sparkling songs alive, with each member of the cast together and separately getting their moment to shine on stage.
Gordon (Jason Richards) is a hapless songwriter for a children’s TV show in New York, led by the odious Mr. Bungee (Paul G. Miller). His frustrating career gets interrupted by a seizure while having lunch with his co-worker Rhoda (Jillian Weingart). He needs his lover Roger (Billy Dawson), his mother (Mimi Schwinn) and an intuitive group of the hospital staff (Martin J. Hughes, Johnny Kyle Cook, Anna Schutz, Nick Shoda) to keep him alive.
This ensemble is truly alive, because they bring a verve to the substantial amount of songs and deliver them with true electricity. The choral numbers are performed at a Broadway level, and have an intimate intensity in the small theater setting. The square stage, with a platform for the musicians, is utilized essentially as the story unfolds, and each little corner reveals a new surprise. Much of what the main character Gordon “envisions” is through the complications of brain trauma, so director M. William Panek communicates it through effective set pieces and character mechanics.
The notable individual cast members include the lead couple Jason Richards and Billy Dawson. Their relationship is complicated yet tender, and is the centerpiece for Gordon’s struggle and salvation. They both have strong singing voices, and both blend masterfully with their supporters or deliver solo efforts with beauty and love. Other cast members get their song moments, and standouts include Johnny Kyle Cook (“Eating Myself Up Alive”), Neala Barron as LIsa (“On the Street”) and the vivid Jillian Weingart, who is unforgettable in “Whenever I Dream.”
But it is the ensemble that really cooks the presentation in numbers like “Heart and Music,” “Gordo’s Law of Genetics” and “Don’t Give In.” The incredible string of songs are done almost cabaret style, and Panek’s direction – along with T.J. Anderson (Musical Director) and Daniel Spagnuolo (Choreographer) – keeps the story flowing in an entertaining and sly orchestration.
It’s time to get rid of some winter blues and feel the heat from a great show in a very short run – eight performances left through March 9th. Get to the North Side for “A New Brain” and get the musical theater equivalent of a new exhilaration.
Performed in a the simple black box of Rivendell Theatre in the Edgewater neighborhood, “A New Brain” is a celebration of creativity, life and love. Its origins are in the biography of William Finn – who wrote the music and lyrics, and co-wrote the book with James Lapine – and who in reality suffered the same traumatic brain operation depicted in the musical. The Brown Paper Box Company’s interpretation brings the sparkling songs alive, with each member of the cast together and separately getting their moment to shine on stage.
Gordon (Jason Richards) is a hapless songwriter for a children’s TV show in New York, led by the odious Mr. Bungee (Paul G. Miller). His frustrating career gets interrupted by a seizure while having lunch with his co-worker Rhoda (Jillian Weingart). He needs his lover Roger (Billy Dawson), his mother (Mimi Schwinn) and an intuitive group of the hospital staff (Martin J. Hughes, Johnny Kyle Cook, Anna Schutz, Nick Shoda) to keep him alive.
This ensemble is truly alive, because they bring a verve to the substantial amount of songs and deliver them with true electricity. The choral numbers are performed at a Broadway level, and have an intimate intensity in the small theater setting. The square stage, with a platform for the musicians, is utilized essentially as the story unfolds, and each little corner reveals a new surprise. Much of what the main character Gordon “envisions” is through the complications of brain trauma, so director M. William Panek communicates it through effective set pieces and character mechanics.
The notable individual cast members include the lead couple Jason Richards and Billy Dawson. Their relationship is complicated yet tender, and is the centerpiece for Gordon’s struggle and salvation. They both have strong singing voices, and both blend masterfully with their supporters or deliver solo efforts with beauty and love. Other cast members get their song moments, and standouts include Johnny Kyle Cook (“Eating Myself Up Alive”), Neala Barron as LIsa (“On the Street”) and the vivid Jillian Weingart, who is unforgettable in “Whenever I Dream.”
