My first visit to Three Brothers Theatre was for an October showing of "House on Haunted Hill." I won tickets on Yelp (whoohoo!) so I was very much looking forward to a fun, inexpensive night out.
I'm not familiar with downtown Waukegan, but there was a "Zombie Wauk" going on at night which gave the town a lively, spooky feel. Three Brothers is down the street from a more swanky, high profile theater. TB is much smaller, casual, and more intimate.
We were greeted warmly by one of the employees who allowed us to use our program as a seat marker. We "reserved" the seats in the front row with the intention to come back later. Note: Do NOT go get a drink beforehand at the corner bar, La Opera. Don't do it. Anyway...
There isn't a bad seat in the house - there is one stage, front and center, surrounded by possibly 30-40 seats. There is no glamorous orchestra pit, intermissions, or scene changes. The beauty of amateur theater is in the acting and what they do with a single stage and a few props.
We returned to finding some people sitting in our seats. It didn't really matter, but it's useful to know that "reserving" doesn't mean anything if the other attendees are ignorant. At the end of the night, I was glad we ended up in the second row though.
The show we saw was entertaining, and again the acting was very impressive. "House on Haunted Hill" was a lot like "Clue" with the murder mystery element and dry humor.
I liked the relaxed atmosphere of the theater. It's also BYOB, which was evident when one woman in the audience hysterically laughed at every line, every dry joke, every expression...it became tiring, and people began to shoot her dirty looks. Even the actors had some difficulty stifling a laugh toward the end. This woman was incredibly obnoxious, I wondered how many bottles of wine she'd had. We started to wonder if maybe WE were missing something, and maybe this was meant to be some kind of slapstick comedy?
Three Brothers Theatre gets my approval, and I won't knock free tickets! Ticket prices are regularly $20/person. At $20, I think the theatre/show is overpriced. $20 would be a better deal if there were 2 shows back to back, or one longer production or...some other element. Something was missing for me to come back and spend $40 for both of us to see a show here. read more