HIS WAY: A TRIBUTE TO THE MAN AND HIS MUSIC, at the Chicago Center for the Performing Arts. This tony new theater, poised improbably beside a cement factory, features a handsome, intimate three-quarter thrust stage with bright acoustics and perfect sight lines, and it’s been given a name that makes it sound like a venerable Chicago institution. But I’m still worried–and not just because the clashing design disasters in the hotel-esque lobby are enough to make any tasteful theater queen run for his life. Inaugurating a theater with a commercial chestnut like Ron Hawking’s His Way, the Sinatra tribute that had an extended run at the Mercury Theater a couple years ago, suggests that progressive programming won’t be this place’s hallmark. And since the show probably drained its core audience then, it’s hardly surprising the place was only a third full on a recent Friday night.
