Thursday, January 4, 2018
Chicago's Lookingglass Theatre Company announced a new executive director on Thursday: Rachel L. Fink. Fink, most recently managing director of the Theatre Bay Area service organization, pre…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:40PMTuesday, January 2, 2018
Happy New Year, theater lovers! What do you have to look forward to in the first weeks of 2018 in Chicago theater? Let me begin with shows that might get your 2018 started in the right key. …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:05PMSaturday, December 30, 2017
Stephen J. Albert, the executive director of Court Theatre in Hyde Park, a nationally respected nonprofit theater executive and a man of creative passion and evangelical energy, died Friday …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:20PMThursday, December 28, 2017
Before 2017, the Chicago actress Carrie Coon was, in her own words, "an indie cult favorite who does not sell any tickets." During 2017, this Wicker Park resident, this now-pregnant Wicker P…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 10:45AMTuesday, December 26, 2017
Exit, 2017. But first ... New Year’s Day a year ago heralded an acrimonious end for “Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind” at the Neo-Futurarium, with a venerable company at odds wit…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 08:00AMFriday, December 22, 2017
“Remember,” a father says to a son. “Our hearts and our bodies are given to us only once. ... And before you know it, your heart is worn out. And, as for your body, there comes a point…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 08:00AMThursday, December 21, 2017
Lists are fun. More importantly, they represent a chance to celebrate excellence. Hence my annual look at the 10 best performances in homegrown Chicago theater in 2017. (Sorry, Nick Cartell …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 08:00AMTuesday, December 19, 2017
Aziza Barnes’ “BLKS” begins with the sudden appearance of a genital mole. But this poignant blast of a comedy at the Steppenwolf Theatre is really all about that time in your life when…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:40PMMonday, December 18, 2017
Black Ensemble Theater’s “Sammy: The Story of Sammy Davis, Jr.” opened Sunday under the title “Sammy: A Tribute to Sammy Davis, Jr.” I suspect one of the legal keepers of the legac…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:45PMSunday, December 17, 2017
With “operatic” now a synonym for excessive grandiosity, and the demanding diva de rigueur for any opera, it is easy to forget the primal, visceral nature of the early years of the art. …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 08:00PMFriday, December 15, 2017
The year 2017 was a year of disruption. This was not the best of times, but a season of justified outrage, of mealy-mouthed apology, of communicative disarray. No surprise, then, that the be…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 08:00AMThursday, December 14, 2017
The holidays are almost here. You know that Chicago is known for its theater and you finally have more time to see a show. But which are the best ones right now? I’ve seen most of them. So…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 08:00AMWednesday, December 13, 2017
You could escape the lousy times of 2017 on Broadway, whether that was by descending to Bikini Bottom or rising up on your feet, with everyone around, in praise of all that is Bette Midler. …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 05:15PMTuesday, December 12, 2017
The cast of RANDY SKINNER's annual high-quality production includes Tonay Award-winning Karen Ziemba and Conrad John Schuck: what's not to like?
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:45PMChita Rivera sang “A Boy Like That” from “West Side Story” from the stage of the Steppenwolf Theatre on Monday night. She was, after all, the original Anita. She first performed the …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 11:30AMMonday, December 11, 2017
In 1833, the year the British Parliament abolished slavery in the United Kingdom, an African-American actor named Ira Aldridge — New York-born but married to an Englishwoman from Yorkshire…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:30PMSunday, December 10, 2017
There is a history. L. Frank Baum’s “The Wizard of Oz” — the stage version, which came long before the Judy Garland movie — had its world premiere in Chicago in 1902 at the Grand O…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:45PMFriday, December 8, 2017
Here’s the most remarkable thing about the choreography of Crystal Pite: She individualizes and dehumanizes the human body, both at the same time. The Vancouver-based choreographer is a gr…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:45PMIn an interview given in support of “Michael Jackson’s This is It,” the 2009 documentary about the London concert series that was never performed due to Jackson’s death weeks before …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 08:00AMThursday, December 7, 2017
When I last saw Sarah Bockel, she was performing on Belmont Avenue in Chicago in “Parade,” a production of the BoHo Theatre Ensemble. If you live in Highland Park, you might have seen he…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:50PMIn times of stress and trouble, wise creative souls seek out the wisdom of Chita Rivera. Of course, people have been seeking out the wisdom of the legendary actress-dancer, one of the most b…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 08:40AMWednesday, December 6, 2017
At one point in “Gobsmacked!,” the godawful small affair that has landed for the week at the Broadway Playhouse, you hear the unmistakable opening strains of David Bowie’s “Life on M…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 05:10PMTuesday, December 5, 2017
Matthew, Mark, Luke, Juan and Abraham — otherwise known as the Altar Boyz — have returned to the Chicago stage. At this particular moment in our roiled culture, they feel a lot like cute…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:30PMJeanine Tesori’s “Violet,” which I first reviewed at the Apple Tree Theatre in Highland Park in 1999 and then again on Broadway in 2014, is a gorgeous musical. The story of a disfigure…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:45PMUnder a highly unusual veil of secrecy, apparently imposed by a contractual arrangement with Amazon Studios, Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre quietly allowed the director Spike Lee to film its …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:35PMMonday, December 4, 2017
Sponges lack nervous systems. Just as well. Broadway — where the hooks can come out — is no Bikini Bottom when it comes to hosting an optimistic porifera best known as a kid’s cable te…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 08:00PMAt one point in “Elf the Musical,” your spectacular seasonal entertainment at the historic Paramount Theatre in Aurora — yes, Roger “Santa” Mueller really does fly around the theat…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 05:00PMSunday, December 3, 2017
The closing number of “Once on This Island,” the justly loved one-act musical by Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens now in a Broadway revival at the Circle in the Square Theatre, ends with…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 08:00PMMany of the walnuts, ragamuffins, snowflakes and rats are new. But the dancers of the Joffrey Ballet who form the emotional core of choreographer Christopher Wheeldon’s revisionist explora…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:30PMFriday, December 1, 2017
When he was drunk, or high from Valium or, occasionally, speed, the legendary improv guru Del Close had a habit of firing entire Second City casts. In the mid-1970s, it was not uncommon for …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 08:00AMThursday, November 30, 2017
The name of Donald Trump is never spoken in playwright Beau Willimon’s “The Parisian Woman,” a stunningly smug, utterly incredible and wholly inept political satire of the sexual mores…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 08:00PM 
