Sunday, December 16, 2018
Despite the gentle, bucolic, fair-weather reverie implied by the famous title, director Joe Dowling’s truly eye-popping new production of William Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s D…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:30PMThursday, December 13, 2018
Ever since Gregory Peck, the Tom Hanks of his moment, starred in the film version of Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird" in 1962, the small-town lawyer Atticus Finch has been a symbol of Am…
Linked From New York Daily News at 09:00PMWednesday, December 12, 2018
Wither forgiveness in a year of constant American division? That question was at the core of many of the best Chicago shows of 2018 as this theater-loving city explored questions of guilt, p…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:00PMDrive down Howard Street — the border boulevard betwixt Chicago and Evanston — and you may be surprised to see the exterior of a modestly scaled but beautifully clad theater, the all-new…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:20PMMortality was on the Broadway menu this year — most all of the best works of the calendar year shed light on the pain of the human condition, especially once we’re past the first blush o…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 09:15AMTuesday, December 11, 2018
Who is Isaac Gomez? If you live outside of the world of nonprofit theater, you may not know. As recently as 2013, Gomez was an undergraduate student at the University of Texas at Austin. He …
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:45PMMonday, December 10, 2018
Gitta Jacobs, whom her son Clay Jacobs said died peacefully in her Gold Coast home Friday at the age of 85, probably served as a director of more small Chicago theaters than any other single…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 07:00PMDuring the peak holiday weeks, the Goodman Theatre likes to have an irreverent seasonal attraction on the smaller of its two stages — something to attract a young adult audience less inter…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:20PMFriday, December 7, 2018
“Algorithm Nation or, The Static Quo” is the first opening on the legendary mainstage of Second City since the fantastic “Dream Freaks Fall from Space" debuted on that legendary platfo…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:10PMThursday, December 6, 2018
Americans were mad as hell and not going to take it anymore in 1976. And — take a look outside your window — they’re still mad as hell and not going to take it anymore in 2018. But the…
Linked From New York Daily News at 10:00PMAt the top of “The Play That Goes Wrong,” the touring comedy from London and Broadway now making its debut in Chicago, an apology is issued from the stage. There has been a ticket mix-up…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:20PMWednesday, December 5, 2018
The door to the Uptown Theatre swung open. Dan Rather laughed. And the faces of REO Speedwagon all lit up like Christmas trees. The juxtaposition of personalities — the famed anchorman was…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:00PMTuesday, December 4, 2018
Fans of Theo Ubique Theatre, the diminutive, distinguished Chicago theater that really started the now-buoyant trend of micro-musicals in Chicago, have been left nibbling cold turkey this fa…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:25PMMonday, December 3, 2018
Even jukebox musicals and celebrity bio-shows need clear reasons for theatrical being. In her one-woman show, Elaine Stritch memorably described herself as a “existential problem in tights…
Linked From New York Daily News at 09:00PMFriday, November 30, 2018
There is an excellent play buried inside Spenser Davis’ “Plainclothes,” an ambitious but overstuffed situation comedy from Chicago’s burgeoning Broken Nose Theatre. Possibly an entir…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:30PMThursday, November 29, 2018
Twenty years ago, something strange called American Girl Place opened in Chicago. It was years ahead of its time. In fact, only now is it becoming clear just how far ahead the thinking behin…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 08:00AMTuesday, November 27, 2018
The aptly named “Familiar,” now at the Steppenwolf Theatre Company under the skilled direction of Danya Taymor, is a fine example of the kind of play that many well-educated children of …
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:40PMMonday, November 26, 2018
Ricky Jay, who died last Saturday, was the most genial, smart and loquacious magician you ever could hope to meet. Looking back on all the magic shows I’ve reviewed over the years in Chica…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:00PMThursday, November 22, 2018
On Thanksgiving Eve at the Oriental Theatre, several hundred of us took time to give thanks for an all-American freedom of expression — the precious right to make fun of our elders, spoof …
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:00PMReady to plan your holiday theater-going? Let me see if I can help. Everything mentioned in this column has been reviewed in, and recommended by, the Tribune, either this year or not too lon…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 08:00AMWednesday, November 21, 2018
The touchstone of the glorious Disney animation renaissance, “Beauty and the Beast” had eight masterful songs by Howard Ashman and Alan Menken when it was released as a movie: the likes …
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 06:10PMHow’s your week going? Let’s hope more smoothly than for the tinny hero of the gorgeous new show at Lookingglass Theatre who, in short order, is tormented by a big baby, propelled from a…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:25PMAnyone who studied Jane Austen — or read her novels for pleasure — will tell you one thing above all else. She wrote juicy, deeply complex characters. This is why her six major novels ha…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 08:00AMTuesday, November 20, 2018
The usual admonition to turn off your cell phones has a particular intensity at “The Woman in Black,” now at the Royal George Theatre. “We use very low level levels of light in this pr…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 11:45AMMonday, November 19, 2018
Given the excitement occasioned by 29-year-old Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, now the youngest woman ever to be elected to the United States Congress, dollars to donuts that a lot of people in TV…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:30PMThe Cirque du Soleil will return to Chicago in 2019. But its tent will be pitched not outside the United Center, as has been the case for years, but in the south parking lot of Soldier Field…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 11:15AMSunday, November 18, 2018
Some 26 years after its signature chopper first descended on the Auditorium Theatre, “Miss Saigon” is back in Chicago and still out-selling every other show in town. (Except one, which h…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:30PMFriday, November 16, 2018
William Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night” takes its name from the coming of the Feast of the Epiphany — probably now best known as the day when you’re supposed to take down your holida…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:30PMThursday, November 15, 2018
Hoosiers are a great mystery to the people of Broadway. Apparently, they live in small, economically challenged towns best flown over. They insist on homophobic traditional values and, when …
Linked From New York Daily News at 10:00PMWhat should be the arts policy of the new administration headed by the incoming Democratic governor of the State of Illinois, J.B. Pritzker? You cannot answer that question without also aski…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:55PMWednesday, November 14, 2018
“The Last Session” — which I doubt you have seen staged before — is surely the only gospel-infused musical that deals with the AIDS crisis that plagued America in the waning years of…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:00PM 
