Mary-Arrchie Theatre Ends Its Run with Abbie Fest XVIII
Mary-Arrchie’s theater space at Angel Island is gone, but the theater closes out its history with a final event in the spirit of “Abbie Hoffman Died for Our Sins.” The […]
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.
Einstein’s Gift: Compelling Story of Two Scientists’ Approach to War and Life
Einstein’s Gift, the compelling new production being staged by Genesis Theatricals, is that most satisfying kind of play. It’s rich with historical detail and scandal and ripe with questions for […]
Byhalia, Mississippi, Portrays Issues of Class, Race and Family in a Nowhere Town
Byhalia, Mississippi, is one of those nowhere, dead-end small towns that no one wants to live in. Except for the young woman from somewhere else, who just gave birth to […]
Direct from Death Row: The Scottsboro Boys, a Riveting Tale in Narrative & Vaudeville
Direct from Death Row: The Scottsboro Boys fools you into thinking you’re getting a straight retelling of the events and trials of the nine young African-American men who were falsely […]
SoloChicago: A Theater Startup in a City of Theaters: An Interview
It takes a certain amount of chutzpah to start a new theater company in a city that might be considered saturated with storefronts. But Ron Keaton and Kurt Johns […]
Goodman’s War Paint Offers Glamour and Spectacle, Little Substance
My ratings for War Paint: — Scene design and costumes? Four stars. — Performances of its leading actors? Three stars plus. — Sophistication and nuances of its story, smart dialogue, […]
Steppenwolf’s Between Riverside and Crazy: Wildly Funny and Profane, Touched by Today’s Drama
The setting was once a large and elegant apartment on Riverside Drive in Manhattan. There’s a spacious living room and a view of the Hudson River. The place has a […]
Steep Theatre’s Wastwater: Three Tense Stories About the Choices We Make
Frieda, an Englishwoman of indeterminate age, is one of the links among the three parts of Wastwater, a new play by English playwright Simon Stephens in its U.S. premiere at […]
Gift Theatre’s Grapes of Wrath Weaves Powerful Human Story of Depression Eras
The Gift Theatre’s eloquent new production of The Grapes of Wrath is a story of Dust Bowl migrants during the Great Depression of the 1930s, but it bears witness […]
Driehaus Museum Shows Art & Satire of Gilded Age in Puck Magazine Exhibit
Puck, the 19th century literary-political-humor magazine, was revolutionary in ridiculing everything about Gilded Age society through cartoons created by gifted artists of the period. With a Wink and a […]
The Unfortunates: A Woman’s Story of Poverty & Prostitution in Victorian London
The Unfortunates, staged by the new SoloChicago Theatre Company, is an excellent second outing from the company that produced the hit one-man show, Churchill, starring Ronald Keaton, in 2015. […]
Aaron Siskind’s Photos: Defining Abstract Expressionism
[soliloquy id=”5562″] Aaron Siskind’s photographs are so painterly that you will at first mistake them for abstract expressionism. Of course, that’s what they are. The beautifully curated exhibit at […]