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All stories by Jack Helbig on BroadwayStars

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Wednesday, May 22, 2019

More than a decade after its premiere, Next to Normal is still brilliantly weird by Jack Helbig

It's a rock musical about suffering from bipolar disorder and getting electroshock treatment. This award-winning 2008 musical by Brian Yorkey (book and lyrics) a…

SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 12:00PM

Wednesday, May 8, 2019

Who thought that Matilda was suitable children's entertainment? by Jack Helbig

Or maybe kids just have a higher tolerance for Roald Dahl's sadism. Dennis Kelly and Tim Minchin's musical adaptation of Roald Dahl's 1988 novel about a precocio…

SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 12:00PM

Thursday, May 2, 2019

The power of Walt Whitman brings two high school students together in I & You by Jack Helbig

They sound their barbaric yawp through the living room. The premise of Lauren Gunderson's two-hander is remarkably simple: a socially isolated, housebound high s…

SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 07:00AM

Wednesday, April 24, 2019

The stage musical of Footloose is just like the movie except without the boring parts by Jack Helbig

Kick off your Sunday shoes. The problem with the 1984 movie Footloose is that it tries so damned hard to be a serious, realistic drama about a rebellious teen fi…

SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 07:00AM

Wednesday, April 10, 2019

The Firestorm pulls its punches in its examination of white privilege by Jack Helbig

Our hero a racist? No sirree! The premise of Meridith Friedman's 2015 drama sounds all too familiar: Patrick, a popular white politician running for a high offic…

SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 07:00AM

Wednesday, April 3, 2019

Writers Theatre strips down A Number to its absorbing essentials by Jack Helbig

Robin Witt's production takes a somber tone, downplaying the comic turns. Logging in at a little more than an hour, Writers Theatre's production of Caryl Churchi…

SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 07:00AM

Thursday, March 28, 2019

Best for Winter undergoes a late thaw by Jack Helbig

A simple, elegant Shakespeare adaptation Though advertised as an adaption of William Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale by Evan Jackson (who also directs), this pro…

SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 07:00AM

Thursday, March 14, 2019

Mahalia Jackson: Moving Thru the Light sticks to the Black Ensemble Theatre formula by Jack Helbig

The music's fabulous, but the story's thin. Jackie Taylor, the founder and leading light of the Black Ensemble Theatre, has spent her career penning and producin…

SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 07:00AM

Thursday, September 22, 2016

Aaron Posner follows up Stupid Fucking Bird with another Chekhov adaptation, Life Sucks by Jack Helbig

By turns homage and send-up, faithful adaptation and freewheeling deconstruction, Life Sucks, Aaron Posner's witty, iconoclastic update of Chekhov's Uncle Vanya, is much smarter and more ent…

SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 05:03PM

Thursday, February 18, 2016

Ten notes on Cabaret, playing through Sunday at PrivateBank Theatre by Jack Helbig

1. Cabaret is a landmark. When it opened in 1967 it was arguably the first Broadway hit to deal with subject matter that had been repressed, or at least buried, by the trauma of World War…

SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 01:30PM

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