Review: Choir Boy at Steppenwolf Is a Splendid Spectacle With a Flawed Script
It’s not easy growing up as a gay Black boy. Tarell Alvin McCraney’s play Choir Boy is the story of Pharus, a high school senior at the Charles R. Drew Prep School […]
Review: New Steppenwolf Ensemble Theater Sparkles With Seagull, in Which Everyone Is Miserable
Seagull by Anton Chekhov adapted by Yasen Peyankov
Review: At Steppenwolf Theatre, King James Is All About Friendship, Heartbreak and Basketball
It seems like it’s all about basketball but it really isn’t—until it finally is. King James, the wickedly funny world premiere play by Rajiv Joseph, is on stage at Steppenwolf […]
Review: Steppenwolf Opens 2021-22 Season With Tracy Letts’ Trio of Virtual Plays Set in an Off-Kilter World
Steppenwolf Theatre adds to its Steppenwolf Now series with three short plays by Tracy Letts, available virtually through October 24. These three pieces, totaling about 40 minutes, create the opening […]
Dialogs: Architecture Collides With Theater in Steppenwolf Podcast, “Collision,” Featuring AS+GG’s Gordon Gill
Theater and architecture share a creative bond in this edition of Steppenwolf Theatre’s Half Hour podcast series. The podcast features Gordon Gill, the architect for Steppenwolf’s new Arts and Education […]
Review: Steppenwolf’s Duchess! Duchess! Duchess! Skirts Issues in Favor of Entertainment
Many Americans seem to have a British-Royals obsession that has never made sense to me. Steppenwolf Theatre’s newest online production in its Steppenwolf NOW streaming series plays on that royals […]
Report: How Virtual Theater Can Expand the Influence of Local Theaters Post-Pandemic
Virtual theater has come in many forms during the last eight pandemic months. Our most recent theater review was actor/clown Bill Irwin’s new version of his bravura performance of On […]
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 […]
Review: At Steppenwolf Theatre, Tracy Letts’ Bug Exploits Our Skin-Crawling Anxieties
Bug starts out like a Sam Shepard play. Two lost souls in a seedy Oklahoma motel room. Fools for love. Agnes (Carrie Coon) is a waitress who’s dreading her ex-husband’s […]
Review: The Raw World of 13-Year-Olds Comes Alive in Steppenwolf’s Dance Nation
There is dancing in Dance Nation, now at Steppenwolf Theatre. It’s sometimes clumsy, sometimes graceful, and generally amateurish. Clare Barron’s play is about a crew of 13-year-old girls (and a […]
Review: Ladysmith Black Mambazo Propels Lovely Lyrical Lindiwe
Chicago and Durban, South Africa, have been Sister Cities since 1997, and spiritual siblings for far longer, as explored in the joyful world premiere of Lindiwe, written by Eric Simonson, […]
Review: In The Great Leap at Steppenwolf, Basketball and Chinese Politics Mix It Up
The Great Leap is an homage to basketball and to playwright Lauren Yee’s father—and also connects to Chinese history and politics and the country’s competitiveness with the West. Yee’s latest play […]