Here’s my annual celebration of the 10 best performances of 2024 on Chicago stages. These performances ran the gamut of human emotions and were found in Chicago-area theaters large and small. Some were by veteran pros; a few were from relative newcomers. All were unforgettable.
While our separate yearly list of best theater shows is restricted to productions that were created in Chicago, this celebration of great acting includes performances in any show on view in the area in the past year — including those locally produced, those touring, trying out or visiting from far afield.
With no further ado, and in alphabetical order:
Alana Arenas in “Purpose” (Steppenwolf Theatre Company): As “Purpose” readies its Broadway transfer for the spring, other names in the cast of playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ superb drama about a dysfunctional Chicago family likely will get more attention. But I think New York audiences will be unprepared for the fierceness of what Arenas brings to the role of Morgan, the furious wife of the scion of the political family based on the Jesse Jackson Jr. clan. Morgan takes a while to appear, but once she comes down the stairs, eyes blazing and guns roaring, the show is no longer the same. It’s a transformative role for this Steppenwolf Theatre ensemble member.
Cyd Blakewell in “Obliteration” (Gift Theatre): Blakewell has a quirky, unassuming personality on stage and that’s reflected in the roles this longtime Chicago actress has been given over the years. But in playwright Andrew Hinderaker’s fabulous “Obliteration,” Blakewell played an aspiring stand-up comic looking for a mentor in a cynical comedian played by Michael Patrick Thornton. As her raw character told her jokes, the audience was never sure if these were fully fictional monologues or (given how well everyone involved knew each other) maybe in part Blakewell’s own confession. Here was a quietly stunning performance of immense courage and packed with more mystery than jokes.
Amanda Drinkall in “A Streetcar Named Desire” (Paramount Theatre): Tennessee Williams’ fragile Blanche DuBois is a beast of role, with cliches and traps lurking on every street corner. But in Paramount’s small Copley Theatre in Aurora, Drinkall, long one of Chicago’s great actresses, rendered one of dramatic literature’s most famous characters as a woman who had made irrevocable choices, assumed her artificial persona as a means of survival and now had vowed to follow her self-created character all the way into the grave, if necessary. Here, it wasn’t so much that Blanche was making choices as that she had no alternative but to follow a pathway there since her beginnings. A stunning piece of acting.
Jessie Fisher in “Every Brilliant Thing” (Writers Theatre): It’s never easy for a performer to hold down the stage in a solo show. But Fisher, returning home after a year of work on Broadway, not only commanded the storytelling in this lovely piece about finding and appreciating life’s smaller pleasures, but she was so warm and inviting that she coaxed Glencoe audiences (some palpably reluctant) into becoming part of the show. Vulnerable and yet assured, Fisher gently pushed her character’s point of view, winning people over with every new reason to enjoy life.
Megan Hilty in “Death Becomes Her” (Cadillac Palace Theatre): Funny, twisted, messy and deliciously desperate are all fair descriptions of Hilty’s hilarious performance in “Death Becomes Her,” the Broadway musical that premiered in Chicago early this year. Hilty, a justly beloved Broadway star, fleshed out Madeline, the heroine of this silly musical comedy, in ways that made her all the funnier because Hilty made herself so vulnerable as she fought off her rival, as played by partner in crime Jennifer Simard. Hilty is a master farceur, far more adept than most of her peers at physical comedy, but also a lovable, slightly scary diva. Perfect for this show.
Stephen Schellhardt in “Falsettos” (Court Theatre with TimeLine Theatre): When you watch a busy and highly talented actor for years, you find yourself breaking their work into two categories: shows where they are doing what they were asked to do, and doing it well, and shows where their heart and soul are fully in sync with their character. The role of Marvin in William Finn and James Lapine’s musical “Falsettos” seemed very much in the latter category for Schellhardt and I don’t doubt for a second that this wise actor brought every inch of his complex life trajectory to the part. But there was a real sweetness here, too, never manifested more clearly as when Schellhardt sang the ballad “What More Can I Say?” Gorgeous, sure, but also with the wisdom of experience.
Christine Sherrill in “Mamma Mia!” (Nederlander Theatre): There is talk of a Broadway revival of “Mamma Mia!” and it will be a shame if anyone other than Sherrill plays the lead role of Donna, once a dynamo, now a middle-aged taverna owner with several past beaus and an overcurious daughter with ABBA on the brain. Sherrill, a one-time Chicago actress with credits large and small, blew the roof off the Nederlander Theatre with her powerhouse vocals during the national tour’s most recent appearance here last May. I’ve seen at least 14 Donnas, god help me, and Sherrill is the Donna of all Donnas, way more interesting as an actress than the ABBA avatars tearing it up in London. “Winner Takes It All” has never felt more appropriate.
Namir Smallwood in “Primary Trust” (Goodman Theatre): Playing a neuroatypical character such as the hero of this sweetly poetic Eboni Booth play is far from easy. But Smallwood seemed to feel his Kenneth down to the bones as he evoked an extraordinary life in an ordinary town without so much as a drop of condescension. This was among the most immersive performances I experienced all year and, as is often the case with work of such detail and commitment, the audience was visibly moved. Smallwood didn’t make his man more important than the cards life had dealt him, but he brought him to life in ways that made him representative of us all.
Michael Shannon in “Turret” (A Red Orchid Theatre): Not everyone understood this Levi Holloway play, a perplexingly dystopian genre thriller with a deep psychological subtext, but everyone understood that one of the GOAT Chicago actors was back in town doing what he cared about and bringing his signature mix of warmth, chill, enigmatic complexity and old-school simplicity. Shannon roared across the stage of the Chopin Theatre, playing the kind of father figure that you’d surely have to be strong to want. Not for the first time, Shannon dissected masculinity by showing us a man whose genuinely loving feelings are so stifled by his lack of the language of love that he comes off as a kind of benign monster. Talk about complicated work.
Larry Yando in “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” (Nederlander Theatre): Yando ditched his wily Scrooge act at the Goodman Theatre and moved across the street to the Nederlander Theatre this year, where he took on the trifecta of Snape, Dumbledore and old Amos Diggory in the new road production of the thrilling “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.” Talk about a triple threat. Yando found deep truths in all three of these characters as if he were exposing different sides of himself. Doing Charles Dickens all these years turned out to be the best training for a J.K. Rowling show. Yando never has been better or emitted more truths for living in a single night.
Honorable mentions: Jack Ball in “Falsettos” at Court Theatre; Daniel Breaker in “Judgement Day” at Chicago Shakespeare Theater; Christian Patterson in “Pericles” by Royal Shakespeare Company at Chicago Shakespeare; Harry Lennix in “Purpose” at Steppenwolf; Andrew MacNaughton in “Young Frankenstein” at Mercury Theater Chicago; Laurie Metcalf in “Little Bear Ridge Road” at Steppenwolf; Sawyer Smith in “The Little Mermaid” at Drury Lane Theatre; Micah Stock in “Little Bear Ridge Road” at Steppenwolf; magician Siegfried Tieber at Magic Parlor; Adisa Williams in “The Devil is in the Detours” at Second City.
And also the incomparable Kevin in “Annie,” presented by Madison Square Garden Entertainment.
Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.
cjones5@chicagotribune.com
