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 […]
Eclipse’s Our Lady of 121st Street a Moving Character Study
Eclipse Theatre’s 2016 Stephen Adly Guirgis season was already off to a great start, and with Our Lady of 121st Street–the second entry of their playwright-centric season—Eclipse Theatre firmly cement […]
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, […]
Midsummer Merriment: BITE: A Pucking Queer Cabaret
On a hot midsummer’s night, two young couples stumble into a fairy forest and play out the mischief and trickery of knavish sprites and spirits, only to wake the next […]
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 […]
CST’s Doreen Sayegh Brings the Bard to the City of Big Shoulders with Shakespeare 400 Chicago
Doreen Sayegh has been a skosh busy. Playwright and quote-machine William Shakespeare died 400 years ago this year, and a few folks still like to produce his work, so […]
Actors of Theatre at the Center’s Odd Couple Try to Redefine “Space Oddity”
Before there was a film rendition, a sitcom, an animated sitcom featuring a cat and a dog, a revival sitcom featuring the 1980s, and finally yet another sitcom featuring Chandler […]
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 […]
Griffin’s Bat Boy A Bold, Bizarre Blast
The winner of the 2001 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Musical has, at long last, come to Chicago. Bat Boy: The Musical, in a triumphant Chicago premiere by Griffin Theatre […]
Company Transcends Its Era at Writers Theatre
It wasn’t immediately clear what to expect from Wednesday’s press opening of the 1970 Stephen Sondheim musical Company. On its first run, this musical was a smash hit, nominated for […]
The SpongeBob Musical Makes Joyous Chicago Splash
Some seem incredulous based on the piece of intellectual property that spawned this production; however, unlike a certain New York fiasco with a “friendly neighborhood Spider-Man,” The SpongeBob Musical […]