Christmas With Elvis at Chopin Theatre

Chicago Tribune - Recommended

"...Aptly enough, the remount of “Christmas With Elvis,” as quite lavishly produced by the playwright, Terry Spencer Hesser, and friends, is directed by Dexter Bullard, an important figure in 1990s off-Loop theater. I don’t know the entire back story here, but I gather Hesser (who went on to a highly successful career as an Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker) had long dreamed of working with Bullard and I think she basically just decided, what the heck, I can afford to hire him now and give this lovable crazy show another outing, replete with a very cool Milwaukee Avenue setting created by Eleanor Kahn."

Around The Town Chicago - Recommended

"...The Christmas theme behind this play cannot be minimized, as all the action takes place on Christmas Eve. Like the show “A Christmas Carol”, Elvis shows up as a ghost, like the story “It’s a Wonderful Life”, Elvis saves Trudy, as Clarence the Angel did for George. But Elvis is no angel: He is flawed like the rest of us. And that is important! Who knows if he can or ever will escape purgatory? However, by dint of personality plus his music, Elvis feels he can help out those currently living on earth. Maybe that’s why his words—his song lyrics and his underlying philosophy—will resonate with a lot of theatregoers who might be experiencing their own loneliness, heartache, and agony this holiday season."

Chicago On Stage - Highly Recommended

"...Bullard, a director that Hesser “dreamed of working with 30 years ago,” does the playwright proud. Some of the staging—Trudy dancing with abandon on a futon while Elvis sings comes to mind—is just wonderful and exudes joy overlaid with the initial melancholy, leaving us with (dare I say it?) hope. This is the kind of play that could have gone either way, but it ultimately reinforces a magical sense of possibility that is always a major element in any Christmas show. Watching this play, you are transported beyond the world that Trudy has inhabited; you find yourself in one in which “your Elvis” pulls the magic out of the air and the snow starts to fall."