Bites: What Actor Alanna Chavez Eats in a Day
Alanna Chavez grew up feeling quite alarmed by the phrase starving artist. But with roles like her current one in Porchlight Music Theatre’s production of Fun Home, she has proven […]
Review: Porchlight in Concert Brings Broadway Talent and a 40th Anniversary Sondheim Favorite to the Studebaker Theater
Chicago’s Porchlight Music Theatre is a standout among a crowded landscape of local production companies. Focused on musical theater, their shows—usually presented at the Ruth Page Center for the Arts […]
Review: Porchlight’s Anything Goes—Delightful… Delovely
Get your tickets and grab your seats. On the relatively small stage at the Ruth Page Center for the Arts, Porchlight Music Theatre is putting on a big, big show: […]
Preview: See Theater in the Parks This Summer With Midsommer Flight, Chicago Shakes and Porchlight Music
We can look forward to theater in public parks all over Chicago this summer—and all free. Midsommer Flight will stage Shakespeare’s Cymbeline from July 7 to August 13. Chicago Shakespeare […]
Essay: Divine Decadence—A Look Back at Porchlight’s I Am a Camera and Cabaret
Cabaret has always been about pushing boundaries. But it also has a rich and complicated past. This month Porchlight Music Theatre at the Ruth Page Center for the Arts offered not only […]
Review: At Porchlight, an Entertaining Cabaret Features Plenty of Talent but Not the Seriousness the Show Requires
Every season on Broadway, new American musicals premiere in the hopes of entering the country’s long and storied canon of productions that can be revisited and revived for decades to […]
Review: One Bad Apple Tree Spoils the Bunch in Porchlight Revisits
Musical theater nerds in Chicago are lucky to have Porchlight Theatre—if the venerable company (now in its 27th year) didn’t exist, we’d have to invent it. Besides mounting full productions […]
Review: A New Generation Tries to Capture the Bittersweet Pain and Transcendent Triumph of Rent in Porchlight’s Season Opener
Attending opening night of Porchlight Music Theatre’s season opener, Rent, was a peculiar proposition for me from the moment I RSVPed, but one I was willing to entertain for the […]
Review: Porchlight’s Excellent Spring Awakening Rings an Alarm
Just over 130 years ago, when the German Empire was young and the 19th century was old, the German expressionist playwright Frank Wedekind wrote eine Kindertragödie (the play’s subtitle) called […]
Review: Your Mama Didn’t Tell You to See Porchlight’s Blues in the Night, But We Did
Felicia P. Fields alone is worth a ticket to Porchlight Music Theatre’s production of Blues in the Night at the Ruth Page Center for the Arts. And that is not meant […]
Preview: Check Out These Virtual Theater Opportunities From Personal to Palooza
Chicago theater companies took a while to figure out how to respond to the COVID-19 lockdown and continuing restrictions. (And theater companies, small and large, are suffering debilitating financial losses […]
Chicago Theaters Go Virtual During the Virus; Goodman Streams School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play
In these “AC,” After COVID, times, Chicago theaters are offering online content to fill the gap of canceled shows and in-person instruction (as well as the yawning expanse of endless […]