Playwright: Mitchell Fain . At: Theater Wit, 1229 W. Belmont Ave. Tickets: 773-975-8150; TheaterWit.org; $20-$29. Runs through: Dec. 23
In This Way Outta Santaland ( and other Xmas miracles ), actor/playwright Mitchell Fain rightly acknowledges that his world premiere show is in of itself a miracle. It's not every day a company like Theater Wit would give over its prime holiday programming slot to a performer and show that are not household names.
But Fain and Theater Wit artistic director Jeremey Wechsler have a long-standing professional relationship. That's because Fain has previously starred for eight years in Theater Wit's annual holiday one-man stage adaptation of David Sedaris' The Santaland Diaries.
So when Theater Wit found out that the rights were pulled to produce Santaland Diaries for 2016, the company out of loyalty and brave collaboration entertained Fain's idea to perform his own show as an insightful look into a Chicago actor's life around the holidays. The results are very touching and loads of fun.
Right from the start, Fain lays out the premise for This Way Outta Santaland as a sort of cozy evening gathering that you might expect at his own apartment. Fain's former roommate Meghan Murphy, a much-admired Chicago-area cabaret singer and actress, is on hand to perform songs to Julie B. Nichols' fine piano accompaniment. They also generally hang out, too.
To increase the show's inclusive atmosphere, Fain also poses questions to the audience. Sometimes the audience answers feed into his own stories or they can lead to a fun tangent. It's this free-form feeling that surely helps the show feel fresh each night.
But the core of This Way Outta Santaland is Fain's own personal stories that give audiences a peek into his own life as a gay, Jewish performer who ended up in Chicago after growing up in Rhode Island. Much is also made of Fain's own odd love of Christmastime, which grew out of his beloved godmother's well-studied take on the holiday after she married out of the faith.
Rather than sharing theater battle stories of performing more than 250 performances of The Santaland Diaries, Fain instead opts to reminisce how family life intruded to his work one holiday season. Hearing how Fain managed when faced with the news of his difficult mother being at death's door certainly gives pause to the fact that life's trials and tragedies don't adhere to convenient time tables.
This Way Outta Santaland may lack a tidy structure and story in the same way that Sedaris' Santaland Diaries was tied to his job as a Macy's Department Store elf. But as a new show uniquely tied to an engaging actor with lots of his own entertaining anecdotes to share, This Way Outta Santaland certainly fits the bill as a uniquely Chicago holiday experience.