Friday, January 20, 2017
As President-elect Donald J. Trump morphed into the 45th president of the United States on Friday, arts organizations, especially the big ones, were tying themselves in knots trying to figur…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 07:00AMThursday, January 19, 2017
"When the world is mad," wrote legendary British scholar G.H. Hardy, "a mathematician may find in mathematics an incomparable anodyne." So does that mean that those who consider the ascensio…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 05:23PMBeware the editorial assistant. Everyone in publishing — or the media — knows that those highly educated, inestimably talented, terrifyingly ambitious, tech-savvy (shudder), social-media…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 10:53AMWednesday, January 18, 2017
The pink bus — the one with two drag performers and a transgender woman traversing the Australian interior and breaking into disco-crusted songs at the mere sight of a mozzie — looks mor…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:46PMTuesday, January 17, 2017
Should the day arrive when I need to be persuaded to leave my family home for a retirement community, I sure hope my son does not act like Roddy, the callous offspring who shows up in Julie …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:52PMGoodness knows: The national tour of "Wicked" is returning to Chicago for a seven-week engagement during the holiday season at the end of this year, Broadway in Chicago announced Monday. The…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 11:12AMMonday, January 16, 2017
"Saturday Night Live" has Alec Baldwin on tap to play — and greatly annoy — the president-elect. The very funny new show at the Second City e.t.c., "Fantastic Super Great Nation Numero U…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:36PMSunday, January 15, 2017
It has come time to pen a requiem for the circus. "Why?" you wonder. Did not the unexpected announcement Saturday night of the closing in May of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:18PMThe Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, a mainstay of family entertainment in America for 146 years and a retro throwback to the days of circus trains, parades, pachyderms and old-sc…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:56AMFriday, January 13, 2017
"I fear for our future," wrote the distinguished Cuban-American playwright Maria Irene Fornes. "I feel that we are becoming greedy and heartless. I don't understand what is leading us to the…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:15PMTo many of us at McCormick Place on Tuesday night, it felt a lot like the end of a Chicago dream. You know, those final, increasingly melancholy moments of reverie before someone wakes you u…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 07:00AMThursday, January 12, 2017
"Her America," the dark-souled and very intriguing new solo piece by Chicago writer Brett Neveu, has a title with a country and a pronoun. Looking at my program at the Greenhouse Theater Cen…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:52PMWednesday, January 11, 2017
Wayne Brady clearly did not like being called an unusual casting choice for the role of Aaron Burr in the Chicago production of "Hamilton," an assignment he begins Tuesday night at the Priva…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:39PMTuesday, January 10, 2017
Toward the end of Lin-Manuel Miranda's "Hamilton," George Washington imparts a truth that, he raps, he wishes he had known while still young: Once you're done with whatever it is you do, you…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:03PMMonday, January 9, 2017
As first reported by the Tribune last week, Wayne Brady is indeed joining the Chicago cast of "Hamilton" in the major role of Aaron Burr. The producer of the hit show, Jeffrey Seller, made t…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:18PMFriday, January 6, 2017
The critically acclaimed "Manchester by the Sea," directed by playwright and screenwriter Kenneth Lonergan and likely to figure in the Academy Award nominations, is a film that explores the …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 07:00AMThursday, January 5, 2017
Chicago's production of "Hamilton" is to lose one of its stars — the critically acclaimed Joshua Henry, who plays the role of Aaron Burr. Henry is to star in the upcoming national touring …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:48PMWednesday, January 4, 2017
At the Neo-Futurarium on New Year's Day, the famous clothesline, a fixture in this Andersonville walk-up theater for a full generation of Chicago artistry, hung no more. The name of the show…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:51PMSteppenwolf Theatre has added a new ensemble member, the storied acting ensemble's 47th name. The 2017 inductee is Audrey Francis, 37, a longtime Chicago actress who teaches at the School at…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 10:42AMThursday, December 29, 2016
With 2016 now toast, hooray, it's time to look forward to the cold weather harvest of theatrical bounty in Chicago in 2017. While I never know for sure about a show until I see it, and I usu…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:00AMWednesday, December 28, 2016
For our final look at Chicago theater of 2016 — our winter preview follows soon — here, in chronological order, are 10 unforgettable moments. In Dominique Morisseau's moving drama "Sunse…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:29PMThursday, December 22, 2016
Just as spring was beginning to warm Chicago, an extraordinarily courageous actress named Donica Lynn found herself in an off-Loop production of "Dreamgirls," playing Effie White, a role she…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 10:58AMWednesday, December 21, 2016
This was the year in Chicago theater. In January, the New Colony and Definition Theatre Co. scored a hit with "Byhalia, Mississippi," a play about the rural underclass that seemed to anticip…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:25PM"Spamilton," the hit musical spoof of the Broadway hit "Hamilton" is headed to Chicago. The off-Broadway parody, penned by the legendary Broadway satirist Gerard Alessandrini, will open for …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 08:38AMMonday, December 19, 2016
There are some extraordinary visuals in the new holiday entertainment at the Lookingglass Theatre — an amazing, life-size wild boar and other critters, as crafted by the gifted artist Blai…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:19PMSunday, December 18, 2016
A dozen viewings of "The Phantom of the Opera" has led me to a fascination with the speed of the falling chandelier.This obsession is not entirely out of sync with the show, which is back in…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:09PMFriday, December 16, 2016
What does it take to tell a genuinely scary ghost story in the live theater setting, where the challenges are far greater than at the tech-heavy multiplex but the rewards can be far more hum…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:26PMOn Tuesday night, Dolly Parton, a proud daughter of Sevier County, Tenn., who understands her own privilege, held a telethon that raised $9 million for the hundreds of struggling families af…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 07:00AMThursday, December 15, 2016
If the wisdom of age helps you reconcile with an abandoned love — or merely meet up again with a long-lost friend or family member — after many years of estrangement or absence, two emot…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 11:58AMWednesday, December 14, 2016
In service of the season, an almost impossible task: ranking the 10 best performances of the year in Chicago theater. Why so hard? There were far more than 10 examples of stellar Midwestern …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:55PMChicago's Theater on the Lake is undergoing a total renovation. Meanwhile, the Chicago Park District is announcing a new commission intended to involve the city in the creation of a world-pr…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 11:04AM 
