TimeLine Theatre Company, the 12-year-old, historically-focused Lakeview underdog, is riding a well-documented surge these days. The company’s followed last year’s massive hit (and Jeff Award magnet) Chicago premiere of The History Boys with solid fare like Kimberly Senior’s strong revival of All My Sons and the current ‘Master Harold’…and the Boys; up next is another Chicago premiere, Aaron Sorkin’s The Farnsworth Invention, in April.

TimeLine’s first out of the gate with news of the 2010–2011 season, announcing today that it’s scored another Chicago premiere to kick off its fall slate: Peter Morgan’s Frost/Nixon will open in August, directed by Louis Contey. The 2006 play, about the unlikely circumstances by which British TV presenter David Frost bagged a series of interviews with former president Richard Nixon in 1977, earned Tony and Drama Desk awards for Broadway star Frank Langella. TimeLine’s casting (and the rest of its season) remain TBA. The company also announced that it’s one of two 2010 recipients of a $25,000 grant from the Lester and Hope Abelson Fund for the Performing Arts at the Chicago Community Trust. The “Hopie,” as the award is apparently referred to, is given annually to two arts orgs that have less than $1 million in operating revenues, have been in existence at least three years and whose work demonstrates “innovation, inspiration and creativity.” This year’s other recipient is Free Street Theater, who TOC profiled last month.

Last night I fulfilled a dream I didn’t even know I had until it was happening in front of me: I watched veteran actor Mike Nussbaum bark George Michael lyrics into a banana.

The event was Strawdog Theatre Company’s benefit performance of The Phone Book, a variety show in which an all-star cast offered up idiosyncratic takes on a telephonic theme. One of the highlights was a parodic re-enactment of how Strawdog’s supposed production of the David Mamet hit American Buffalo “moved” to Steppenwolf. Nussbaum, 86, who originated the role of Teach in Buffalo’s 1974 debut, reprised it, while Fran Guinan took on his current role of Don in Steppenwolf’s actual revival. Strawdog’s self-deprecating gag was a nod to its penchant, as in last year’s production of Red Noses, to swap out script elements it definitely hasn’t obtained rights for, like specified songs, for the company’s own choices. In Buffalo’s famous telephone scene, Strawdog doesn’t have rights to the script’s phone numbers, and then the phone company pulls the plug—thus, Nussbaum screaming “You gotta have faith-uh-faith-uh-faith-AHH” into fruit.

It was a perfect set-up for the evening’s big news: Strawdog artistic director Nic Dimond announced that Red Noses (TOC’s number-three choice on our 2009 theater top ten) will become the twentysomething company’s first-ever remount this summer, first hitting Theater on the Lake July 14–18 before a four-week July–August reprise at Strawdog’s Lakeview home.

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Anyone who’s ever complained about the high price of theater tickets or the “high risk” of taking a chance on new plays, About Face Theatre has a deal for you: Select tickets for the company’s Chicago premiere of Ann Marie Healy’s What Once We Felt are 99 cents. February 3, 10 and 17 performances of Healy’s dystopic play about the world’s last print novelist have been designated “Word of WOWF Wednesdays,” with a limited number of extra-value-menu seats available alongside the $25 ($15 for students) general admission. Healy’s play was originally slated to have its world premiere at About Face last spring, until a budget crisis forced artistic director Bonnie Metzgar to postpone the production. The play instead bowed last fall in New York in Lincoln Center Theater’s LCT3 series; reviews there were sharply divided. Krissy Vanderwarker directs About Face’s production, which runs February 3–March 6 at the Center on Halsted.

Time Out Chicago’s pick for the best play of 2009 is making the move to Off Broadway, largely intact. Playwright Kristoffer Diaz’s pro-wrestling parable The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity, which rocked Victory Gardens last fall in a co-production with Teatro Vista, has been (apparently prematurely) announced to open at New York’s Second Stage Theatre in April. (The official announcement is expected later today, but as the Tribune’s Chris Jones caught, it’s already listed on Second Stage’s website.) Teatro Vista’s Eddie Torres will again direct; the Trib reports that he’ll bring his VG design team along, and while no casting has been announced yet, there’s a strong chance that Desmin Borges, Usman Ally (pictured above) and the rest of the Chicago cast will transfer as well.

Kenneth Morrison, Michelle Faust and Nat Ward have had better holiday seasons. The artists and Lamprey St. Patrick’s Day Parade organizers were about to take part in the Hideout’s Holiday Panto on December 17th when their Pilsen home, known as the Whale, caught fire. Morrison lost almost everything in the blaze, and water damage claimed many of Faust and Ward’s possessions.

To help the trio back on its feet in 2010, the Hideout has announced a pair of benefit performances of the Holiday Panto, created by Ward and Jon Langford. The family-friendly shows on Sunday January 3, at 3 and 6pm, will feature an array of local talent including Mekon Sally Timms, Derek Erdman, Callie Roach and Mike Burlington. Tickets are $12 for adults and $5 for children. You can also donate directly to the Hideout’s relief effort (dubbed “The Burning Whale”) via Paypal; direct your payment to natmichellehideout@gmail.com.

