Friday, April 1, 2016
At one point in "Kill Floor," the melancholy and moving new play by Abe Koogler at American Theater Company, the central character of Andy, played with rich empathy by Audrey Francis, confro…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:56PMHeaded off to — or recently returned from — spring break? If you've been in a hotel, a theme park or on a cruise, I'll wager you've been asked to do one of two things, and probably both…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:56PMAt one point in "Kill Floor," the melancholy and moving new play by Abe Koogler at American Theater Company, the central character of Andy, played with rich empathy by Audrey Francis, confro…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:52PMHeaded off to — or recently returned from — spring break? If you've been in a hotel, a theme park or on a cruise, I'll wager you've been asked to do one of two things, and probably both…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:37PMThursday, March 31, 2016
A lone wolf prowls through Salem, Mass., in Ivo van Hove's eye-popping and wholly unconventional revival of Arthur Miller's "The Crucible," that great dramatic cautionary tale about the pere…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 09:07PMA lone wolf prowls through Salem, Mass., in Ivo van Hove's eye-popping and wholly unconventional revival of Arthur Miller's "The Crucible," that great dramatic cautionary tale about the pere…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 08:00PMTuesday, March 29, 2016
In "United Flight 232," the new show at the House Theatre that you really shouldn't miss, you leave with a new understanding of how much flight crew members do for us when we're aloft — a …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:58PMMonday, March 28, 2016
A major, star-studded revival of Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur's "The Front Page" — the 1928 play that romanticized Chicago newspapering, celebrated the achievements of "crummy hobos ful…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 09:00PMFriday, March 25, 2016
The brilliance of "Matilda The Musical," the 2013 Broadway hit from Britain's Royal Shakespeare Company that has now arrived for just three spring weeks at Chicago's Oriental Theatre, lies i…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 11:28AMThe brilliance of "Matilda The Musical," the 2013 Broadway hit from Britain's Royal Shakespeare Company that has now arrived for just three spring weeks at Chicago's Oriental Theatre, lies i…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 10:10AMThursday, March 24, 2016
If you had any doubt of the formidable polyglot of talent that makes up one Steve Martin, or you were under the misapprehension that his banjo was primarily the accessory of a stand-up or Ho…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 08:00PMYou don't open a $28 million theater, as designed by world-class architect Jeanne Gang, every day of the week. Even in the bustling micropolis that is Glencoe. And thus Writers Theatre has c…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 06:19PMOn Feb. 28, 1966, CBS aired Episode 23 of the fifth and final season of a sitcom it had acquired from NBC the previous year. Titled "Hazel," the show was about a live-in maid, played by Shir…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 05:19PMWednesday, March 23, 2016
Such is the misogyny, cruelty and self-involvement of the three characters in "The Bachelors," a new play by Caroline V. McGraw about men behaving very, very badly, that they make playwright…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 05:48PMHere's a tagline "Chicago" the musical — and Chicago the city — did not need.
"Killing it Worldwide."
The new slogan, or tagline, in advertising parlance, was unveiled Tuesday in New…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:46PMHere's a tagline "Chicago" the musical — and Chicago the city — did not need. "Killing it Worldwide." The new slogan, or tagline, in advertising parlance, was unveiled here Tuesday as …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:50PM"Tracy and I are desperately clinging to this town" says Carrie Coon, lightly, over a glass of wine at the Summer House in Lincoln Park. "We just relish being here together. One of the curse…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:16PM"Tracy and I are desperately clinging to this town" says Carrie Coon, lightly, over a glass of wine at the Summer House Santa Monica in Lincoln Park. "We just relish being here together. One…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 11:14AMTuesday, March 22, 2016
For all the grant money expended on theater that is designed to combat youth violence, there's a case to be made for just buying those at-risk kids a ticket to "West Side Story" instead. Or,…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:45PMMonday, March 21, 2016
On July 19, 1989, United Airlines Flight 232, a DC-10 service, left Denver Stapleton Airport bound for Chicago's O'Hare International with 296 souls on board. After a catastrophic hydraulic …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:47PMOn July 19, 1989, United Airlines Flight 232, a DC-10 service, left Denver Stapleton Airport bound for Chicago's O'Hare International with 296 souls on board. After a catastrophic hydraulic …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:43PMSunday, March 20, 2016
Eugene Gladstone O'Neill, he who invented serious and substantial American drama, was born in a Broadway hotel room in 1888 and deeply resented the location of his birth throughout his life.…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:01PMFriday, March 18, 2016
"Butler" is, if we are being frank, a comedy about slavery, an original sin of the United States of America.
The notion sounds offensively absurd in the extract, but the focus of the playwr…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 09:39PM"Butler" is, if we are being frank, a comedy about slavery, an original sin of the United States of America. The notion sounds offensively absurd in the extract, but the focus of the playwri…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 09:00PMThursday, March 17, 2016
Most of Chicago's biggest performing arts organizations have recently announced their upcoming seasons. Two striking things emerged. One is that most of the biggest institutions suddenly are…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 10:07PMMost of Chicago's biggest performing arts organizations have recently announced their upcoming seasons. Two striking things emerged. One is that most of the biggest institutions suddenly are…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 07:24PMIn my line of work, it is easy to become obsessed with a song.
I feel that way about a number from "Matilda," the musical adaptation of the exquisitely wicked Roald Dahl story about a very …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:22PMIn my line of work, it is easy to become obsessed with a song. I feel that way about a number from "Matilda," the musical adaptation of the exquisitely wicked Roald Dahl story about a very s…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 11:22AMWednesday, March 16, 2016
Cupid, the oft-elusive dude with the bow and arrow, is born of the Latin word cupido, meaning desire. But for those of us lonely humans who trust our love lives to the barbarism of the mobil…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 07:34PMCupid, the oft-elusive dude with the bow and arrow, is born of the Latin word cupido, meaning desire. But for those of us lonely humans who trust our love lives to the barbarism of the mobil…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 06:23PMTuesday, March 15, 2016
Every time I watch a play by Thornton Wilder — be it "Our Town," "The Skin of Our Teeth," or, as of Monday night in an expansive new production at the Goodman Theatre, "The Matchmaker" —…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 05:33PM 
