Friday, July 20, 2018
What better company at the theater than summer campers? Especially in a show that not only asks you to be up for an adventure but to bring a fairy back to life. (Before noon.) No problem for…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:20PMThursday, July 19, 2018
The Broadway musical based on “The Color Purple” tried out in Atlanta in 2004. Sitting there in Georgia, I admired the zest and accessibility of the score and, in particular, the artful …
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:20PMOn Wednesday, Chance the Rapper announced that he had purchased a dormant news-and-culture website called Chicagoist from the New York public radio station WNYC. His means of doing so — sh…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:40PMWednesday, July 18, 2018
Michael Shannon, his acerbic biography in the program at A Red Orchid Theatre informs, is soon to be enshrined in wax at Madame Tussauds near Times Square. A lifetime achievement, for sure, …
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:00PMTen years ago — shudder — I pointed my Honda toward Munster, Ind., to check out a new musical about one of the Hoosier State’s most vaunted citizens: Coach Knute Kenneth Rockne of the …
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 10:10AMTuesday, July 17, 2018
“Heartbreak Hotel,” the biographical Elvis musical from the creator of the Broadway shows “Million Dollar Quartet” and “Baby It’s You,” begins with a spirited gospel performanc…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:45PMMonday, July 16, 2018
“Hamilton: The Exhibition,” the ambitious, tented attraction that aims to immerse fans of the hit Broadway musical in the life and nonfictional times of its central character, is postpon…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 05:30PMLifeline Theatre, the venerable and ensemble-based Rogers Park arts institution known for its theatrical adaptations of literary classics, has a new artistic director. It’s Ilesa Duncan, t…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:30PM“I’ve taken some hits,” observes Stacy Keach, playing Ernest Hemingway in the solo play “Pamplona” at the Goodman Theatre. The venerable, courageous actor might well have been spea…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:15PMSunday, July 15, 2018
The final Chicago performance of "The Cher Show" at the Oriental Theatre was cancelled Sunday afternoon after a technical malfunction. Instead of the planned performance of the pre-Broadway …
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 08:45PMThursday, July 12, 2018
Steppenwolf Theatre has announced a July 16 memorial service for Claude Binder, the theater’s former production manager and general manager. Binder died July 1 from cancer. He was 65. A St…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 11:30AMTuesday, July 10, 2018
"We got such a kick out of doing the Tony Awards," Sara Bareilles said the other day, over the phone as she walked around Los Angeles. "Josh and me? We're such theater nerds. And we've been …
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:20PMThe Court Theatre — the long-established Chicago theater in residence at the University of Chicago — has a new executive director from outside the theater industry. Court will announce T…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 10:15AMSunday, July 8, 2018
Born at Saint Francis Hospital in Evanston, the narrator of Adam Rapp’s new play, “The Sound Inside,” has ascended to one of those professorships, both tenured and scarce, teaching cre…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 11:30AMThursday, July 5, 2018
On July 1, Neil Young played a sold-out concert at Chicago's historic Auditorium Theatre, part of the music legend's summer solo tour. Young saw great historical resonance in the gig, remind…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:00PMTuesday, July 3, 2018
Above A Red Orchid Theatre in Old Town, there's a room. It's supposedly the A Red Orchid Theatre office, but it also has the air of a kitchen, or a basement, or a Chicago apartment shared by…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:35PMMonday, July 2, 2018
There is an atypical new comedy at the Goodman Theatre. Written and directed by women, it is a knowing, highly critical and laugh-out-loud funny work about a group of Americans in crisis: me…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 08:30PMSunday, July 1, 2018
Sharon is a shy, 50-ish Iowan whose kitchen is filled with mason jars and decorated tiles, and who never locks her doors. Robyn is a confident vegan from the Bronx with no affinity for Midwe…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 08:00PMFriday, June 29, 2018
In 2010, a captive whale named Tilikum killed his trainer, Dawn Brancheau, by grabbing the 40-year-old woman’s ponytail and pulling her into the water. This was the third death of a human …
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:10PMTwo crucial, unmet challenges are faced by “The Cher Show,” the far-from-finished new musical that celebrates one of the most resilient and self-transformative figures in American entert…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:00AMThursday, June 28, 2018
After 35 years of stuttering starts, empty promises, a court-ordered sale and oft-reckless neglect, the 4,381-seat, 46,000-square-foot Uptown Theatre — once the gilded crown jewel of the B…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 10:00PMTuesday, June 26, 2018
In 2009, a beautiful play called “Graceland” by a then-unknown Chicago writer named Ellen Fairey, opened at the now-defunct Profiles Theatre in Chicago. At the time, Fairey was waiting t…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:15PMMonday, June 25, 2018
The pop-culture polyglot known as Cher snuck quietly into Chicago this past weekend. She was here to see three weekend preview performances of “The Cher Show,” a new Broadway musical abo…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 11:40AMSunday, June 24, 2018
A girl of roughly middle-school age was directly in my field of vision Saturday night at the Den Theatre’s mainstage. She was part of a large group of kids who had been taken to the show a…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:20PMFriday, June 22, 2018
After a long period of inactivity, the mainstage of Chicago’s Royal George Theatre is roaring back to life this fall with a new commercial production of “The Woman in Black,” a show th…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 07:00AMThursday, June 21, 2018
It's warm out. Fancy a road trip? Let's take a look at a few options for combining that excursion with some live performance. If you've been reading my column all these years (and thank you)…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 08:00AMWednesday, June 20, 2018
On May 29, D. Nicholas Rudall, actor, director, translator, founding director of the Court Theatre and professor emeritus of classics at the University of Chicago, sent a message to 100 peop…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:00PMTuesday, June 19, 2018
A new biographical, musical inspired by the life of Michael Jackson, is headed to Broadway, with arrival expected in 2020. The playwright Lynn Nottage, who has two Pulitzer Prizes, will writ…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 10:00AMFriday, June 15, 2018
Here’s something no one anticipated when the Harris Theater for Music and Dance was built in 2003: it would begin to function as a neighborhood venue. Here’s something I never anticipate…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 07:00AMThursday, June 14, 2018
Jacob Harvey, artistic director of the Greenhouse Theater Center since 2016, is exiting the position, effective on Friday. William Spatz, who owns the producing and presenting operation, loc…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:15PMWednesday, June 13, 2018
At one point in Monty Cole’s uber-contemporary “Hamlet” — at the Gift Theatre in Jefferson Park — the title character turns his back on the audience, picks up a can of red spray pa…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:10PM 
