Sunday, February 17, 2019
Never mind Ross, Rachel, Joey, Phoebe, Chandler and Monica for a second. Forget The Ophthalmologist, The Ugly Naked Guy, The One With the Monkey, The Ones Where Everyone Got Paid One Million…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:45PMThursday, February 14, 2019
Did you know you die three times? According to Abe — the deep-thinking character played by Jake Gyllenhaal, no less, in the depressing double bill at the Public Theater — you actually co…
Linked From New York Daily News at 10:00PM“Dear Evan Hansen” is one of those rare Broadway musicals to seep into the consciousness of its target demographic — the first national tour opened at the newly renamed Nederlander The…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:10PM“Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough,” the new Broadway musical about the life and work of Michael Jackson, has canceled its Chicago tryout, slated for this fall. A New York spokesman for…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:40PMWednesday, February 13, 2019
So excruciating were the acceptance speeches at Sunday night’s Grammy Awards that Trevor Noah compared them to irritating people who wait in line at Chipotle, “get to the front and go, …
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:45PMIn 1991, the Steppenwolf Theatre Company opened its $8.28 million theater at 1650 N. Halsted St., finally jettisoning its old digs in a converted dairy barn. It picked the American premiere …
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 08:00AMTuesday, February 12, 2019
Mel Brooks was ecstatic. Anne Bancroft danced on a nearby table. Matthew Broderick chuckled. Even Nathan Lane cracked a smile. “The Producers” was a hit. In fact, the spin-off musical fr…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:40PMWith major new funding from the property developer Sterling Bay, the Harris Theater plans a diverse and ambitious 2019-20 season, including visits from Bangarra Dance Theatre of Australia an…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:15PMMonday, February 11, 2019
A bad marriage — I hear — can feel like a trap. Slamming the door on a lousy union can be cathartic. Even if you have no idea what awaits you on the other side. But here’s something to…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:00PMSunday, February 10, 2019
City of Chicago is to officially announce Monday that $1 million has been secured in new funding to support the 2019 Year of Chicago Theatre initiative that officially begins this week, in t…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:45PMMother with teenagers — a demographic famous for ignoring its own fragility — invariably worry about them. But African-American mothers, innumerable data points confirm, have particular …
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:30PMThursday, February 7, 2019
Now in its Chicago premiere from the Remy Bumppo Theatre Company, Florian Zeller’s “The Father” is a play about dementia, that late-in-life affliction that can take down a giant person…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:55PMWednesday, February 6, 2019
When the next big artistic job opens up in Chicago theater, I’ve got a name for the recruiters: Vanessa Stalling. In show after show, Stalling keeps making the case that her directing work…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 08:00AMTuesday, February 5, 2019
When the name of your theater company is Broken Nose Theatre, the temptation must arise to live up to your own billing. If not broken noses, bruised cheeks, tired calves and a whopping heada…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:20PMMonday, February 4, 2019
Nina Simone seemed happy in the 1980s, singing in Ronnie Scott’s swinging London jazz club, a resident European star in front an adoring audience, wowing with the incomparable diversity of…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:00PMThursday, January 31, 2019
If they gave out awards for acting with your eyeballs, Matt Crowle would have no competition whatsoever. He can throw ’em back into his head, cross ’em nine ways to Sunday and, in a part…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:00PM“Howard Schultz — more bitter than his coffee,” tweeted the TV screenwriter Warren Leight on Wednesday, part of a torrent of social-media abuse, much of it from Hollywood, aimed at the…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 08:00AMWednesday, January 30, 2019
To watch Ayad Akhtar’s “Junk,” an exciting, ambitious play about the glorification of hostile takeovers and the human costs of leveraged buyouts, in its 2017 Broadway premiere at New Y…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:50PMTuesday, January 29, 2019
You can make a killing in the theater, but not a living, goes the theatrical cliche. The playwright Steven Dietz, whose work never has been seen on Broadway, has achieved precisely the rever…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:25PMThe ambition inherent in Christina Anderson’s heady, poetic and ambitious new play at the Goodman Theatre is right there in its title: “How to Catch Creation.” That’s quite a challen…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:30PMTickets are to go on sale at 10 a.m. Feb. 15 to “Hamilton: The Exhibition,” the latest high-profile project involving Lin-Manuel Miranda and the creative team behind the hit Broadway mus…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:00AMMonday, January 28, 2019
In the worlds of science, journalism, tech, business and politics, hypothesizing is a whole lot sexier than offering proof. Come to think of it — and Anna Ziegler’s terrific new play at …
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:30PMSunday, January 27, 2019
Life teaches us that the funniest people we know often have been through the most personal trauma. You can see that with professional comedians, of course, and it can lead them into trouble.…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:00PMFriday, January 25, 2019
Over the years, Chicago’s famous storefront-theater community occasionally has turned the lens upon itself. But in every such case that I recall, these shows have romanticized the struggle…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:00PMThursday, January 24, 2019
In 2004, a group of terrorists demanding independence for Chechnya descended upon School Number One in Beslan, Russia, taking more than 1,100 people hostage. By the time the so-called Beslan…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:50PMHidden away in boxes and barns — or merely hanging in sumptuous plain sight — the gorgeous chandeliers and fixtures of the Uptown Theatre have been vacationing these past few years in Ba…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 09:48AMWednesday, January 23, 2019
Griffin Theatre is no longer planning to move into a former Chicago police station at 1940 W. Foster Ave., said Ald. Pat O'Connor (40th) Wednesday in a note to neighborhood residents. Griffi…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 05:30PMThe longtime Chicago actor Michael Shannon will star alongside Audra McDonald in a Broadway revival of Terrence McNally's famous two-hander, "Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune," it was…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 05:15PMA major new musical about Michael Jackson — set on the cusp of the iconic but controversial singer’s “Dangerous World Tour” and dealing more fully with his complex legacy than previo…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 11:00AMBroadway luminaries will gather at 24 W. Randolph St. in Chicago on Feb. 8 to celebrate the renaming of a theater, currently known as the Oriental, after one of their own — James M. Nederl…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 09:00AMSunday, January 20, 2019
Now 37 years old, Michael Frayn’s “Noises Off” is not only one of the funniest English-language farces of the 20th century but far and away the best comedy ever written about the peril…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:00PM 
