Without Sammy Davis, Jr. — for my money, the most talented song-and-dance entertainer of all time — it's unlikely that Americans would have known much about Leslie Bricusse and Anthony N…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:41PMWhen the producers of the hit musical "Hamilton," which won 11 Tony Awards last Sunday and arrives in Chicago in September, said they were moving aggressively to prevent resale of tickets to…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 08:58AMJamaica — in full disclosure, one of my favorite places on Earth — is a diverse island of great cultural riches. It's also a land of self-actualizing storytellers, as you likely know if …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:25PM"I bet you die." That's not generally what you'd expect the director of "The Sound of Music" to say to one of the actors about his character. But it's what the veteran Broadway director Jack…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:28PMChicago has long-awaited "Bat Boy," the smart and generally hilarious spoof of (among other things) small-town myopia, the repelling of outsiders and tabloid journalism, since there actually…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:53PMIn the Chicago of 1908, a couple of comedy song-and-dance men named Thaddeus and Slocum are trying to break into vaudeville at the 2-year-old Majestic Theatre and perform somewhere other tha…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:29PM“Theater is a place where every race, creed, sexuality and gender is equal, is embraced, and is loved,” said James Corden, the host of the 70th Tony Awards, at the somber start of the Su…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 11:41PMAt the age of 17, Jane Austen's Catherine Morland is "in training for a heroine," seeing her life through the lens of the very kinds of Gothic novels that were in vogue around the dawn of th…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:35PMIn one sketch within the joyous "The Art of Falling," The Second City's inspired collaboration with Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, a guy checks out his trousers in a mirror. Since his reflect…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:24PMIn any other year, "Shuffle Along," a show that celebrated African-American song and dance in the first person — and simultaneously offered a rich and searing lesson in cultural history �…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 09:50AMRichard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein's "The Sound of Music" plays often 'round these heartland parts — the recent epic productions at the Lyric Opera of Chicago and the Stratford Festival…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:33PMTickets to the Chicago production of "Hamilton" go on sale 10 a.m. Tues. June 21. Premium tickets to the smash-hit musical will run $500-$600 during the holidays. But more than 18,000 seats…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 07:17AMHold the presses: Holland Taylor and Robert Morse are taking their places on "The Front Page," the Tribune has just learned, alongside the previously announced Nathan Lane, John Slattery, Jo…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 07:17AMCan't find or afford tickets to "Hamilton"? Too rebellious for the hype? Dreaming not of the Founding Fathers but of a hot summer, beach blankets, an open throttle and flat sand? If so, here…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:17PMPrecisely why Harry Lennix — television star, movie actor, producer, friend of President Barack Obama — is working in a tiny space on the third floor of the Athenaeum Theatre does not ta…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:00PMLandree Fleming, the wholly delightful star of the new production of "Xanadu" at American Theater Company, is perhaps the biggest musical-comedy talent to emerge from Chicago since Jackie Ho…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:05PMA bare-walls storefront production of Jonathan Larson's iconic “Rent” by Theo Ubique and “London Wall,” a full-throated Griffin Theatre Company revival of an obscure British play fro…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 10:16PMHoused on the former sales floor of a furniture store and located behind a grand new bar, Steppenwolf's new 1700 Theatre is designed to offer opportunities for more casual theatergoing, show…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:35PMIn January 2015 I reviewed Nick Payne's remarkable play "Constellations" on Broadway, where it starred Ruth Wilson and Jake Gyllenhaal. I was struck by how richly this brief drama explored t…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:59PM"SpongeBob SquarePants," an animated television show about a yellow poriferan who lacks a digestive system but still manages to work as a fry cook in an underwater town called Bikini Bottom,…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:54PMEarly in "Soups, Stews, and Casseroles: 1976," the new knotty-pine-kitchen play by Rebecca Gilman at the Goodman Theatre, a character named Kyle is watching election returns. A young, union …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:24PMLaurie Metcalf is in the bar. The very nice Steppenwolf bar. So is Anna D. Shapiro. And Jon Michael Hill. And Jonathan Berry. For a number of reasons, this suggests some changes at the 'Wolf…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:10PMIn 2007, the actor Dennis Kelly found himself playing Belarius, a character in "Cymbeline" who, in the play's final moments, must give up boys he has raised as his own. The courtly, old-scho…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 05:08PMWhat will it take to solve Chicago's debilitating agonies with guns and other forms of violence? If you've ever despaired and then fantasized about a team of superheroes swooping down in the…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:15PMCome fall, Chicago will be treated to "Graeme of Thrones," a British parody of you-know-what TV show, the addictive one famous for its nudity, violence and throbbing drama. Slated for the Br…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 10:20AMHere's what's hot. Solo shows. Consider: Max McLean, an actor with a long and successful track record of commanding the stage alone, returns this summer to the Mercury Theater with his lates…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:00AMSome Broadway in Chicago subscribers are up in arms — as once was Alexander Hamilton. This contemporary duel is over season subscribers' inability to purchase additional tickets to the Chi…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:18PMJust months after the Allied invasion of Normandy in 1944, actor Laurence Olivier released his movie version of "Henry V" to war-ravaged, cinema-loving Britons. The neophyte director was par…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:14PMIf you are a fan of "Carpool Karaoke" and the other excellent shtick to be found on "The Late Late Show With James Corden," then you largely have "One Man, Two Guvnors," the current show at …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:51PMSam Zell, the Chicago real estate magnate and former controlling shareholder of the Tribune Co., plays a key role in "The Body of an American," the play by Dan O'Brien about Canadian photojo…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:59PMWould you buy two years of theater tickets — say, 20 different shows — just to get tickets to "Hamilton"? That's the current ask by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:47PM
