Arts & Entertainment
John C. Reilly Coming Home to Chicago With ‘Mister Romantic’ at Steppenwolf
Actor John C. Reilly has had a storied career — from pulling at people’s heart strings in the film adaptation of the musical “Chicago” to making comedy classics like “Step Brothers.” Now, he’s touring with his own vaudeville show aptly named “Mister Romantic.”
Reilly calls it an “emotional magic show.” Each performance, the titular character Mister Romantic emerges from a steamer trunk with only the knowledge that he’s supposed to perform for the audience and find someone that night to love him forever. That pursuit, however, will always prove futile and so the “eternal quest” continues.
“It sounds kind of silly maybe at first, like talking about being in love or trying to get them to fall in love with you,” Reilly said. “But when you talk about what love is and could you love someone forever, the conversation gets surprisingly deep really fast. But I keep it really light.”
Mister Romantic serenades audience members with songs Reilly has collected over the years like “What’ll I Do” by Irving Berlin and the classic jazz standard “Dream a Little Dream of Me.” There are also numbers from the Great American Songbook, performed alongside his band filled with Grammy-nominated musicians.
The character draws from Reilly’s experience playing Amos Hart in “Chicago.” Both Hart and Romantic share a vaudevillian sensibility and longing for love.
“One of the people who inspired me to do this show was my mom,” Reilly said. “She taught me a lot of these songs. It’s really like carrying on her mission. My mom was a really loving person who thought of everyone first all the time before herself. So it was a selfless mission she was on, and she’s definitely passed it on to me.”
Reilly called his run as Mister Romantic something that’s brought greater meaning to his life. Leaning into projects about empathy and human connectivity, the Oscar-nominated actor recently decided to sign on as an executive producer of a short documentary called “Stalin Boys.”
It follows a group of middle school students in rural Texas who write and stage a play about Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin for the state’s History Day competition.
Reilly said the story resonated with him.
“I’ve been doing plays since I was 8 years old, and that imaginative kind of inspired, like, passionate, dream-making was something I really related to,” Reilly said. “It’s really a portrait of young imagination. … It just reminded me, everyone starts from a small place. I started from the field house at Marquette Park on the Southwest Side doing plays, and I thought, ‘These kids need a hand up, too.’”
“Stalin Boys” is out now on the New York Times Op-Docs page and “Mister Romantic” will be at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre from Dec. 10-13.
WTTW News arts coverage is supported by the JCS Arts, Health & Education Fund of the DuPage Foundation.
