Wednesday, April 22, 2015
NEW YORK — For the first half hour of "Something Rotten!" — the wacky new Broadway musical set among insecure creative types in an ersatz version of Elizabethan London where Shakespeare …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 10:00PMTuesday, April 21, 2015
NEW YORK — Michael Weller's adaptation of "Doctor Zhivago" begins at a Moscow cemetery, in winter. An air of gloom prevails. The titular hero of Boris Pasternak's 1957 epic novel — which…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 10:01PMMonday, April 20, 2015
NEW YORK — Stephen Adly Guirgis' "Between Riverside and Crazy" is the winner of the Pulitzer Prize in drama for 2015, it was announced today at Columbia University.
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:15PMSunday, April 19, 2015
— "Fun Home," the gorgeously wrought and emotionally overwhelming new musical now playing on a newly open-hearted Broadway, is based on a graphic novel drawn in panels. And thus it can acc…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 06:24PMNEW YORK — "Fun Home," the gorgeously wrought and emotionally overwhelming new musical now playing on a newly open-hearted Broadway, is based on a graphic novel drawn in panels. And thus i…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 06:24PMThese days at Second City, items of technology have replaced spouses and lovers as the chief antagonist, just as those items of technology have replaced spouses and lovers in real life. Or b…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:46PMFriday, April 17, 2015
Given its roots in hard work, solidarity and the stubborn persistence of creative expression, the Elton John musical "Billy Elliot" long has seemed to me a natural fit for the artists of the…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 05:07PMThursday, April 16, 2015
Anything, ideally, does not go when reviving "Anything Goes," the justly beloved Cole Porter musical from 1934 featuring assorted comedic shenanigans aboard an ocean liner. The SS American i…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:34PMDespite mixed reviews at its Chicago tryout last fall, "Amazing Grace," the resilient, spiritually minded musical about the life and times of the former slave-owner John Newton, and the b…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 10:00AMDespite mixed reviews at its Chicago tryout last fall, "Amazing Grace," the resilient, spiritually minded musical about the life and times of the former slave-owner John Newton, and the ba…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 10:00AMWednesday, April 15, 2015
NEW YORK - Perhaps it's the cheating of mortality, or our wish to keep our children young, or maybe our fear of the inevitable ravages of time on our bodies and psyches. But there is, it see…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 10:00PMChef Homaro Cantu death: Boil down cooking to its essence and you have transformation. This theory is at the center of the art of Moto chef Homaro Cantu, who took his own life in Chicago.
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 07:37PMBoil down cooking to its essence — and it is a distillate clearly essential to the human progression toward civilization — and you have transformation.
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 07:37PMHere are some salient facts about the life of Rory Kinnear, the 37-year old author of the remarkable new play, "The Herd," now in its U.S. premiere at the Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago.
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:50PMThe plight of those who risk exhaustion, exploitation, mules and snake bites to cross the border in the dark into America and pursue their dreams is not normally fodder for comedy. But the v…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:24PMTuesday, April 14, 2015
NEW YORK — Jenny Steinberg, the full-figured older sister of the pretty-perfect bride whose chaotic nuptials make up the action of the highly entertaining new Broadway musical "It Shoulda …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 10:00PMMonday, April 13, 2015
In many dramatic works about race in modern-day America, the heinous institution of chattel slavery is seen as the original American sin, the moment when a decision was made by human beings …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 09:04PMIn many dramatic works about race in modern-day America, the heinous institution of chattel slavery is seen as the original American sin, the moment when a decision was made by human beings …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:48PMSunday, April 12, 2015
NEW YORK — When the compelling choreographer Christopher Wheeldon fills the stage of "An American in Paris" with a beautiful ensemble of ballet-trained dancers, all of whom can act and sin…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 10:00PM"Oklahoma!" is about America growing into adulthood. "The Sound of Music" pairs romance and family reconstruction with growing moral determination. But "Carousel," the most emotionally poten…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:39PMThere is a storied, if recently dormant, tradition of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company picking up yearning new plays from small productions on the London fringes — emotional works about str…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:37PM"Oklahoma!" is about America growing into adulthood. "The Sound of Music" pairs romance and family reconstruction with growing moral determination. But "Carousel," the most emotionally poten…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:50PMFriday, April 10, 2015
On the face of it, the now-notorious Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act would appear to be something a liberal secularist — or, at least, a liberal secularist with libertarian tende…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 06:00AMOn the face of it, the now-notorious Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act would appear to be something a liberal secularist — or, at least, a liberal secularist with libertarian tende…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 06:00AMThursday, April 9, 2015
To say that Vanessa Hudgens, the apparent raison d'etre for the anemic, sterile — and, at times, rather creepy — revival of "Gigi" on Broadway is no Leslie Caron or Audrey Hepburn is pro…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 09:49AMWednesday, April 8, 2015
NEW YORK — To say that Vanessa Hudgens, the apparent raison d'etre for the anemic, sterile — and, at times, rather creepy — revival of "Gigi" on Broadway is no Leslie Caron or Audrey H…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 10:00PMWill "Carousel," which opens Saturday night, be the first of the Lyric Opera of Chicago spring musicals to transfer to Broadway? Revivals being high-risk endeavors, it would have to be a rea…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 05:47PMBack when Chez Paree was chic and the Empire Room at the Palmer House Hotel was in its regal cabaret splendor, the vocalist Keely Smith was once a regular visitor to Chicago.
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 05:00PMTuesday, April 7, 2015
NEW YORK — Ever since there have been ventriloquists with their arms up dummies, there has been truth-telling by puppet. Fred Russell had Coster Joe. Edgar Burton had Charlie McCarthy. And…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 09:45PMIn January 2002, the Chicago-based theatrical producer Stuart Oken found himself at a party. The ill-fated Broadway musical “Sweet Smell of Success” had opened its Chicago tryout, and th…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 09:30PMNEW YORK — In January 2002, the Chicago-based theatrical producer Stuart Oken found himself at a party. The ill-fated Broadway musical “Sweet Smell of Success” had opened its Chicago t…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 06:34PM 
