Review: Red Theater’s Hamlet Is Intimate and Text-Driven
It’s the top of the first act. As the lights come down and the guards enter, those familiar with Shakespeare’s famous piece know what is about to happen. The guards […]
Shattered Globe Theatre Reaches Euphoric Heights to Deal With Grief in Charly Evon Simpson’s Jump
Shattered Globe Theatre is snow staging the simultaneously heartbreaking and life-affirming Jump, by Charly Evon Simpson. The play saw its world premiere with PlayMakers Repertory Company in 2019 and made […]
Feature: Collaboraction Theatre Recreates 1955 Mississippi Murder Trial in New Film, Trial in the Delta: The Murder of Emmett Till
Collaboraction Theatre, which makes social change its mission, has created a powerful film based on the 1955 Mississippi murder of Chicago’s Emmett Till and the subsequent trial of two men […]
Review: A Midsummer Journey to the Subconscious with the Joffrey Ballet
I was not exactly expecting Puck and the other fairies when I sat down to watch the new production by the Joffrey Ballet. This Midsummer Night’s Dream is Sweden’s celebration […]
Review: At Goodman Theatre, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone Portrays Black Struggles 50 Years After Emancipation
The entire flow of Joe Turner’s Come and Gone is set in the kitchen of Seth and Bertha Holly’s boardinghouse—the heart of the home is an appropriate setting for a play that […]
Review: How I Learned What I Learned by Congo Square Theatre Is Wisdom on Being Black in America
Congo Square Theatre is celebrating a landmark anniversary of 25 years of producing and staging plays written by Black artists about the Black experience in America. Their production of August […]
Review: Izzard as Hamlet in a Solo Show—Madness in Great Ones Must Not Unwatched Go
A college student returns home to find that his uncle killed his father, married his mother and wants his nephew/son out of the picture. Typical family drama. But Hamlet is […]
Review: Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater Dazzles with New Work and Treasured Classics
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater is the platinum standard of Black culture in dance. A production from Alvin Ailey captures many facets of art and is much more than a […]
Review: At Northlight Theatre, Brooklyn Laundry Offers Biting Repartee and Emotional Nuance
Fran, a customer at Owen’s Brooklyn laundry, asks “Do you believe in God?” Owen replies “Why not?” In the first scene of John Patrick Shanley’s Brooklyn Laundry, the exchange sounds flippant. […]
Review: The Motive and the Cue Tells the Delicious Story of the 1964 Broadway Hamlet Directed by John Gielgud and Starring Richard Burton
The Motive and the Cue is a theater-lover’s dream, a deliciously funny and candid theater story. Directed by Sam Mendes (Empire of Light, The Ferryman), it’s a new play about the rehearsal period for […]
Review: The Trial of Pericles Examines Subversion of the Law in a Democracy
This week the Hellenic Museum presented its annual historic trial re-enactment. The Trial of Pericles: Hero or Tyrant? You Decide. was an imagined enactment of a trial for Pericles, the […]
Review: We Go to the Theater With the Kids—and We All Loved A Year With Frog and Toad at Chicago Children’s Theatre
Nothing makes children’s theater more fun than seeing it with a roomful of giggly squirmy grade schoolers. Usually I review new plays at Chicago Children’s Theatre during a weekend performance—with […]