Goodman Theatre — Attraction in Chicago

It is that time of year and we enjoyed our front row center seats, A8-12, for A Christmas Carol for yet one more year! The experience in the first row (4th photo) with the stage smoke cascading into only the first row and the performers dancing within two feet of the stage edge, which is only three feet from our laps, is immersive!! This year is close to, if not, our 20th year (hard to keep track) and it was the very best performance, ever!!!!

Larry Yando is back for his 13th year as Scrooge and gave an outstanding comedic and dramatic performance! Thomas Cox returns as Bob Cratchit for his second year and a heart rending performance. Gregory Hirt returns once again playing the fiddle with vigor for his 21st year and Justin Amolsch returns playing an energetic french horn for his 18th year. The applause at the end always results in a standing ovation for Larry. Our seats are so close that when we're standing he is literally an arms length away. Tonight he saw me applauding in all of my 6'-8"edness, smiled and from the stage said "glad to see you back again!" A private moment in a room of 500 people. Very cool!!!!

Each year we are amazed that, though it is technically the same play with a number of returning key performers, it is refreshed, revitalized and yet more endearing. Last year, as a pandemic response, the performance was audio only and we were not among the 100,000 people that heard it! New as the director last year, and back again this year to direct the live performance, Jessica Thebus has added a unique richness to sets, robustness to scenes and has pulled emotions from the very souls of the actors resulting in an experience that is truly overwhelming!

I have no idea how they'll top this year, next year, but they do...

Must say I'm incredibly disappointed. It's always been one of my favorites to go to, but their pricing structure where you can't get reimbursed or exchange dates at all unless you are a member is crap. I would never ask for a refund but life happens. Not being able to exchange it in the event that something comes up unless you member is ridiculous. Most places charge you an exchange fee. But the worst of it is using airline pricing where every 15 minutes, depending on a demand and availability the pricing changes is absolutely utterly ridiculous. Apparently they have made changes to their website since the last time I logged in. Since I use a password keeper, I don't have to wonder if I had the right username and password. Either way while I was struggling to login and reset my password the ticket prices went up $15 per ticket. They went up because of my usage on their website which is again insane. The Theatre community in general is in complete disarray since Covid and not much has improved. I'm way too aware of this having sat on one theatre's board for almost 9 years and watched another theater that I was an annual subscriber to collapse along with a second one that is hanging on by a thread. No need to call me to solicit donations. This way of running your business will never endear you to the general public at...

We were in box seats on the third floor on the east side of the theater so whole play took place in a bar scene the bar scene was on the east side of the theater we could not see the bar from where we were sitting only when the actors ran out into the middle of the floor could we see them the hearing was excellent but could not see the play those are the worst seats in the world if the main action is going to take part on the east side of the theater you cannot see that from the box seats on the third floor so I think the play was probably very very good because I've had other friends that I've seen it and really enjoyed it I didn't enjoy it because of the seats that we win when we complained about it we were given a chance to move to any seats that were available but if anybody came in and said those were their sheets we had to move and of course we didn't want to do that and it was three of us so this was not a good experience this particular time but I have been there countless of times countless of plays and I have never never had an experience like this so I will tell anybody that's thinking about going please go to any of the play that I had to Goodman Theater if you get the box seats you must inquire about how the stage is being set up so you will be able to see well that's about it...