Wednesday, March 27, 2013
Much in the same way the cinema is using spectacular 3D films and the enormity of IMAX to rip potential patrons from the warm embrace of their plasma screen, legitimate theater is looking to…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 06:47PMSunday, March 17, 2013
RECOMMENDED Wedging a rap into William Shakespeare’s plays is well-tread territory. Every so often, a hoodied Hamlet will hyperactively soliloquize the usual six speeches verbatim with…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 08:04PMSaturday, March 16, 2013
“Stones In His Pockets,” which opened last night at Northlight Theatre in Skokie, wants to fight against a prevailing American perception of Ireland as one big happy, pastoral fa…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 07:26PMBy Johnny Oleksinski On January 28, @RobertFalls201 tweets, “Day before rehearsal begin & completely panicked; haven’t prepared enough, have no idea how to START & shouldn’t s…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 06:00PMFriday, March 15, 2013
Recall, if you will, the factors that distinguish Clark Kent from his alter-ego Superman. Yes, Clark gruffly rips open his button-down to reveal that iconic spandex “S,” but tha…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 05:54PMWednesday, March 13, 2013
Adding to its previously announced production of Larry Kramer’s “The Normal Heart” starring David Cromer and directed by Nick Bowling, TimeLine Theatre Company has added two more prod…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 03:47PMWriters’ Theatre in Glencoe has announced their 2013-2014 season, including a classic play, two Midwest premieres, an American premiere and a world premiere. From September 3 to November 1…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 03:24PMMonday, March 11, 2013
RECOMMENDED “I was born for a storm and a calm does not suit me,” said war-hero-turned-president Andrew Jackson, a man whose personal and political lives were both defined by tumult. Hi…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 08:57PMSunday, March 10, 2013
By Johnny Oleksinski Just over a year has passed since “Hit The Wall” began an acclaimed and popular world premiere in the Steppenwolf Garage Rep. On opening night last February, after a…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 09:50PMWednesday, March 6, 2013
Prolific Norwegian playwright Jon Fosse’s body of work, while performed with great frequency in Europe, is rarely seen on American stages. I wouldn’t interpret that as qualitativ…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 05:44PMLast night on the “Colbert Report,” hunky actor James Franco told the host he’d be performing in a yet-to-be-announced Broadway revival of “Of Mice and Men.” Th…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 03:07PMBy Johnny Oleksinski White planks. What I’m staring at with the mischievous grin of a shifty-eyed child is a field of neatly lined-up boards with both a silver shimmer and the scratched-at…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 05:05AMBy Johnny Oleksinski Steppenwolf Theatre Company has announced a 2013-2014 season replete with world, national and local premieres, shying away from last year’s roster headlined by Bro…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 01:00AMMonday, March 4, 2013
Victory Gardens Theater announces its 2013-14 Season: the Co-World Premiere of Appropriate by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, the World Premiere of Marcus Gardley’s The Gospel of Lovingkindne…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 04:20PMShe Kills Monsters/Buzz22 Chicago RECOMMENDED Buzz22 Chicago may be the least-known of the three storefront companies showcased in this year’s Garage Rep, but for sheer creativity, inn…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 12:00PMFriday, March 1, 2013
AMERICAN BLUES THEATER EXPANDS TO A FOUR-PLAY 2013-2014 SEASON, INCLUDING AWARD-WINNING WORLD AND CHICAGO PREMIERES, ANDTHE RETURN OF AN ANNUAL SOLD OUT HOLIDAY HIT The American Blues Thea…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 01:28PMThursday, February 28, 2013
RECOMMENDED The performance world struggles with fame in all its many mediums. Lady Gaga perceived the glamour of “The Fame” and the gnarling villainy of “The Fame Monster;” TV satir…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 10:22AMWednesday, February 27, 2013
RECOMMENDED When taken apart song-by-song, the musical catalogue of Black Ensemble Theater’s uplifting new show, “From Doo Wop To Hip Hop,” is radically diverse in genre, era, rhyt…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 04:13PMWOMEN PLAYWRIGHTS AND DIRECTORS HEADLINE GOODMAN THEATRE’S 2013/2014 “DREAM” SEASON A BLUES-INFUSED NEW WORK AND A REVIVED MUSICAL CLASSIC BOOKEND THE LINE-UP OF WORLD PREMIERES, GOODM…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 03:02PMMonday, February 25, 2013
Crystal methamphetamine is the drug of the moment in fiction. On television, the meth-fueled “Breaking Bad” has won critical accolades for its dizzying calamities propelled by Bryan Cran…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 08:55PMNorthlight Theatre announces the first selections of its 2013-14 season: including a World Premiere by Christian O’Reilly, Amy Herzog’s 4000 Miles and Neil Simon’s Pulitzer Prize winn…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 05:02PMThursday, February 21, 2013
The World’s Stage series at Chicago Shakespeare Theater, among the best and boldest importers of international work in the city, has provided a season of struggle, iron wills and trium…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 07:19PMRECOMMENDED Three plays currently playing in Chicago urgently grab hold of prescient national issues both imperative and sickening: “Teddy Ferrara” at the Goodman Theatre, “…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 09:37AMSunday, February 17, 2013
Recreating Edward Hopper’s “Nighthawks” painting is the beginning and the end of the originality in Don Nigro’s new play; the Den Theatre’s treatment simplistically bangs the nail …
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 10:29AMFriday, February 15, 2013
There is a compulsion today to jam a play’s relevance down the audience’s throat—spicing up classical texts with easily digestible contemporary settings. Too often though, what…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 03:10PMTuesday, February 12, 2013
Glancing above and around the stage at Lookingglass Theatre Company on Saturday night, one could spy a handful of animal topiaries of varying size and species—giraffe, rhino, bird—a kind…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 09:59AMSunday, February 10, 2013
By Dennis Polkow The gargantuan music dramas of Richard Wagner are by and large a world inhabited by gods and heroes ruled by magic and fantasy. The one exception is “Die Meistersinger von…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 02:57PMThursday, February 7, 2013
RECOMMENDED When the cable goes out and you begrudgingly dial your service provider’s help line, who do you imagine is idling on the other end? My mind conjures up a grimy McCormick Pl…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 09:00PMWednesday, February 6, 2013
By Johnny Oleksinski “I never thought I’d go back to this play. Ever, ever,” emphatically states PJ Paparelli, artistic director of American Theater Company. He’s tal…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 05:00AMMonday, February 4, 2013
Throughout Reginald Edmund’s “Southbridge,” which opened in a world premiere on Saturday night at Chicago Dramatists, my mind repeatedly wandered to author Toni Morrison. M…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 05:04PMRECOMMENDED With “Phantom of the Opera” having celebrated the all-time record of twenty-five years on Broadway last week and two local venues going head-to-head with Andrew Lloyd Webber …
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 04:03PM 
