Monday, September 27, 2021
It will be an interesting to see if Sherman’s alt-comedy instincts will flourish within "SNL's" more conventional environment.
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:45PMMonday, November 12, 2018
When the stand-up comedian Mo’Nique comes to The Improv this weekend, she will be baring some of her inner flaws. “I have an outline,” she said, “but I’ve never done the same show …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 09:50AMTuesday, May 8, 2018
“I almost didn’t make it here,” Leslie Odom Jr. said in his Tony acceptance speech in 2016. There’s a story behind that, and he tells it here. It’s almost impossible to imagine any…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:20PMFriday, March 23, 2018
Assistant to Chief Boden on the long-running NBC hit “Chicago Fire,” the no-nonsense Connie, played by DuShon Monique Brown, always keeps everyone in check. On Friday, Brown died a littl…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 06:05PMTuesday, March 6, 2018
According to Forbes magazine, Sebastian Maniscalco was the 10th highest paid comedian last year at $15 million — and he’s done it all without a TV series to boost his profile. Born and r…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:10PMTuesday, January 30, 2018
In the new Brett Neveu play “Traitor,” a small-town Illinois teacher discovers soil near the school is contaminated with lead and it’s affecting the kids. Someone is profiting off this…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:30PMWednesday, October 11, 2017
Everything in Robin Thede’s career has been building to this moment. On Thursday, her weekly show “The Rundown with Robin Thede” will enter the fray of late-night TV comedy when it pre…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 10:25AMWednesday, September 13, 2017
A middle-aged man in work boots, a worn baseball cap and a thick plaid shirt sits in police custody after the death of his wife. We hear only one side of the conversation, but that’s all w…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 08:00AMTuesday, August 29, 2017
“Saturday Night Live” has been auditioning performers this month, as it does every August, with an eye to adding people to its cast and writing staff. A number of Chicagoans have flown o…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 05:00PMWednesday, August 16, 2017
Like any genre, non-fiction films rely on tropes. At the Annoyance Theatre, “Life in 35mm: An Improvised Documentary” aims to satirize “popular, self-important documentaries and the ch…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 08:00AMWednesday, July 5, 2017
Testosterone coats everything in its path in playwright Richard Montoya's "Water & Power." The story of twin brothers — one a cop, one a state senator — locked in a downfall of their own…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:54PMTuesday, June 20, 2017
In these dark and chaotic times, who isn't in the mood for something ridiculous and silly? Few theater companies have as long a history with outrageous parody as Hell in a Handbag. My favori…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 11:00AMWednesday, June 14, 2017
Though a comedy centered around grasping power plays and Washington ineptitude, "Veep" has always had a quiet Chicago undercurrent to it. A lot of that has to do with the cast, a majority of…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:02PMTuesday, May 23, 2017
It's been more than 15 years since 9/11 and the offspring of men and women first deployed to Iraq and its surrounding areas are now themselves old enough to enlist and serve — in the very …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 05:12PMWednesday, May 10, 2017
Here's a true story: At age 14, Tami Maida earned a roster spot on her high school football team in Oregon. She played quarterback and took hits — so many that she later told a local newsp…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 10:00AMTuesday, April 25, 2017
Why are bees disappearing? A pair of scientists — one a biologist, the other a statistician — think they've found the answer in playwright Madhuri Shekar's "Queen" (in a world premiere a…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:17PMTuesday, March 28, 2017
A sport like roller derby is rooted in constant movement — the non-stop churning, the gliding, the speed — so you're going to have a tough time capturing its appeal if you remove the whe…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:40PMTuesday, February 28, 2017
The twin sisters of "Peerless" — beautiful, Asian, poised, superlative, intense — have only one thing on the mind: college. Not just any college, but an institution of such prestige and …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 05:51PMTuesday, February 14, 2017
Early in "Death of a Salesman," it is late at night and an exhausted Willy Loman arrives home having not made it to even one of his sales calls that day. The end is nigh for Willy, that's cl…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 07:00AMFriday, January 27, 2017
Chicago improviser and stand-up comedian Shannon Noll will play the title charater in the new stage show "Barron Trump: Up Past Bedtime," opening Saturday at The Revival in Hyde Park. "It's…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 11:24AMThursday, January 19, 2017
Wealth tends to inoculate the most sour of personalities, allowing them to dodge the comeuppance that comes barreling down on the rest of us who are without the means to wrap ourselves in a …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 07:00AMWednesday, December 21, 2016
As we close out the year, a look back at some of the top theater shows I saw this year. "American Buffalo" by Mary-Arrchie Theatre Company in February: This company's final performance befor…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:41PMTuesday, December 13, 2016
An actor portraying Oscar Wilde doesn't have to look like him for the performance to work, but it can help, and Chicago performer Jamie Bragg does resemble him to a degree. We know this beca…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 11:45AMTuesday, November 29, 2016
The year is 1982 and Mr. Camp himself Paul Lynde has just kicked the bucket right before he was supposed to tape a Christmas TV special. His fill-in, fresh off a stint at rehab, is Rip Nelso…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:07PMTuesday, November 1, 2016
There are all kinds of juicy, anxiety-plumbing metaphors buried within zombie stories, but what you don't expect is something as sedate as Factory Theater's "Zombie Broads," which is as iner…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:30PMFriday, October 21, 2016
Presented as a police interrogation interrupted by flashbacks and talking-head interjections, "Thicker Than Water" delves headlong into the story of Andrea Yates and the 2001 murders of her …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 08:00AMTuesday, October 4, 2016
It doesn't take much squinting at the screen to see that Shaggy in Hanna-Barbera's "Scooby-Doo" franchise has all the traits of a stoner. In this parody from Hell in a Handbag Productions, t…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 10:50AMTuesday, September 20, 2016
Part family drama, part comedy of unresolved masculinity, "Parachute Men" is an unexpectedly buoyant, if ultimately only skin-deep, look at three young men kinda, sorta, barely keeping it to…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:01PMTuesday, September 6, 2016
The underlying premise in Warren Hoffman's new play is loaded with all kinds of provocative tentacles. He's offering a backstage look at what happens in the administrative offices of predomi…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 05:21PMWednesday, August 24, 2016
In the not-so-distant future, honey is the only sustainable crop, which means the bees themselves require a federal law enforcement agency of "beeholders" to … well, to oversee something, …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:00AMTuesday, August 9, 2016
What is any self respecting coffee shop if not a homing beacon to the young and somewhat adrift? Offering employment to some. And for others, perhaps the reassuring feeling that you've left …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:16PM 
