“She Loves Me” – AROUND THE TOWN CHICAGO

***** Over twenty years ago I had the good fortune of being recruited by The Lake Zurich Players to fill in for an actor who had to leave their production of “She Loves Me” two weeks prior to opening. This was a community theater and had no understudies. I had never done the show in my past years of acting and so I said yes. The role I had was the owner of the perfumerie, Mr. Maraczek and I only had one number to worry about, where I sang and danced. The show worked and I had a ball doing it. This play is a musical based on an old book and film , “The Shop Around The Corner” , which also became the musical “In The Good Old Summertime” and later was the basis for the movie ( non-musical) “You’ve Got Mail”. It is a love story about two lonely people who send letters to each other that are filled with love and adoration. In this version they meet by chance when she comes to work for him at Maraczek’s shop.

While this is a wonderful story, there are several other stories contained in the play and each character within has a story. They all unfold during the 2 1/2 hours ( with one intermission) of great storytelling. There is the store manager, Georg Nowack ( deftly handled by Travis Ascione) who is writing letters to “Dear Friend” and is falling in love. The new hire, Amalia Balash ( Hannah Louise Fernandes is quite solid) who it turns out is “Dear Friend” but they don’t know it. The store employs several clerks, Ladislov Sipos ( the comical Darian Goulding), Ilona Ritter ( an amazing stint by Kaitlin Feely , who we have heard numerous times in Arlington Hts. at Hey Nonny and their “cabaret nights”) who is terrific in song, dance and comic timing- a “triple threat”, Steven Kodaly ( the swarmy, neer-do-well, womanizer played to perfection by Jeffrey Charles), and last but not least, Arpad Laszlo (great work by Brody Tyner) who is the delivery boy turned sales clerk. They all have back stories and all make us see them in total.

Part of the intimacy ( intimacy direction by Courtney Abbott ) of the small venue that has been created by Citadel is just that, the intimacy. Watching this show on a large stage sitting 250 feet from the stage makes the story visual, but only as a fly on the wall ( but having trouble getting into the story). At Citadel, YOU ARE that fly and you can see everything so you truly get the story and each character. Maraczek ( my role) is played to perfection by Geoff Isaac and his song and dance number is terrific.

The ensemble players are quite important to this production as there are many little roles and they prove the importance of the ensemble with the work they do in this one. Laura Brennan, Jill Iverson, Abby Loria, Trey Mendik ( quite the dancer) and Jake Busse ( his Waiter in the nightclub scene is amazing). Without these performers director Matthew Silar could never have pulled off the stellar production that he and his crew have put on the tiny stage at Citadel.

The setby Eric Luchen allows us to see everything we should in a very small space with easy changes. The choreography by Amanda Schmidt is sheer perfection, again working in limited space and the music direction by David Zizic is right on! The costumes (Danielle Reinhardt) and props (Nicolas Bartleson) are wonderful and the lighting (Jodi Williams) and sound (Kurt Ottinger) add to the sheer perfection of the production.

This is a show from the same people who brought you “Fiddler on the Roof” and there are songs that you will have heard before contained within: “Tonight at Eight”, “She Loves Me”, “Will He Like Me?”, and possibly “Dear Friend”. You will walk out of the theater feeling satisfied with your experience and wanting to say to the cast and crew, “Thank you, thank you , I ‘ll come again- Thank you!”.