But it is the ensemble that really cooks the presentation in numbers like “Heart and Music,” “Gordo’s Law of Genetics” and “Don’t Give In.” The incredible string of songs are done almost cabaret style, and Panek’s direction – along with T.J. Anderson (Musical Director) and Daniel Spagnuolo (Choreographer) – keeps the story flowing in an entertaining and sly orchestration.
It’s time to get rid of some winter blues and feel the heat from a great show in a very short run – eight performances left through March 9th. Get to the North Side for “A New Brain” and get the musical theater equivalent of a new exhilaration.
Chicago Theater Beat
Reviewed by John Olson
In between his critically successful Falsettos and his popular hit The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, composer-lyricist William Finn wrote A New Brain. It didn’t last long in New York, running just under two months off-Broadway, but it delivered one of the best musical comedy scores of the last 20 years – with a cast recording that has an honored place in many a musical theater fan’s CD collection or iPod. It’s been presented professionally at least three other times in Chicago, the last in 2006. This production by Brown Paper Box Company gives Finn’s sung-through score a terrific reading and does a good job of putting across the sketchy book by Finn and James Lapine.
Finn took the story from some events in his own life, when he suffered a brain tumor and feared he might die or lose his ability to write. He shaped these experiences into the story of one Gordon Schwinn, a gay man and songwriter for a children’s TV show starring an insufferable actor dressed as a frog named Mr. Bungee. In the midst of a writer’s block, Schwinn has a seizure and learns he has an Arterio-Venous Malformation – a condition requiring immediate brain surgery from which he might not survive, or could emerge disabled. Between the first symptoms of the condition and Schwinn’s survival and recovery, he reflects on the quirky people in his life – agent Rhoda, his controlling and possessive mother, Mr. Bungee, his all-too-perfect Waspy boyfriend Roger and various other people inside and around the hospital. Scenes occur in Schwinn’s conscious hours (mostly in the hospital) and in his memory and hallucinations. Finn’s music is generally bright, fast-paced and syncopated, and a lot of the musicalized scenes and numbers have anything but a traditional song structure. Within the score are at least five very accessible gems, though, and this cast nails them all as well as executing the more difficult sections of the score flawlessly.
Jason Richards is Schwinn, and he brings a solid voice and presence to the role of the insecure and genuinely frightened-for-his-life composer, selling two of the big numbers “Heart and Music” and “I Feel So Much Spring.” Though Schwinn is the central character, the show is equally about those around him. Paul G. Miller is lovably nasty as the diva-ish Mr. Bungee, having fun with Finn’s pastiches of kids show songs, and Billy Dawson is golden-voiced as golden boy Roger, delivering the show’s breakout love ballad, “I’d Rather Be Sailing.” Neala Barron, as a panhandler who works outside the hospital, knocks her big song “Change” right out of the park. Denise Tamburrino does a fair job as Schwinn’s mother, Mimi, who gets to sing the torch song “The Music Still Plays On,” in which she reflects on the husband she lost and the son she fears she’ll lose. It seems, though, that Tamburrino, Barron and Jillian Weingart (who play the agent Rhoda) all fall a little short in giving their characters the quirkiness that Schwinn and Finn surely see in them, though. There are opportunities for each of those three roles to be quite funny, which these actresses didn’t entirely find. Johnny Kyle Cook has better luck as the male nurse who describes himself in song as “poor, unsuccessful and fat.”
Director M. William Panek and choreographer Danny Spagnuolo keep the cast moving as quickly and precisely as this score demands for its compact and packed 110 minutes of stage time. Music director T.J. Anderson and Justin Harner back up the vocals with a synthesizer and piano, and those two keyboards are all Finn’s score really needs. Visually, the production is spare. Jaime Giovannone provides a few pieces of furniture and a group of giant size lily pads to serve as walls or hospital screens. It’s a practical solution for the small stage at the storefront Rivendell, but in a perfect world this piece could use a bit more scenery or projections and some more elaborate lighting design to help distinguish between the real-life action and the fantasies or memories in Schwinn’s mind. Panek’s blocking, however, does a lot to keep the storytelling of this terse book clear.
