Monday, May 4, 2020
Talking to the top government official, nominated by Trump's White House, who is looking out for artists and the arts in America.
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:00PM[SHARE]Thursday, April 30, 2020
No live theater at Chicago's famed Steppenwolf until at least mid-fall. Instead, many from the famous ensemble will do streaming productions.
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:21PM[SHARE]Wednesday, April 29, 2020
The Hollywood types are all locked away in their beach houses and penthouses. Who's taking up the spotlight now? Our mayors and governors.
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:29PM[SHARE]Tuesday, April 28, 2020
"A young black man and woman lean into each other across the table, within the allowed parameters of closeness," the playwright André Patterson wrote. His play must now wait to be staged.
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:03PM[SHARE]The nominations are in for this year's Non-Equity Jeff Awards, Chicago's theater awards going to productions not covered by a union contract.
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 10:20AM[SHARE]Monday, April 27, 2020
Review: "Take Me to the World: A Sondheim 90th Birthday Celebration" on Broadway.com with Broadway stars Neil Patrick Harris, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Ben Platt and others.
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:48PM[SHARE]Thursday, April 23, 2020
Songs, books and movies all tell stories about moments in history. Wars, the 1960s, times of change. What will the pandemic story be?
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 06:00AM[SHARE]Monday, June 17, 2019
In its best moments, Steven Levenson's "If I Forget" is like a Jewish "August: Osage County," a relatable familial potboiler that simmers with religious, generational, marital and ideologica…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:20PM[SHARE]Wednesday, June 12, 2019
"Lifetime achievement," said the writer Terrence McNally at the Tony Awards last weekend. "Not a moment too soon." That dry opening joke by the 80-year-old author of such dramatic masterwork…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:25PM[SHARE]The 2019 Tony Awards turned out heavenly for "Hadestown," the stylized, bluesy, steampunk-influenced Anais Mitchell musical based on the "Orpheus and Eurydice" myth and set partly in the und…
SOURCE: The Baltimore Sun Subscription at 09:06AM[SHARE]Tuesday, June 11, 2019
The Den Theatre " the hip, multi-stage venue on Milwaukee Avenue in Wicker Park " has been one of the great success stories of the last decade in Chicago theater. For the past generation, bo…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:00PM[SHARE]Barbara E. Robertson has graced pretty much every major theater in Chicago: Goodman, Steppenwolf, you name 'em. She played for a while in "Wicked," too. But her performance in Firebrand Thea…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:30PM[SHARE]Sunday, June 9, 2019
"Hadestown," a stylized, bluesy, steampunk-influenced Anais Mitchell musical based on the "Orpheus and Eurydice" myth and set partly in the underworld, beat out its more traditional rival "T…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 11:30PM[SHARE]Wednesday, June 5, 2019
A million dollars for the new TimeLine Theatre in Chicago's Uptown neighborhood; $2 million for the South Side Community Arts Center; $850,000 for the Puerto Rican Arts Alliance; $927,500 fo…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:03PM[SHARE]Kenneth Lin " a writer for "House of Cards" among other TV shows " has written a really lovely little play, all about people who have risen in life on the back of their affinity for numbers …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:20PM[SHARE]Chicago Shakespeare Theater has never moved a show to Broadway. Might that change with "Six," its big hit this summer? If the theater keeps its head on its shoulders. (I'm here all week). "S…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 06:00AM[SHARE]Tuesday, June 4, 2019
Walk into "Ms. Blakk for President," the new Steppenwolf Theatre show from Tarell Alvin McCraney and Tina Landau about the remarkable political odyssey of Terence Smith, one of the founders …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:30PM[SHARE]Given the state of the world, who wouldn't want to be abducted? I mean, it would at least be nice to keep that option in one's back pocket: When our streets fill with water and our planet be…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:00PM[SHARE]Monday, June 3, 2019
The Theo Ubique Cabaret Theatre, a recent transplant to Evanston and a longtime favorite of the Joseph Jefferson Awards Committee, shared top honors at the 2019 Non-Equity Jeffs with The Art…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 11:00PM[SHARE]A political soothsayer and savant, the English playwright and novelist W. Somerset Maugham despised the hypocrisy of war. And as early as 1933, from his home in southern France, Maugham coul…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:25PM[SHARE]Friday, May 31, 2019
Near the end of the first of his two nights of shows at the Chicago Theatre on Thursday, the British comedian Eddie Izzard let out a kind of goodbye to all this: "This might be my last tour,…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 11:40AM[SHARE]Thursday, May 30, 2019
Terrence McNally's "Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune" begins with climactic sex between a middle-aged waitress and her short-order cook. In the script he wrote in the late 1980s, McNa…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 09:30PM[SHARE]"If I said I love him," sings Marvin, the leading character in "Falsettos," "you might think my words come cheap. Let's just say I'm glad he's mine awake, asleep." Truths about love and rela…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:45PM[SHARE]Wednesday, May 29, 2019
The other day, Instagram followers of Virgil Abloh, the 38-year-old creator of Off-White and also now the "artistic director" of Louis Vuitton's entire menswear line, got a treat " the clear…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:55PM[SHARE]Court Theatre is in the final weeks of a truly extraordinary five-show season, featuring a quartet of four-star shows. Taken as a whole, Court's 2018-19 productions were far and away the bes…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 06:00AM[SHARE]Friday, May 24, 2019
A Red Orchid Theatre said Friday that it was adding eight new members to its artistic ensemble: Karen Aldridge, Myron Elliott-Cisneros, Levi Holloway, Travis A. Knight, Jess McLeod, Sadieh R…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 10:30AM[SHARE]Thursday, May 23, 2019
Hit shows " and, make no mistake, the dynamic new pop musical "Six" has clear Broadway potential " invariably arise from great ideas that fit a moment. Get a load of this mighty shrewd notio…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:00PM[SHARE]Wednesday, May 22, 2019
What makes an acting performance worthy of a Tony Award? It's always a fascinating question on Broadway: Must such a performance command a marquee, spare no prisoners and take change of any …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:00PM[SHARE]Malcolm Ewen's first foray into a life in the theater was in his hometown of Winnetka, in a middle school production of "The Hither and Thither of Danny Dither." He played the role of God.
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SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:50PM[SHARE]Cirque du Soleil has brought 25 different shows to the Chicago area over the last 30 years. I've reviewed 24 of them, from "Alegria" to "Saltimbanco" to "Varekai," from the old North Pier to…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:00PM[SHARE] 
