All stories by Aaron Hunt on BroadwayStars

Monday, April 25, 2016

Review: The Lion in Winter/ Promethean Theatre Ensemble by Aaron Hunt

RECOMMENDED James Goldman’s 1966 period piece with contemporary colloquialisms has played the world over, buoyed by the success of the 1968 film starring Katharine Hepburn and Peter O’To…

SOURCE: www.newcitystage.com at 05:00PM
Thursday, April 21, 2016

Review: Evita/Marriott Theatre by Aaron Hunt

Andrew Lloyd Webber’s rock oratorio “Evita” sings a story that never tires in its retelling: the disenfranchised individual, working with their particular skill set and virtually on th…

SOURCE: www.newcitystage.com at 04:00PM
Wednesday, February 24, 2016

Review: Romeo and Juliet/Lyric Opera of Chicago by Aaron Hunt

RECOMMENDED Perhaps best known for the heroine’s waltz song, which arrives in the first act and isn’t quite equaled for sparkling melody thereafter, there is still much music to savor in…

SOURCE: www.newcitystage.com at 01:00PM
Tuesday, February 23, 2016

Review: The Tempest/Saint Sebastian Players by Aaron Hunt

RECOMMENDED Shakespeare’s problematic play “The Tempest” is a heady undertaking for any theater company. Never mind the need to replicate an onstage shipwreck. Culminating in the playw…

SOURCE: www.newcitystage.com at 10:00AM
Thursday, February 11, 2016

Review: Far From Heaven/ Porchlight Music Theatre by Aaron Hunt

RECOMMENDED “Far From Heaven,” the acclaimed 2002 film starring the translucent Julianne Moore, was penned and directed by Todd Haynes and shot using the carefully composed color…

SOURCE: www.newcitystage.com at 04:00PM
Thursday, February 4, 2016

The Return of the Ring Heads: An In-Depth Look at Lyric Opera of Chicago’s Next Season, Anchored by the Start of a New Ring Cycle by Aaron Hunt

By Aaron Hunt Lyric has announced its electric, eclectic 2016/17 season. If you’re already an operagoer, this is a major opportunity to put seldom-heard notches in your production belt. If…

SOURCE: www.newcitystage.com at 12:00PM
Tuesday, February 2, 2016

Review: Mothers and Sons/Northlight Theatre by Aaron Hunt

RECOMMENDED Memory is dampened by medical advances, giving succor to those who want to believe AIDS is now a manageable disease. With a generation erased, who is left to remember and tell th…

SOURCE: www.newcitystage.com at 01:00PM
Monday, January 25, 2016

Review: Nabucco/Lyric Opera of Chicago by Aaron Hunt

RECOMMENDED “Nabucco” established Verdi’s preeminence as an operatic composer not only with its winding melodies and passionate declamations but because it struck a nerve with a popula…

SOURCE: www.newcitystage.com at 10:00AM
Monday, January 18, 2016

Review: The Duchess of Malfi/Trap Door Theatre by Aaron Hunt

RECOMMENDED “The Duchess of Malfi” is not a perfect play. The plot jolts, character motivations are incoherent, it is occasionally verbose when it should move like lightening and vice-ve…

SOURCE: www.newcitystage.com at 10:00AM
Wednesday, December 9, 2015

Review: Bel Canto/Lyric Opera of Chicago by Aaron Hunt

RECOMMENDED As the latest torrents of terrorism shatter our souls with their senseless deaths and enhanced suspicions, Lyric Opera of Chicago’s world-premiere production of “Bel Canto”…

SOURCE: www.newcitystage.com at 06:00PM
Thursday, November 19, 2015

Review: Clara and the Nutcracker/Piccolo Theatre by Aaron Hunt

RECOMMENDED If you’ve groused about Christmas decorations already taking over the seasonal aisle of Walgreens, grumbled about the Christmas tree already glistening from behind the draperi…

SOURCE: www.newcitystage.com at 05:30PM
Wednesday, November 18, 2015

Review: The Merry Widow/Lyric Opera of Chicago by Aaron Hunt

RECOMMENDED Franz Lehár’s beloved, wildly successful operetta “The Merry Widow” will woo and then suspend in delicious wistfulness even the staunchest objector to its inclusion i…

SOURCE: www.newcitystage.com at 07:30PM
Tuesday, November 17, 2015

Review: You Can’t Take It With You/Northlight Theatre by Aaron Hunt

From the program notes of Northlight Theatre’s “You Can’t Take It With You”: “The Sycamore family lives in Morningside Heights, which was a distinctly middle-class neighborho…

SOURCE: www.newcitystage.com at 12:00PM
Saturday, November 14, 2015

Review: The Lisbon Traviata/Eclipse Theatre Company by Aaron Hunt

Eclipse Theatre Company ends their Terrance McNally season with “The Lisbon Traviata.” The author of the Maria Callas-centric play “Master Class”, “The Lisbon Traviata” …

SOURCE: www.newcitystage.com at 03:30AM
Friday, November 6, 2015

Review: Irving Berlin’s White Christmas/Drury Lane Theatre by Aaron Hunt

RECOMMENDED A film-to-stage musical enjoying regional success, “White Christmas” is based on the 1954 movie of the same name. Starring Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney and Vera-…

SOURCE: www.newcitystage.com at 07:45PM
Monday, November 2, 2015

Review: Wozzeck/Lyric Opera of Chicago by Aaron Hunt

RECOMMENDED Lyric Opera of Chicago launched its season with two confections—cakes appeared on stage in both—and now moves on to meat. If “Le Nozze di Figaro” and “Cenerentola” fo…