At the end of the day, though, A New Brain is all about the music, and this cast delivers it thrillingly. And isn’t late February and early March of this brutal and soon-to-be-over winter a great time for a musical whose finale is the hopeful “I Feel So Much Spring”?
Finn took the story from some events in his own life, when he suffered a brain tumor and feared he might die or lose his ability to write. He shaped these experiences into the story of one Gordon Schwinn, a gay man and songwriter for a children’s TV show starring an insufferable actor dressed as a frog named Mr. Bungee. In the midst of a writer’s block, Schwinn has a seizure and learns he has an Arterio-Venous Malformation – a condition requiring immediate brain surgery from which he might not survive, or could emerge disabled. Between the first symptoms of the condition and Schwinn’s survival and recovery, he reflects on the quirky people in his life – agent Rhoda, his controlling and possessive mother, Mr. Bungee, his all-too-perfect Waspy boyfriend Roger and various other people inside and around the hospital. Scenes occur in Schwinn’s conscious hours (mostly in the hospital) and in his memory and hallucinations. Finn’s music is generally bright, fast-paced and syncopated, and a lot of the musicalized scenes and numbers have anything but a traditional song structure. Within the score are at least five very accessible gems, though, and this cast nails them all as well as executing the more difficult sections of the score flawlessly.
Jason Richards is Schwinn, and he brings a solid voice and presence to the role of the insecure and genuinely frightened-for-his-life composer, selling two of the big numbers “Heart and Music” and “I Feel So Much Spring.” Though Schwinn is the central character, the show is equally about those around him. Paul G. Miller is lovably nasty as the diva-ish Mr. Bungee, having fun with Finn’s pastiches of kids show songs, and Billy Dawson is golden-voiced as golden boy Roger, delivering the show’s breakout love ballad, “I’d Rather Be Sailing.” Neala Barron, as a panhandler who works outside the hospital, knocks her big song “Change” right out of the park. Denise Tamburrino does a fair job as Schwinn’s mother, Mimi, who gets to sing the torch song “The Music Still Plays On,” in which she reflects on the husband she lost and the son she fears she’ll lose. It seems, though, that Tamburrino, Barron and Jillian Weingart (who play the agent Rhoda) all fall a little short in giving their characters the quirkiness that Schwinn and Finn surely see in them, though. There are opportunities for each of those three roles to be quite funny, which these actresses didn’t entirely find. Johnny Kyle Cook has better luck as the male nurse who describes himself in song as “poor, unsuccessful and fat.”
Director M. William Panek and choreographer Danny Spagnuolo keep the cast moving as quickly and precisely as this score demands for its compact and packed 110 minutes of stage time. Music director T.J. Anderson and Justin Harner back up the vocals with a synthesizer and piano, and those two keyboards are all Finn’s score really needs. Visually, the production is spare. Jaime Giovannone provides a few pieces of furniture and a group of giant size lily pads to serve as walls or hospital screens. It’s a practical solution for the small stage at the storefront Rivendell, but in a perfect world this piece could use a bit more scenery or projections and some more elaborate lighting design to help distinguish between the real-life action and the fantasies or memories in Schwinn’s mind. Panek’s blocking, however, does a lot to keep the storytelling of this terse book clear.
At the end of the day, though, A New Brain is all about the music, and this cast delivers it thrillingly. And isn’t late February and early March of this brutal and soon-to-be-over winter a great time for a musical whose finale is the hopeful “I Feel So Much Spring”?
Chicago Stage Standard
Reviewed by Rand Ringgenberg
Musicals have been written about everything from the French revolution to bipolar disorder. So, a show about a possibly terminal brain condition shouldn’t be surprising. However, what is surprising about The Brown Paper Box Co.’s engaging new production of the 1998 William Finn and James Lapine musical, is that it is funny, energetic and at times touching. Not what you expect given the subject matter. The four year old company has truly shown what they are made of, creating “thought-provoking and accessible theatrical experiences without the glitz of overproduction. This scaled-down approach allows our artists to deliver an elevated focus on the text.” And boy do they deliver. Working in the small Rivendell Theatre space could be challenging, but creativity on a budget can be very rewarding and works quite nicely here. I’ve never seen four large, green lily pads used with so much imagination. Jamie Giovannone’s set and prop design, complete with cardboard ziti, provides the perfect whimsical element for this fantastical journey.
