Chicago Tribune - Highly Recommended
"...If you’re at a good production of this iconic musical—and director and choreographer Jim Corti’s eye-popping new revival at the Drury Lane Oakbrook is a great, great production—your heart lands in your mouth when the Emcee sings “Tomorrow Belongs to Me,” lest it actually does."
Chicago Sun Times - Highly Recommended
"...Doug Peck's impeccable musical direction (and Maria Honigschnabel's terrific leadership of the band) gives the familiar score an unusually sensual allure. Brian Sidney Bembridge's massive wrought-iron set suggests all the sinewy, hard-edged decorative allure of Berlin (with lighting by Jesse Klug that approaches black magic), and Tatjana Radisic's scores of costumes are the essence of period Eurochic."
Daily Herald - Highly Recommended
"...In his revival of "Cabaret" for Oak Brook's Drury Lane Theatre, director/choreographer Jim Corti has smoothed some of the rough edges of this famously (provocatively) bleak show. The result is a kinder, gentler version of the John Kander and Fred Ebb musical about the wrecked romances and unrealized aspirations of the willfully ignorant - or just plain unaware - members of a society racing headlong to its ruin. Corti's stylish, sexy version isn't the blow to the solar plexus (and I mean that as a complement) that 2008's Stratford Festival production was, but it most definitely dazzles."
Chicago Reader - Highly Recommended
"...Jim Corti's revival of the Kander & Ebb musical is fresh and energetic, evoking its spirit without imitating any of its previous, iconic incarnations (Hal Prince's 1966 Broadway staging, Bob Fosse's amazing 1972 movie, Sam Mendes's darker, meaner 1998 Broadway revival). Corti's ensemble seem similarly interested in making the characters their own."
Windy City Times - Highly Recommended
"...cumulatively, Drury Lane's Cabaret is an impressive winner. Corti's hard-working and sexy ensemble choreographically conjures up the artistic energy and desperation of Weimar Germany with plenty of panache and menace."
Chicago Free Press - Highly Recommended
"...Christopher Isherwood’s tale of little lives caught up in big change comes flawlessly to life, love and hate. Nothing gets left to chance. Inventive rethinking triumphs throughout. Rebecca Finnegan’s world-weary landlady Fraulein Schneider perfectly captures the resignation with which she gives up her one chance of love to David Lively’s devoted Jewish lover Herr Schultz. Brandon Dahlquist’s Ernst exudes the energy of evil. As the author’s surrogate, an open-eyed closet case, Jim Weitzer delivers the audience’s reactions as well as his own. Zarah Mahler’s Sally is the proverbial moth burned by the flame of Weimar Berlin, her zest for life tempered by a haunting loneliness that turns the title song into a soliloquy instead of a solo."
Copley News Service - Highly Recommended
"...By the time I caught up with “Cabaret” at the DruryLaneTheatre, the critical word was out that this was an exceptional production. And so it is. Any fan of the show better catch this staging, not only for its brilliance but because it’s unlikely any area company will attempt its own revival, at least in the near future. The Drury Lane version sets such a high bar that it should intimidate Chicagoland theaters for seasons to come."
Centerstage - Recommended
"...Based upon Christopher Isherwood's Berlin Stories and John Van Druten's play, "I Am a Camera," this Tony Award-winner for Best Musical, Score and Best Revival (it's also an Oscar-winning film) is approached with honesty and authenticity by Jeff Award-winning director/choreographer Jim Corti. This production is primarily based upon the original 1966 stage version, and offers the fresh, idealized look of the glamorous Hollywood films of the early 1930s."
Edge - Highly Recommended
"...Life is indeed a Cabaret in the Drury Lane Oakbrook Terrace’s live wire staging of the classic bawdy musical. Jim Corti,(a former pupil of the legendary producer/director Bob Fosse, and understudy for Joel Grey on the National Tour of the Broadway revival) , assumes the reins here, and if possible, renders the show more eye popping, more naughty and delicious, yet more poignant and real than any staging of the musical I have encountered thus far."
Chicago Stage Review - Highly Recommended
"...Anyone who enjoys musical theatre already has a relationship with Cabaret — maybe they fell in love with Liza’s Sally Bowles in Bob Fosse’s 1972 film adaptation, maybe they were mesmerized by Alan Cumming’s Emcee in the Sam Mendes 1998 Broadway revival and subsequent tour. Cabaret is almost universally adored, yet it shouldn’t work at all; story wise, it’s something akin to having Bettie Page star in Sophie’s Choice. Pass…no thank you…right? In inexpert hands, Cabaret holds huge potential for epic failure. Thank goodness that Drury Lane Oakbrook’s production of Cabaret is in such expert hands."
Time Out Chicago - Somewhat Recommended
"..., this is one of the best musical-theater scores ever written, and the cast and eight-piece orchestra do it justice. Corti’s choreography is well executed, if a bit overly familiar. And Andrews is a delightfully puckish Emcee, giving his character a showman’s twinkle that we imagine Joel Grey could admire. If only the book scenes showed the same spark."
ChicagoCritic - Highly Recommended
"...This most moving and stylistic production of Cabaret is a great evening of theatre. Seldom do you see such outstanding production values in a show so effectively cast and staged for a top ticket price of only $38. This is a world class production of one of the finest Broadway musicals ever-Cabaret-which nails the moods, meanings and emotions of the lost souls of Berlin in 1930. Drury Lane Oakbrook Theatre’s mesmerizing production is a ‘must see’ show."
Chicago Stage and Screen - Highly Recommended
"...Cabaret is the musical version of John Van Druten's "I Am A Camera" based on Christopher Isherwood's "The Berlin Stories". It takes us back to 1929/1930 Berlin, a wild time where everything was wide open and the beginning of what was to come develops. With a book by Joe Masteroff and music and lyrics by Kander and Ebb, this is a story filled with history and while the topic is one that some people find hard to swallow it was indeed a part of what took place and might just give younger audiences a better insight into the events of that era."
Chicago Theater Beat - Somewhat Recommended
"...Drury LaneOakbrook’s production of Cabaret is pretty, but afraid to get dirty. Jim Corti’s choreography is tight and the singing is more than serviceable, but it lacks the pulse and frantic energy that have made this show a postwar classic. The desperation of post-World War I/pre-Nazi Germany is never truly captured, and the end result doesn’t quite have the political punch that the book and music deserve."