SOURCE: www.newcitystage.com at 04:25PM
Saturday, October 10, 2015

Review: The Learned Ladies of Park Avenue/Dead Writers Theatre Collective by Aaron Hunt

RECOMMENDED The Dead Writers Theatre Collective focuses on presenting classic pieces in the style and ethos of the period in which they were first produced, and they do so with great verve a…

SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 10:45AM
Saturday, October 3, 2015

Review: A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder/Broadway in Chicago by Aaron Hunt

RECOMMENDED This little operetta dinghy overcame modest box office and, proving the critics right for once, sailed away with the 2014 Tony Award for Best Musical. No small feat in an era whe…

SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 09:30AM
Wednesday, September 30, 2015

Review: Blood Brothers/Theo Ubique Cabaret Theatre by Aaron Hunt

RECOMMENDED Willy Russell, playwright of “Educating Rita” and “Shirley Valentine,” wrote the book, music and lyrics for the folk cantata “Blood Brothers,” which ran for twenty-fo…

SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 01:45PM
Tuesday, September 29, 2015

Review: Love and Information/Remy Bumppo by Aaron Hunt

RECOMMENDED Remember banker’s boxes? Those white, cardboard, 10″H x 12″W x 15″D storage bins that arrived flattened, to be unfolded and refolded until they took a shape t…

SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 05:00PM
Monday, September 28, 2015

Review: Le nozze di Figaro/Lyric Opera of Chicago by Aaron Hunt

RECOMMENDED With a splash of commedia dell’arte, a spoonful of Restoration comedy, and pounds of clowning, director Barbara Gaines has exploded the up-and-downstairs Mozartian confecti…

SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 05:45PM
Friday, September 25, 2015

Review: Lucio Silla/Chicago Opera Theater by Aaron Hunt

RECOMMENDED Chicago’s opera enthusiasts must be collectively humming as the 2015/2016 opera season explodes on the scene with two Mozart operas, “Lucio Silla” at Chicago Opera Theater,…

SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 04:00PM
Thursday, September 17, 2015

Review: Side Show/Porchlight Music Theatre by Aaron Hunt

RECOMMENDED Despite four Tony Award nominations, “Side Show” seemed destined for the Forgotten Musicals shelf. But after enjoying success in regional theater, the show was reworked, and …

SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 02:00PM
Friday, August 28, 2015

Review: October Sky/Marriott Theatre by Aaron Hunt

RECOMMENDED From Homer J. Hickam’s memoir, to a Universal Studios film, comes a musical retelling of an ageless, American story of the right, and the ability, to rise above one’s circums…

SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 05:00PM
Wednesday, August 5, 2015

Review: Stanley in the Name of Love/The New Colony by Aaron Hunt

RECOMMENDED Follow the fluorescent yellow paint on the floor through a dark, winding corridor, and you’ll find yourself immersed in the ethos of the secretive gay bars of the 1970s. A few …

SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 12:00PM
Friday, July 31, 2015

Review: Pippin/Broadway In Chicago by Aaron Hunt

RECOMMENDED Mind-numbing with its soft-rocky up-tempo songs and pop-ish ballads, the 1973 and 2014 Tony Award-winning “Pippin” continues to charm all save the occasional music lover. If …

SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 08:59AM
Friday, July 24, 2015

Training Ground: Young Artists Pay it Forward at Chicago Summer Opera’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” by Aaron Hunt

By Aaron Hunt Chicago Summer Opera advertises itself as another of our city’s startup, storefront, non-profit operatic enterprises; its title promises a spoonful of gastronomical respite a…

SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 02:00PM
Friday, July 10, 2015

Review: Kinky Boots/Broadway In Chicago by Aaron Hunt

Having first been groomed in Chicago, “Kinky Boots” won the 2013 Tony Award for Best Musical. Rock icon Cyndi Lauper finagled Best Score, despite its jumps from song to song without conn…

SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 02:23PM
Friday, July 3, 2015

Review: The Chicago Musical Theatre Festival/Underscore Theatre Company by Aaron Hunt

How To Run For Mayor The Chicago Musical Theatre Festival provides an important birthing-space for Chicago-connected, nascent musical theater to access our city’s storefront-ethos, where n…

SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 11:34AM
Friday, June 19, 2015

Review: City of Angels/Marriott Theatre by Aaron Hunt

RECOMMENDED I thought a show where the colorful people stayed on one side of the stage while the colorless people stayed on the other, plot lines fizzled, and the leading players were a scre…

SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 09:15AM
Tuesday, June 9, 2015

Review: Love and Human Remains/Cor Theatre by Aaron Hunt

RECOMMENDED Playwright Brad Fraser examines the nature of true love through the tortured lens of fetishism, idolatry and narcissism in his spectacularly vivid play “Love and Human Remains.…

SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 04:00PM

All that Chat

2023-2024 BROADWAY SEASON
May 30, 2023: Grey House - Lyceum Theatre
Jun 26, 2023: Just For Us - Hudson Theatre
Jul 24, 2023: The Cottage - Hayes Theater
Nov 16, 2023: Spamalot - St. James Theatre
Dec 18, 2023: Appropriate - Hayes Theater
Mar 07, 2024: Doubt - Todd Haimes Theatre
Apr 14, 2024: Lempicka - Longacre Theatre
Apr 17, 2024: The Wiz - Marquis Theatre
Apr 18, 2024: Suffs - Music Box Theatre
Apr 25, 2024: Mother Play - Hayes Theater
Jun 10, 2024: The Drama Desk Awards