Jason Richards as Gordon, the man facing surgery who sings of needing a new brain, gives a knock-out performance. He possesses all the right qualities necessary here, likability, kvetching, humor and most of all some very strong and powerful singing chops. A high vocal standard was clearly set for the cast which is evident from T. J. Anderson’s expert musical direction. The cast devours the clever, complicated music and lyrics with skill and perfect harmony. Especially Billy Dawson as Roger, Gordon’s poor put upon, goy boyfriend. He is blessed with a beautiful, clear tenor voice. Fortunately for us there are other stand-out vocalists as well. After Johnny Kyle Cook as Richard, the nice nurse, gets warmed up he turns in a very funny and well sung, “Eating Myself Up Alive.” We also get the pleasure of Neala Barron, as Lisa, busting loose in her act one closer, “Change” and almost raising the roof off the place. Other cast members get their moments to shine as well; Martin J. Hughes (as the distracted doctor) Anna Schutz (in a terrific cameo as the waitress) Jillian Weingart (as the aloof agent) and Nick Shoda (who makes the most of his role as the minister). Although, Denise Tamburrino, struggles a bit to find her inner “Mama Rose” quality as Mimi, Gordon’s mother, she redeems herself in her beautiful and touching second act number, “Music Still Plays On,” assisted nicely by assistant musical director Justin Harner. I wish Paul G. Miller (as Mr. Bungee, the host of the children’s show that Gordon writes for) was able to capture the fun in his role. He should come off as annoyingly likeable, but alas he only finds half of that description.
Director M. William Panek should be quite proud of his achievement, especially given the personal connection he has to the material. Lighting designer, Cat Wilson, has done an amazing job with a few instruments above a small stage. She manages to not only set mood, but define location. Daniel Spagnuolo’s choreographer is inventive and at times a bit kooky, but he manages to move his ten person cast around the small playing area with ease and overall adds some very nice elements to the proceedings. I understand this is store front theatre on a budget, but I hope as the company grows they find the money and wisdom to employ a costume designer. I also understand that the concept of a pre-show has become popular and can work in many situations, but in this case it added nothing to the evening and set an unusual tone as you entered the theatre. At its core this is a musical about hope and finding happiness in life in the face of adversity and as Gordon sings, “sometimes joy has a terrible cost.”
Jason Richards as Gordon, the man facing surgery who sings of needing a new brain, gives a knock-out performance. He possesses all the right qualities necessary here, likability, kvetching, humor and most of all some very strong and powerful singing chops. A high vocal standard was clearly set for the cast which is evident from T. J. Anderson’s expert musical direction. The cast devours the clever, complicated music and lyrics with skill and perfect harmony. Especially Billy Dawson as Roger, Gordon’s poor put upon, goy boyfriend. He is blessed with a beautiful, clear tenor voice. Fortunately for us there are other stand-out vocalists as well. After Johnny Kyle Cook as Richard, the nice nurse, gets warmed up he turns in a very funny and well sung, “Eating Myself Up Alive.” We also get the pleasure of Neala Barron, as Lisa, busting loose in her act one closer, “Change” and almost raising the roof off the place. Other cast members get their moments to shine as well; Martin J. Hughes (as the distracted doctor) Anna Schutz (in a terrific cameo as the waitress) Jillian Weingart (as the aloof agent) and Nick Shoda (who makes the most of his role as the minister). Although, Denise Tamburrino, struggles a bit to find her inner “Mama Rose” quality as Mimi, Gordon’s mother, she redeems herself in her beautiful and touching second act number, “Music Still Plays On,” assisted nicely by assistant musical director Justin Harner. I wish Paul G. Miller (as Mr. Bungee, the host of the children’s show that Gordon writes for) was able to capture the fun in his role. He should come off as annoyingly likeable, but alas he only finds half of that description.
