Back in 1997, I watched a guy named Rick Stone appear in a Black Ensemble Theater tribute to Otis Redding. A few weeks later, I went back to see another show there. Stone was taking my ticke…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:45PMIn 2004, Dove launched its “Campaign for Real Beauty,” one of the most successful marketing plans in history and, inarguably, a prescient bit of Madison Avenue understanding as to how th…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:50PMSir Philip Sidney, a modest and courtly chap of Shakespearean vintage, self-described his 1580 heroic prose poem “Arcadia” as “a trifle, triflingly handled.” Back in the misogynistic…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 09:00PMAt the age of 80, the Michigan-born Martha Henry has played many of the roles in the Shakespeare canon during her 44 years at the flagship theater of her adopted Canada. As 10 artistic direc…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:55PMIn April, the Paramount Theatre in Aurora will stage its first pre-Broadway tryout: “August Rush," a new musical by Mark Mancina and Glen Berger, based on the Keri Russell movie about an 1…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:55PMIt’s popular to lament the isolation of the digital age. But “The End of TV,” the deeply moving show from Manual Cinema now at the Chopin Theatre mainstage for the next few days, is a …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:10PMWorking at the Drury Lane, director Marcia Milgrom Dodge treats Tennessee Williams’ “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” as if it were a spooky story of scary shadows from the all-American past. Ha…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:00PMWhat 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…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:20PMThe 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 …
SOURCE: 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…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:40PMMichael 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, …
SOURCE: 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 …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 10:10AM“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…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:45PM“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…
SOURCE: 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…
SOURCE: 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…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:15PMThe 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 …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 08:45PMSteppenwolf 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…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 11:30AM"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 …
SOURCE: 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…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 10:15AMBorn 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…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 11:30AMOn 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…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:00PMAbove 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…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:35PMThere 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…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 08:30PMSharon 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…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 08:00PMIn 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 …
SOURCE: 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…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:00AMAfter 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…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 10:00PMIn 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…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:15PMThe 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…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 11:40AMA 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…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:20PM
