Wednesday, May 23, 2018
"Pretty Woman: The Musical" will be changing leading men for Broadway. The producers announced Wednesday that Steve Kazee, who played the lead role of Edward Lewis during the show's pre-Bro…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:20PMTuesday, May 22, 2018
When did you last see a baby at a show? And when did you last see a baby in a show? If you attended one of the early previews of Tracy Letts’ “Mary Page Marlowe” at the Steppenwolf The…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:00PMMonday, May 21, 2018
Since Antonin Scalia, the late and famously flamboyant associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, once taught — very happily, by his own account — at the University of …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:55PMSunday, May 20, 2018
New parents are notoriously difficult to attract to the theater and the reasons are obvious: Sitters add greatly to the cost and hassle of an evening and, in my experience anyway, a fun and …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:55PMFriday, May 18, 2018
Which has the greater importance to Chicago: The Chicago Blues Festival or the Chicago Jazz Festival? If you love our city’s musical heritage, you’d rightly answer “both.” But what a…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 06:00AMThursday, May 17, 2018
As bookends go for any first act, you could do a whole lot worse than killer renditions of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” and “Lady Marmalade,” replete with its aspirational sing-along…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 05:20PMSam Shepard’s “Buried Child” now feels like it was unearthed from another era. Three acts, close to three hours in duration and as relentless in post-modern formative experiment as it …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:10PMWednesday, May 16, 2018
“The Light Fantastic,” now in its world premiere at the Jackalope Theatre, is a fascinating departure for gifted Chicago playwright Ike Holter. Standing apart from Holter’s terrific on…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 05:20PMTuesday, May 15, 2018
Niala Boodhoo, the charming host of the Illinois Public Media radio show “The 21st,” had a question for me Tuesday. What can people coming to Chicago this summer plan to see at the theat…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 05:15PMMuch has changed since I first heard the inimitable Delany sisters have their say from stages in New York and Chicago. Conversational references to Dan Quayle and David Duke — touchstones …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:30PMMonday, May 14, 2018
Like a barking mashup of Gordon Ramsay and Anthony Bourdain, the demon-filled chef at the heart of Will Snider’s very lively new play “How to Use a Knife,” now at Theater Wit from Shat…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:45PMSunday, May 13, 2018
The next time there are problems with phones or iPads in our house, I’m sending for E. Faye Butler. I made this resolution on Wednesday morning at Chicago Children’s Theatre, alongside a…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:15PMFriday, May 11, 2018
On April 29, Tribune critic Blair Kamin lamented the sorry state of the pedestrian and bike path in Northerly Island Park. Instead of a bucolic circular bike ride or stroll around the lakesi…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 07:00AMThursday, May 10, 2018
Should police officers — or agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives — use mentally disabled people in their sting operations? The answer to that question, it …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:05PMWednesday, May 9, 2018
Bessie and Sadie Delany, two pioneering sisters and daughters of a former slave, first had their say 20 years ago. But I speak only of matters theatrical. Annie Elizabeth “Bessie” Delany…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:00PMTuesday, May 8, 2018
Here’s a trivia question for you: What was the first jukebox musical? The answer isn’t “Beautiful — The Carole King Musical,” nor “Jersey Boys” or “Motown: The Musical.” It…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:30PMSunday, May 6, 2018
“Hamilton,” the phenomenally successful musical written and composed by Lin-Manuel Miranda, brought so much posthumous celebrity to Alexander Hamilton that America’s first secretary of…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 10:00PMFriday, May 4, 2018
For the last 412 years, “Macbeth” has been a great bear of a play to produce. I don’t mean because it’s boring (it’s not), or suffering of a deficiency poetical (hardly), or lackin…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:00PMThe stock market closed lower Wednesday but stock in Apple soared. The reason was not growth in iPhone sales — in fact, analysts reported, the level of demand for the costly new iPhone X s…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 08:00AMThursday, May 3, 2018
“Was I,” said Julia Sweeney at Second City on Wednesday night, “the Al Jolson of androgyny?” The reason for the sincere self-questioning — which is an especially funny part of Swee…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:45PMWednesday, May 2, 2018
Prior to the restoration of a democratically elected government in 1983 and the subsequent, Nuremberg-like “Trial of the Juntas,” the military dictatorship that ruled Argentina from 1976…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:30PMAs I walked my dog near Wrigley Field the other night, the two of us stopped among the bars and the noise, and stood and stared outside 3408 N. Sheffield Ave. That address used to be the hom…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 08:00AMTuesday, May 1, 2018
Tiffany Topol and Barry DeBois are not new to “Once.” Both of the stars of director Jim Corti’s beautiful and moving new Paramount Theatre production were understudies on the recent na…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:50PM"The Band's Visit," a wry and critically acclaimed musical based on an obscure Israeli movie about an Egyptian police band lost in a small Israeli town, has emerged the dominant new Broadway…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 08:30AMMonday, April 30, 2018
In 2015, the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis commissioned actor-writer Dael Orlandersmith — a warm-hearted and gregarious performer whose work I’ve been watching since her appearance here…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:30PMSunday, April 29, 2018
Composed by a pimply but prodigiously talented 23-year-old, conceived as a concept album headlined by the lead singer of Deep Purple and episodically eclectic all the way to its glittery boo…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:00PMFriday, April 27, 2018
From Jimmy Buffett to the cast of “Frozen,” all kinds of people have been warbling ditties from “Oklahoma!” these last few days. It’s all been part of an ongoing celebration of thi…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:00PMThursday, April 26, 2018
Back in 2012, the actor Denzel Washington infuriated the Air Line Pilots Association with the vivacious veracity of his portrayal of a charmingly alcoholic airline captain in the Robert Zeme…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 08:00PMWednesday, April 25, 2018
I've been watching Daryl Brooks for years at Chicago's Black Ensemble Theatre, growing steadily as a director. He was more than ready for some Tony Award-winning material. At Porchlight Musi…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 08:45PMVenus now opens inside the Mercury on the hot Southport Corridor, adding a new theatrical venue to a block that already boasts the Music Box Theatre, surely the most beloved film citadel in …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 08:10AMSo, Teller, what are you doing working on the Scottish play at Chicago Shakespeare Theater? “I can’t think of anything more suspenseful than the murder of Duncan” says the famously tac…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 08:00AM 
