Friday, October 21, 2016
NEW YORK — He had the advantage of the John the Baptist that is Robert Morse and, in his wily partner John Slattery, the oldest, driest and most cynically unlikely Hildy Johnson that ever …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:16AMThursday, October 20, 2016
In a few days, the train belonging to the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus will disgorge its unique cargo — human, physical, animal — near the Allstate Arena in Rosemont, and th…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:10PMIf you are alone with a pair of headphones and your own neuroses, can you really be at a show? Sure you can. Especially if you believe — like me — that one of the primary duties of the t…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:00PMOn a night when the Chicago Cubs shook off their doubts and oppressors and hit their way back into contention, the most profound theatrical experience in a generation — a vibrant celebrati…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:02AMWednesday, October 19, 2016
“Hamilton” opens Wednesday night at the PrivateBank Theatre in Chicago in relatively low-key fashion — the key creative team that has worked on the show will be present, including the …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:04PMTuesday, October 18, 2016
I know nothing of these mythical workplaces where socks are not required, hot-tub parties are common, eccentric creative types like myself are nurtured like needy babies and corporate pot-an…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:38PMMonday, October 17, 2016
An especially magical production of William Shakespeare's "The Tempest" and a brooding, emotional take on the classic musical "West Side Story" took top honors at the Joseph Jefferson Award…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 10:37PMBroadway in Chicago said Monday that touring productions of “An American in Paris” and “Les Miserables” will play Chicago as part of its upcoming 2017 subscription season. “An Amer…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 11:43AMSunday, October 16, 2016
How did Donald Trump pull this off? How did Fred Trump's aggressive, narcissistic son — whose business failures are well-documented, whose unhinged nocturnal Twitter explosions imply a coc…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:38PMFriday, October 14, 2016
In a continued period of unprecedented volatility at the famed comedy theater, more senior staffers have made their exits from The Second City. The high-profile departures, confirmed Friday …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:09PM"Hamilton" opens officially in Chicago on Wednesday. Before you decry yet more hype, first let us hold certain truths to be self-evident. Anyone seeking to engage a young person in the idea …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 08:00AMThursday, October 13, 2016
The Goodman Theatre’s production of "War Paint," the new musical that stars Patti LuPone and Christine Ebersole and paints the story of the famous rivalry between cosmetics giants Helena …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:30AMWednesday, October 12, 2016
"The Bardy Bunch: The War of the Families Partridge and Brady" has found that Chicago loves it not. Last call for "Cheers Live On Stage" is Sunday. "Helldrivers of Daytona" played all of one…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:01PMTuesday, October 11, 2016
In its manifesto, the new Chicago Theatre Workshop declares itself a revolutionary musical-theater company dedicated to creations that "challenge our perceptions of art and music." I am thri…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:01PMFollowing the departure of half the cast of the critically acclaimed Second City e.t.c. revue "A Red Line Runs Through It," the venerable Chicago comedy theater has shuffled its creative man…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:43PMAttention Parrotheads! Next fall, Chicago will see the pre-Broadway tryout of "Escape to Margaritaville," the new musical celebrating the mellow musical catalog of Jimmy Buffett, the phenome…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:55PMMonday, October 10, 2016
I had never thought that much of "Bare: A Pop Opera" — a musical from 2000 dealing with sexual expression, confusion and betrayal among the senior class of a co-educational Catholic boardi…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:17PMSunday, October 9, 2016
No arts group in the city has done more than Steppenwolf for Young Adults to tackle the agonizing, relentless, quotidian problem of gun violence in the city of Chicago, a scourge that feels …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:49PMFriday, October 7, 2016
Aside from being a stage and screen actor of justifiably great repute, Jeff Daniels also is a prolific playwright. Most of his works have premiered at his folksy hometown theater, the Purple…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:20PMThursday, October 6, 2016
I only saw the inside of the Chicago police station at the southwest corner of Racine Avenue and Monroe Street once. It was 1993. I was living a couple of blocks away in a very different Wes…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 05:13PMWednesday, October 5, 2016
Nicholas Colasanto, the much-loved actor who played Coach Ernie Pantusso, a bartender on the first three seasons of "Cheers" on NBC, once told The Associated Press that his character was alm…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 05:02PMTuesday, October 4, 2016
There are narrators both reliable and unreliable, and then there are narrators who are dead. Annabel, the lively central figure in Melissa Ross' promising-but-incomplete new play at the Gift…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 05:21PMCatherine of Aragon — divorced. Anne Boleyn — noggin chopped off. Jane Seymour — not the actress, died in childbirth. Anne of Cleves — divorced. Kathryn Howard — head chopped off. …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:31PMMonday, October 3, 2016
The murder of a Nebraska teenager in a cornfield is at the center of "Bobbie Clearly," the dark and ambitious new play by the Chicago scribe Alex Lubischer, staged with great overall intensi…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:48PMSunday, October 2, 2016
If Chicago had a more robust commercial theater sector, the Broadway show "Hand to God" is the kind of attraction that could have run here for an entire season. At once a grizzly thriller, a…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:48PMFriday, September 30, 2016
An Australian friend of mine used to edit the Down Under edition of "Rolling Stone." I was surprised to hear she had quit such a seemingly glamorous job, but she said that, one day, she had …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:06PMOn Saturday, Sept. 24, I went to Steppenwolf Theatre and reviewed David Rabe's "Visiting Edna," a long, harrowing play about cancer and its marauding invasions into the body of an ordinary A…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 09:00AMThursday, September 29, 2016
The hero of "Fly by Night," the indie-vibe 2014 musical from New York's Playwrights Horizons now in its intimate Chicago premiere at the Theo Ubique Cabaret Theatre in Rogers Park, makes san…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:17PMAfter setting its sights on moving to a new home in the former Trumbull Elementary School in the Chicago neighborhood of Andersonville, and investing a great deal in the process, the TimeLin…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 08:00AMWednesday, September 28, 2016
I think my disappointment at "The Bardy Bunch," the expansive but mediocre new parody show at the Mercury Theater that imagines the Partridge Family and the Brady Bunch as the Montagues and …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:55PMTuesday, September 27, 2016
With another six hours of stage traffic — cascading through "Henry VI, Parts 2 and 3" and "Richard III" — adapter and director Barbara Gaines has concluded her fervently anti-war take on…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 05:41PM 