The Light Opera Works production of the Gilbert & Sullivan operetta opened Saturday night and runs through Sunday January 3 at Evanston’s Cahn Auditorium. We sent reviewer Melissa Albert for a swashbuckling report.—KV

Concerning the fate of young Frederic, accidentally indentured to a pirate king; the latter’s matrimonial-minded crew; and the conveniently numerous daughters of a foppish major general, this Gilbert & Sullivan stalwart bends easily to the mixing of visual genres. Both the costumes (by Jill Van Brussel) and the comedy are of varying vintages, underscoring the production’s timeless appeal.

Director Rudy Hogenmiller’s cast plays it broad, animating Tom Burch’s largely gray sets with riotous ensemble staging. Some physical gags are overused in the first act, but the second is greatly improved by the comic blocking of the police chief (the fantastic Frank M. DeVincentis) and his men, who storm the stage like Monty Python’s upper-class twits.

Though the male vocals in particular are strong, the clever lyrics are often obscured. Barbara Landis as Ruth, Frederic’s discarded middle-aged paramour, is especially apt to gargle her lines, and much is also lost lyrically in the exchanges between Frederic (Matthew Giebel) and his new love, Mabel (Alicia Berneche).

James Harms does a solid rendition of the verbally virtuosic boast that is “I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major General.” He plays the role with twitchy vanity and devotion to the operetta’s weird logic, free from the nudges and winks that might let on that he knows himself and his set to be ridiculous.—Melissa Albert

It took a fair amount of negotiating for John Beer and I to whittle down our top ten list this year. We both agreed from the first “ballot” that The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity would be number one, but between us we had nearly 30 candidates for numbers two through ten. For starters, we didn’t consider productions that didn’t originate in Chicago, which disqualified some of the most exciting plays we saw—from the Wooster Group’s The Emperor Jones, Companhia Triptal’s Sea Plays and Toneelgroup Amsterdam’s Mourning Becomes Electra in the Goodman’s terrific O’Neill festival to Michael Pennington’s Sweet William and Enda Walsh’s The Walworth Farce at Chicago Shakespeare Theater to my two favorite Broadway in Chicago presentations, Xanadu and Spring Awakening.

Even with that rule in place, though, we still couldn’t find slots for many shows we loved. After the jump, an alphabetical list of 15 plays that, in any other year, might have made our cut.

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Hometown girl Felicia P. Fields is headed back to Chicago. The actress has spent much of the last four years as Sofia in The Color Purple, earning a Tony nomination in her Broadway debut and continuing with the show in its Chicago production, and the subsequent national tour (as pictured, left, with Tiffany Daniels). Northlight Theatre confirmed today that Fields will star in the new musical revue Low Down Dirty Blues, which runs May 27–July 3 at the Skokie venue. The revue, by Randal Myler and Dan Wheetman, creators of previous Northlight hits It Ain’t Nothin’ But the Blues and Fire on the Mountain, will also feature “Mississippi” Charles Bevel, a Jeff Award winner for each of the two prior shows. Tickets ($39–$54) are on sale now.

If you’re like me, you have a handful of performers whose work you admire so much you’ve said you’d pay to see them read the phone book. Strawdog Theatre Company (whose Red Noses placed #3 on our 2009 best-of list) wants us to put our money where our mouths are. For the company’s February 1 fundraiser, The Phone Book, members of Strawdog’s ensemble and guests will present artistic interpretations of the ol’ yellow and white pages. The lineup so far includes TJ & Dave’s David Pasquesi and TJ Jagodowski, veteran actor Mike Nussbaum, Waco Bros frontman and musician-about-town Jon Langford, and journalist Rick Kogan, with more TBA. The $100 admission includes drinks and hors d’ouevres; order tickets before January 15 and get $25 off with the code CONNECTION.

The national tour of last year’s Tony-winning musical In the Heights hits the Cadillac Palace tonight. There’s also news today about the upcoming film adaptation. When I talked to the show’s creator and original star Lin-Manuel Miranda for this week’s double issue (read the interview here), he told me “we’re close to finalizing a director on the Heights movie.” We learned today that it’ll be High School Musical helmer Kenny Ortega. And as if there was any doubt, it’s officially confirmed that Miranda will reprise his role as Usnavi on screen.”We hope to be shooting that in 2010,” Miranda told me. “Quiara [Alegría Hudes, the show's book writer]’s written a really great draft of the screenplay.”

Miranda and I also touched on the Alexander Hamilton rap number he performed at the White House in May, which he wants to expand into a concept album based on the life of the country’s first Treasury Secretary. Here’s the video of Miranda’s performance. (You’re welcome.)