Nancy S. Bishop is publisher and Stages editor of Third Coast Review. She’s a member of the American Theatre Critics Association and a 2014 Fellow of the National Critics Institute at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center. You can read her personal writing on pop culture at nancybishopsjournal.com, and follow her on Twitter @nsbishop. She also writes about film, books, art, architecture and design.
Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde is a documentary-style play set in a courtroom. Lest you think that sounds dry, it isn’t. The script is flush with the […]
Winterset is a tough and beautiful play. Griffin Theatre’s production of Maxwell Anderson’s Depression-era play, directed by Jonathan Berry, is admirable, simply staged and appropriately performed, and, for the most […]
Remy Bumppo Theatre’s new production of George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion is a sparkling, proto-feminist version of the classic 1912 script. Director Shawn Douglass makes sure we capture every word of […]
Shakespeare on Film is a carefully curated array of film adaptations of Shakespearean plays, beginning this week and running until January 3 at the Gene Siskel Film Center. This is […]
Nelson Algren was a star in Chicago’s bright literary firmament, but his light dimmed in the years after he won the 1950 National Book Award for The Man With the […]
(Author’s note: We published this review almost six years ago and we think it’s interesting to read today, as Prince Charles ascends to the throne as King Charles III, upon […]
Pop-Up Magazine, a live magazine featuring multimedia stories with animation, photos, film, illustration and an original soundtrack, will present a storytelling show this Saturday at 7:30pm at the Harris Theatre […]
The Little Flower of East Orange at Eclipse Theatre is a play of family turmoil that features colorful side characters as well as the tortured family members—mother, son and daughter. […]
Fun Home, the prize-winning show (five 2015 Tonys including best musical), opened at the Oriental Theatre last week for a very short run. The play, based on Alison Bechdel’s best-selling […]
Betrayal is a brisk 75-minute journey over the seven years of a love affair and its aftermath. The betrayals are multiple. Two marriages and a lifelong friendship. The lovers betray […]
Red Theater is issuing a writing challenge to Chicago’s current and future playwrights. Write a new short play every day in November—all 30 days–and post it according to challenge rules. […]
A bottle tree is a Southern tradition with African roots. As an urban northerner, I never heard of such a thing, although I’m familiar with voodoo culture in Louisiana and […]