If you’re a Kurt Vonnegut reader, Happy Birthday, Wanda June will sound familiar. I was sure I had read it long ago when I was devouring everything he wrote. But no, […]
Belgium’s Ontroerend Goed (“Good Moving”) has a distinct outside vantage point to dissect the fraught American electoral system. Their limited run of Fight Night at Chicago Shakespeare is required viewing for […]
In the madness of our daily lives, we may wish that we could abandon our devices and spend a week meditating in the woods and getting high on nature. We […]
There’s this gem of a theater in Chicago’s Gold Coast neighborhood, and it’s keeping a little secret: the best musical theater productions in the city. Broadway touring companies aside, Porchlight […]
Days later, I am still humming and smiling. From the moment the orchestra began the familiar overture, to the cast of Hello, Dolly! stepping onto the stage of the Oriental […]
It’s not likely (though perhaps possible) that director Nick Bowling and music director Doug Peck knew when they selected Terrence McNally’s Master Class for Bowling’s 30th production at Timeline Theatre Company […]
For me, the worst nightmares have always been the ones closest to reality. Aliens, ghosts, and monsters don’t scare me as much as thinking about someone waiting in the bushes outside […]
Adventure Stage Chicago is fighting for good again, in this 15th season of its existence, by working to eradicate hunger specifically, and to disrupt generational poverty. Everyone loves a theater with […]
The Lonesome West by Martin McDonagh is a story of two Irish brothers, locked in a codependent relationship of affection and hatred (mostly the latter). Throughout the course of the 100-minute […]
The American Revolution by Theater Unspeakable has come to Chicago’s Greenhouse Theater Center with a new take on history, one whose spirit and cast of characters tell big stories about epic […]
Frankenstein opens with an exquisitely staged birthing scene. The Creature is shrouded in a sheer fabric sac, a metaphoric womb. He struggles to free himself and emerges naked, covered in scars […]
The three plays I saw last weekend in New York provided insights into how theater works, and emphasized language and physicality. Two are one-person performances and the third strongly highlights […]