Sunday, September 4, 2016
Amiri Baraka died in 2014 at the age of 79; his best known drama, "Dutchman" remains one of the great plays of the 20th century. Just how formidable this play is courses through my mind as I…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:57PMFriday, September 2, 2016
In 2007, the great violinist Joshua Bell, replete with his 303-year-old Stradivarius, set up as a busker in a Washington, D.C. Metro station. As famously recounted by Washington Post columni…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:43PM"Colorado takes top spots in new NEA arts-engagement study" read a headline in the Denver Post the other day. "Utah tops the nation in attending arts events" shouted the Salt Lake Tribune. V…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 08:00AMThursday, September 1, 2016
The most interesting character in "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying," the 1961 musical with the boffo score by Frank Loesser, is not J. Pierrepont Finch, the proto-millennial…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:43PMThis is a column in praise of Travis Turner. Turner, a fearless 33-year-old Chicago actor, was at the very heart of two of the best Chicago shows of the 2015-16 season: The Steppenwolf Theat…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 08:00AMTuesday, August 30, 2016
Although only its second year of eligibility, the Paramount Theatre in Aurora again wowed the Joseph Jefferson Awards committee, blowing away competition from Chicago's long-standing musical…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:00AMWednesday, August 24, 2016
Rose Elizabeth Fitzgerald Kennedy, the diminutive but extraordinary wife of Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., and the mother of Joseph Patrick "Joe" Kennedy Jr., John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy, Rose Ma…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 08:30PMTuesday, August 23, 2016
In 2008, amid some controversy, a Chicago couple named Bill and Wendy Spatz bought the Greenhouse Theater Center, located at 2257 N. Lincoln Ave., from the Victory Gardens Theater Company. A…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 05:23PMMonday, August 22, 2016
At one point in the Light Opera Works summer production of "Mame" — a show that history has proven prophetic — the infinitely annoying Connecticut snob known as Mrs. Upson sits down on a…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:00PMFriday, August 19, 2016
"Bloodshot," a genuinely enveloping thriller of the retro, noir school, begins with a man contemplating suicide. Which London bridge, he wonders, should be the scene of his demise? But the c…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:50PMThursday, August 18, 2016
Times Square seems the most unlikely place in the world for an anti-media critique. But high above the summer-tourist madness play images of female Olympic athletes. With a message. "Dear me…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 09:36PMWednesday, August 17, 2016
The reader was furious. She'd read my positive review of "The House That Will Not Stand" at Victory Gardens Theater, showed up the following weekend and discovered an actress on stage readin…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:00PMMonday, August 15, 2016
The longtime Chicago actress Susan Moniz has landed a major role in the first national tour of the 2015 Tony Award-winning Broadway musical, "Fun Home," the show's producers announced Monday…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:44PMThe Wicker Park venue known as the Den Theatre said Monday that it plans to open another ground-floor space this fall. Named for the performer and arts educator Janet Bookspan, the new 99-se…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:17PMThe 2016 season at Black Ensemble has been a year of reprises as this venerable Chicago theater has trotted out remounts of some of its biggest hits — the likes of "The Marvin Gaye Story,"…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:02PMFriday, August 12, 2016
In his biting, much-cheered defense of the work of local newspapers on his show "Last Week Tonight," the red-hot HBO satirist John Oliver had much fun at the expense of the role of "artifici…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 09:00AMThursday, August 11, 2016
Before the dog days of August bite, what do you still have time to see from the 2015-16 season in Chicago theater? More importantly, what should you make the time to see? We're all about to …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:00PMWednesday, August 10, 2016
Each year as leaves fly, ice forms and blossoms bud, we scour the storefronts, basements, walk-ups and suburban palaces in search of the hottest new acting talent to hit Chicago. Then each s…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 09:44AMSunday, August 7, 2016
Given that we're just collections of atoms, our very consciousness designed mostly for reproductive advantage, our self-generated racial divisions, religious prejudices and petty quests for …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:57PMFriday, August 5, 2016
At one point in "Unelectable You," the very funny new political show at The Second City's UP Comedy Club, the host Cody Dove auctions off the next scene. Pay up, he says, and we'll improvise…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:33PMMayor Rahm Emanuel sat down in his City Hall office July 20 for a wide-ranging conversation on the arts — his views on "Hamilton," his role in Chicago culture, his frustration over the abo…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 09:32AMThursday, August 4, 2016
Did the blue-skinned Na'vi need their destructors? If you're a fan of the movie "Avatar," you'll likely scream "No," given that James Cameron's 2009 cinematic masterwork — yes, I thought s…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:29PMA new Equity theater company — a transplant from New York that specializes in musicals — is to take up residence in Highland Park this fall. And you could not accuse the Musically Human …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:02PMThe Auditorium Theatre, which is owned and operated by Roosevelt University, has appointed Tania Castroverde Moskalenko as its new President and Chief Executive Officer. Moskalenko most rece…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 10:31AMWednesday, August 3, 2016
Converts are, in general, an enthusiastic bunch. Christians are exhorted to make a joyful noise unto the Lord, and their moment of arrival in their faith, assuming there is a precise moment,…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:31PMTuesday, August 2, 2016
Shattered Globe Theatre will stage Sarah Ruhl’s play, “For Peter Pan on Her 70th Birthday” in May of next year. The play was written for the playwright’s mother, Kathleen Ruhl, a res…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 11:44AMMonday, August 1, 2016
Coming this fall to the Royal George Theatre Cabaret: the official world premiere of “Chick Flick the Musical.” Promising “heartfelt female friendship and empowerment,” this new, 90-…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 05:32PMSunday night, I watched a kid get bullied in a school bathroom. The time I was attacked myself in a school bathroom, 30-odd years ago, thus came flooding back into my consciousness. This was…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:28PM"Headlines don't sell papes. Newsies sell papes," declare the young heroes of the Disney musical of that name. Watching the cheers, whoops and screams that greeted these young gentlemen of t…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:56PMJoshua Henry, a Broadway performer acclaimed for his role in "The Scottsboro Boys," will play Aaron Burr in this fall's Chicago production of "Hamilton," it was announced Monday. Henry made …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 09:13AMFriday, July 29, 2016
I fell for Evan Linder's simple, lovely play "Byhalia, Mississippi" when I first saw the piece on a cold night in January. I fell yet harder Thursday night when this story of a struggling, i…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:32PM 
