Chicago Tribune - Recommended
"...Director Shawn Stengel's production - which features a truly massive, eye-poppingly huge set from Kevin Depinet, replete with a climax that sends Grizabella up to the heavens in a kind of sewage-pipe spaceship, with full-thrusting jets - is packed with choreography from Harrison McEldowney, who did beautiful work with Lloyd Webber's music at the Marriott a couple of years ago and does so again with this most famous part of the Sir Andrew oeuvre."
Chicago Sun Times - Highly Recommended
"...Throughout, the sleek, snowy white feline Victoria (the enchanting Lizzie MacKenzie Pontarelli, formerly of River North Dance Chicago), prances around the stage and performs a delicate aeriel ballet. And Demeter (the clarion-voiced Kristen Noonan) and Bombalurina (sassy Amber Mak) make way for Grizabella (the heartbreaking, honey-voiced Lauren Villegas), who is more than ready for her close-up in "Memory." The ensemble also pounces wildly in a number involving bungee cords."
ChicagoCritic - Highly Recommended
"...Paramount starts its new season with an awesome magical show after three seasons., and the remainder of this years's musicals (Mary Poppins, The Who's Tommy and Les Miserables) looks just as ambitious. Suburbanites can certainly say they have access to great musical theater with reasonable ticket prices and easy parking.
CATS has a small story, but wonderful messages within many of its songs, and the creative brilliance of Paramount's show makes it a must see. With CATS, all the superb singing and exciting dancing plays out the characteristics of different cats, which parallel people you probably know. And which cat do you most closely resemble? Find out with this breathtaking production at the Paramount Theatre only now through October 12, 2014."
Around The Town Chicago - Highly Recommended
"...It is not often that I miss an opening in Aurora’s Paramount Theatre, one of my favorites, but I always make sure that I do get out and see their productions. Yesterday, I attended a matinee of “Cats” with a near full house of appreciative theater lovers. “Cats” may be an overdone show of late with many regional and Community theaters taking on this Andrew Lloyd Webber saga based on “Old Possums Book of Practical Cats” by T.S. Eliot. This play is a choreographers’ dream- an opportunity to incorporate tap, ballet, modern, jazz and any other step as well as tumbling and acrobatics. Shawn Stengel’s creative juices truly were flowing on this production ad we were witness to some trapeze-like acrobatics and extraordinary “bungee” dancing."
Chicago Theatre Review - Highly Recommended
"...Jim Corti’s Paramount Theatre which, thankfully, is finally eligible for Chicago’s Jeff Awards, continuously offers the highest quality area entertainment. His productions rival the impressive Equity Broadway in Chicago national tours that originate or eventually find their way to our city, and they challenge the excellence of shows produced by the city’s local big theatre companies, as well. In this, the opening of Mr. Corti’s 2014-15 season, the cat nip and cream are flowing and audiences, especially those few who’ve never seen this musical performed before, should head out to Aurora’s beautiful jewel of a theatre and savor the wonder and joy that’s bound to be the Memory of the fall season."
