Sunday, October 14, 2012
Stephen Sondheim’s musical “Assassins” walks a mighty fine line between parody and serious drama. That’s where it gets its edge. The tension of that invisible circus …
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 02:25PMSaturday, October 13, 2012
RECOMMENDED Fear is always lurking in the absurdist comedies of 1950s Europe. With a populace facing a daunting reconstruction in the shadow of two World Wars, how could it not be? Dramatist…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 10:53AMMonday, October 8, 2012
Playwright Elizabeth Meriwether loves pushing the limits of plausibility—a gleeful hobby she pursues in some of her plays more successfully than in others. The playwright’s best-know…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 04:55PMRECOMMENDED An unexpectedly satisfying pleasure of The Neo-Futurists’ “44 Plays for 44 Presidents,” which opened on Saturday night at the Neo-Futurarium, is the piece’…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 04:02PMMonday, October 1, 2012
I’ve little patience for dramas that paint scientists, mathematicians, and the like as cold, unfeeling androids. Such an empty storytelling approach is too uninspired and dishonest to …
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 05:00AMFriday, September 28, 2012
By Johnny Oleksinski The Broadway-bound “Kinky Boots” strutted its first public steps here in Chicago this morning. The musical, based on the quietly released 2005 British film o…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 06:54PMThursday, September 27, 2012
With Collective Theatre’s inaugural production of Katori Hall’s “HooDoo Love,” the new company has brought the extraordinary playwright, at last, to Chicago. Well, itR…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 05:00AMMonday, September 24, 2012
RECOMMENDED The unprecedented rise of E.L. James’ “Fifty Shades of Grey” series could not have happened five years ago. The trilogy, which is essentially an overdrawn rom…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 07:07PMSunday, September 23, 2012
RECOMMENDED The provocatively titled new pornography play “Dirty,” at The Gift Theatre, is not really about porn. Onscreen smut may be the shiny outer shell of rising star Andrew…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 01:52PMTuesday, September 18, 2012
An epistolary novel, a story told in letters—or “snail mail” for my millennials—is an especially gnarly beast to dramatize because of the unique romantic confidence a letter …
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 05:00AMRECOMMENDED Playwright August Wilson, who sadly and prematurely passed away in 2005, was a master craftsman of both character and situation. Throughout his Pittsburgh Cycle, ten plays chron…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 05:00AMThursday, September 13, 2012
The onslaught of modernized Greek tragedy Chicago has played witness to this year has consisted largely of caked-on, imposing stylistic touches, absent of purpose or urgency. To be sure, the…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 12:00PMMonday, September 10, 2012
RECOMMENDED Messrs. Gilbert and Sullivan are rolling in their distinguished graves. And rolling more aggressively than ever before, thanks, in no small part, to the theaters of Chicago. A gu…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 08:00PMMonday, September 3, 2012
RECOMMENDED The abbreviated length of New Zealand playwright Gary Henderson’s “Skin Tight,” being given a Chicago premiere by Cor Theatre, resonates long after the “q…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 04:05PMThe character with the most dialogue in Moisés Kaufman’s “33 Variations” does not utter a single word—Music. Personified in TimeLine Theatre Company’s Chicago premiere production …
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 12:23PMTuesday, August 7, 2012
The monologuist is, perhaps, the most naked of all stage performers. Whether his presentation is fictional, non-fictional or a hybrid of the two, the intrusiveness of barebones interaction w…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 07:26AM 
