Wednesday, December 14, 2016
Chicago'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 11:04AMTuesday, December 13, 2016
Poorly behaving males — those who come home a drinkin', who've been a'messin' where they shouldn't have been a'messin', those inclined to bring their barroom habits home to mama — are th…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:04PMMonday, December 12, 2016
Arrive a few minutes early at the Steppenwolf Theatre for its current mainstage show and you'll find a theater decked out as a church — not the kind of ancient Gothic sanctuary you might f…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 05:01PMSunday, December 11, 2016
Especially when we're very young, we may travel far in our dreams. Perchance through a world revolving around our hopes and fears. Maybe to a place where a Christmas tree can pierce our hear…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 06:17PMOn the wall by the welcome desk for the Second City mainstage, a new sign has appeared. "Second City has a zero tolerance policy and does not allow hate speech of any kind whether it's direc…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:59PMFriday, December 9, 2016
In Chicago theater, 2016 was the year of "Hamilton," for sure. But that high-profile attraction — a raiser of all theatrical boats — landed at a moment of rich, diverse and emotional exp…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 07:00AMThursday, December 8, 2016
Theater long has been a safe space for those who, in the immortal words of Jerry Herman, see life from a different angle. And Christopher, the hero of the beautiful Broadway play "The Curiou…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:48PMThe holidays! Peak theatergoing time! What should you and yours see? Let me walk you through some ideas. Perhaps you'd like to snag some ducats to a little show with some buzz — "Hamilton.…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 07:00AMWednesday, December 7, 2016
"Medicine is not a transaction," Dr. Ricardo Rosenkranz observes during his truly unusual and immensely likable magic show at the Royal George Cabaret. "It is," he insists, "the unraveling o…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:32PMThe 2015 musical "Hamilton" continued to suck up a lot of the Broadway oxygen in 2016 — first during the spring award season and then during the political fallout of the late fall. But the…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:00PMTuesday, December 6, 2016
When it comes to chronicling dumb ways to die, William Shakespeare was ahead of the curve. Gander at his much-disputed authorial oeuvre and you'll find no fewer than 75 final exits, shufflin…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:31PMMonday, December 5, 2016
This outre "Beauty and the Beast" at Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art is the work of radical artists, intent on working at the margins. And, please be warned, it is as sexually explicit …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:26PMSunday, December 4, 2016
Most teenagers — despite appearances to the contrary — are fragile optimists. And Ben Platt, the astonishing star of the extraordinary new Broadway musical "Dear Evan Hansen," has a way …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 08:00PMIf you'd told me that Disney's "The Little Mermaid" would form the basis for one of the most innovative musical productions of the season, and that the dude playing Sebastian, the anthropomo…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:16PMFriday, December 2, 2016
Few musicals have been inspired by accidents that killed teenagers. Even fewer use a coin-operated fortune teller as their sardonic narrator, a mechanical voice that recounts the fate of a g…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:59PMThursday, December 1, 2016
In his self-help book "Rich Dad Poor Dad," Robert Kiyosaki outlines the competing pull of two father figures in his young life — one was staid, honest and boring, the other street-smart, s…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 08:01PMLate-night TV hosts are struggling with how to deal with the impending presidency of Donald J. Trump. One major problem they face is that the filter-averse president-elect is formidably comp…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 05:04PMOn one hand, the magnificent West End and Broadway show "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time" is a quirky mystery, based on a 2003 book by Mark Haddon and adapted for the stage…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 07:00AMWednesday, November 30, 2016
"Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind," one of the longest running shows in Chicago history and a fixture at the Neo-Futurarium in Andersonville, is to close Dec. 31. The comedic, sketch-s…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 06:12PMIn the aftermath of Donald Trump removing the kneecaps of the elite establishment, without either anesthesia or a majority of the popular vote, what do we make of the cultural legacy of Tony…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:51PMTuesday, November 29, 2016
While others are trotting out their Scrooges, Claras and tannenbaums for fun and profit, the ever-ambitious Griffin Theatre is asking audiences to spend two hours and 45 minutes in the intim…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:59PMMonday, November 28, 2016
On Nov. 17, Alison C. Vesely, the 59-year-old artistic director of the First Folio Theatre in the Chicago suburb of Oak Brook, was told by her doctor that her ovarian cancer had spread to he…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:48PMThe Cirque du Soleil will be back in Chicago for the summer of 2017 with its latest tent show. Titled "Luzia" and inspired by the sights, sounds and soul of the nation of Mexico, this will b…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 11:45AMSunday, November 27, 2016
It is almost the end of "Give It All Back" — Calamity West's deliciously sardonic and offbeat new play about the music business and artistic compromise — before a character appears who h…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:34PMThursday, November 24, 2016
How long has "Stomp" been kicking around? Longer than you think, I'll wager. This fusion of street-wise performance and percussion has been banging all over the world now for more than 22 ye…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 07:00AMWednesday, November 23, 2016
Mat Fraser and Julie Atlas Muz — performers who fell in love after meeting at Coney Island — have a critically acclaimed show, a familiar title, a run under their belts at London's Young…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:03PMTuesday, November 22, 2016
There is a venerable funky tradition at The Hypocrites — a great little theater company in Wicker Park — of the offbeat holiday show, the kind of seasonal attraction that both urban hips…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:42PMWhen Jane Austen wrote "Pride and Prejudice" in the early years of the 19th century, there was no heroic place for the unreconstructed nerd in the throbbing romantic novel. Even though Auste…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:44PMMonday, November 21, 2016
The New York cast of "Hamilton" was not only justified in politely but directly addressing Mike Pence, the courteous vice president-elect, from the stage Friday night, it had a moral, artist…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 07:03PMThe story of the murderous siblings Electra and Orestes holds a particularly crucial place in the world of classic Greek drama because it is the only extant ancient yarn to be dramatized by …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:57PMSunday, November 20, 2016
Anyone who ever has worked in customer service will tell you that the actual provision of service — doing something nice for someone who might well appreciate your effort — is not the ma…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:45PM 