Director M. William Panek should be quite proud of his achievement, especially given the personal connection he has to the material. Lighting designer, Cat Wilson, has done an amazing job with a few instruments above a small stage. She manages to not only set mood, but define location. Daniel Spagnuolo’s choreographer is inventive and at times a bit kooky, but he manages to move his ten person cast around the small playing area with ease and overall adds some very nice elements to the proceedings. I understand this is store front theatre on a budget, but I hope as the company grows they find the money and wisdom to employ a costume designer. I also understand that the concept of a pre-show has become popular and can work in many situations, but in this case it added nothing to the evening and set an unusual tone as you entered the theatre. At its core this is a musical about hope and finding happiness in life in the face of adversity and as Gordon sings, “sometimes joy has a terrible cost.”
Centerstage Chicago
Reviewed by Colin Douglas
It’s hard to imagine a cast singing and dancing about a gay composer suffering a deadly brain disease and his impending surgery, but that’s what audiences will experience. William Finn’s (“The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee”) pocket musical is surreal, sometimes funny, often touching and filled with bizarre characters. Most importantly it examines the creative mind through two hours of eclectic tunes in this sung-through musical.
Soon after he won Tony Awards for his 1992 groundbreaking production of “Falsettos,” Finn took ill. At first misdiagnosed with a brain tumor, he later learned that he was suffering from arteriovenous malformation. Following a dangerous brain surgery that could’ve either killed him or destroyed his creative talents, Finn not only survived but celebrated his rebirth by creating this autobiographical musical about vanquishing death.
In this musical version of his illness, Finn’s character is called Gordon. He’s a frustrated composer who writes songs for Mr. Bungee, his cruel boss and the host of a children’s TV show. Under stress, Gordon suffers a severe headache and collapses. At the hospital he’s diagnosed and surgery is recommended, but Gordon’s frightened all the music he has inside him will die on the operating table. Following surgery, Gordon languishes in a coma during which he experiences nightmares about everyone in his life, including his optimistic mother, his boss and his loving boyfriend Roger.
While the cast tends to over-sing in this tiny space their musical talent is undeniable. Jason Richards is suitably cranky and frightened as Gordon, supported by a loving, charismatic Billy Dawson as Roger. Johnny Kyle Cook as Richard, the “nice nurse,” Neala Barron as homeless Lisa and Paul G. Miller’s Mr. Bungee also impress. Director M. William Panek and choreographer Daniel Spagnuolo have staged their no-frills production as a television show. When not involved, the ten-member cast hang around the the studio’s perimeter while two skilled keyboardists provide accompaniment near the back. While not Finn’s best work, it offers an entertaining look at the creative mind.
Soon after he won Tony Awards for his 1992 groundbreaking production of “Falsettos,” Finn took ill. At first misdiagnosed with a brain tumor, he later learned that he was suffering from arteriovenous malformation. Following a dangerous brain surgery that could’ve either killed him or destroyed his creative talents, Finn not only survived but celebrated his rebirth by creating this autobiographical musical about vanquishing death.
In this musical version of his illness, Finn’s character is called Gordon. He’s a frustrated composer who writes songs for Mr. Bungee, his cruel boss and the host of a children’s TV show. Under stress, Gordon suffers a severe headache and collapses. At the hospital he’s diagnosed and surgery is recommended, but Gordon’s frightened all the music he has inside him will die on the operating table. Following surgery, Gordon languishes in a coma during which he experiences nightmares about everyone in his life, including his optimistic mother, his boss and his loving boyfriend Roger.
While the cast tends to over-sing in this tiny space their musical talent is undeniable. Jason Richards is suitably cranky and frightened as Gordon, supported by a loving, charismatic Billy Dawson as Roger. Johnny Kyle Cook as Richard, the “nice nurse,” Neala Barron as homeless Lisa and Paul G. Miller’s Mr. Bungee also impress. Director M. William Panek and choreographer Daniel Spagnuolo have staged their no-frills production as a television show. When not involved, the ten-member cast hang around the the studio’s perimeter while two skilled keyboardists provide accompaniment near the back. While not Finn’s best work, it offers an entertaining look at the creative mind.
