Thursday, December 13, 2018
IT’LL LEAVE YOU DAZED AND CIRQUE-FUSED Neil Goldberg has a fine formula for his fantastic franchise. His eleven Cirque Dreams spectaculars feature ever-changing processions of dazzling…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:30PMTuesday, December 11, 2018
GET YOUR FULL For the sake of the butterfly we love the cocoon. The Fully Monty, a musical version by David Yazbek and Terrence McNally, is industriously inspired by the popular 1997 film a…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:22PMSaturday, December 8, 2018
GROUP DYNAMICS SURGE AT HUBBARD STREET DANCE CHICAGO Four world premieres, especially crafted by in-house choreographers for the skills and needs of their company colleagues, display a tales…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:33AMThursday, December 6, 2018
THE PLAY ABOUT THE PLAY THAT GOES WRONG GOES WRONG The title is brutally honest — and you can’t say you weren’t warned. In the style of Monty Python and Michael Frayn’s self-dest…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:33PMSunday, December 2, 2018
TAKING ANOTHER CRACK: AN UPDATE ON MARIE AND THE GREAT IMPRESARIO No matter how many times you see it, you will ALWAYS be amazed by the gorgeous Nutcracker that Christopher Wheeldon imagin…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:07PMTuesday, November 27, 2018
STRIDENTLY SILLY, THEN SUDDENLY SERIOUS The title Familiar alludes to family—and, when loved ones squabble over who they are and where they come from, this title questions just what is�…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:19PMSunday, November 25, 2018
FROM CANCER TO THE COSMOS, OR TO HELA AND BACK There’s cold fusion and then there’s hot fusion–the theatrical kind. In the world-premiere HeLa, an awesome co-production by Sidesho…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:21AMThursday, November 22, 2018
A PERFECT TEN OUT OF TIN, OR YOURS, MIME, AND OURS This “soldier” is well worth saluting: There’s an enchanting Christmas Pantomime on Michigan Avenue — Lookingglass Theatre Comp…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 12:49PMWednesday, November 21, 2018
INGE’S NOISY DESPERATION Mission accomplished: Eclipse Theatre Company characteristically concludes its season with a play that wears a big heart on an open sleeve. The troupe, which culti…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:38PMSunday, November 11, 2018
HOT IOLANTA, OR LOVE REALLY IS BLIND A glorious 126-year-old discovery just happened again. First performed at Saint Petersburg’s Mariinsky Theater in 1892 (on a double-bill with The Nutc…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:18PMFriday, November 9, 2018
BITTER END The gulf is clear from the start. Joe Schermoly’s set consists of interconnected boxes that create shelves which suggest two apartments separated by a crosswalk. It’s an apt d…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:29PMSunday, November 4, 2018
A SHOW TO END ANY THEATER DROUGHT It’s a “big sky” story with a ton of heart, this other musical created by Harvey Schmidt and Tom Jones, composer and lyricist of The Fantasticks a…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:31PMTuesday, October 30, 2018
WHEN REALISM IS NOT ENOUGH, SOMETHING IS ROTTEN IN DENMARK It’s strange that an enterprise as lavishly bounteous as Goodman Theatre should seem to shrink itself: Currently it’s hosting t…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:45PMMonday, October 29, 2018
A CELEBRATION OF DIVAS Three years ago, Black Ensemble Theater’s associate director Daryl D. Brooks created a kinetic tribute called Men of Soul. The revue embraced solid singers whose he…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 12:11PMSunday, October 28, 2018
A COLOSSAL CIRCUS CARAVAN FROM COLOMBIA Three rings do not make a circus, any more than “two boards and a passion” make a play. Sometimes all you need is fifteen performers for for sixty…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:46PMFriday, October 26, 2018
LA DIVINA EXPLAINS IT ALL FOR YOU After she prematurely destroyed her once “smoky,” soaring voice, the “prima donna assoluta” — Greek soprano Maria Callas — decided that …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:58PMThursday, October 25, 2018
IT ONLY TAKES A MUSICAL To start with, let’s agree to never say “Goodbye, Dolly.” Thornton Wilder’s genius for the common touch isn’t just a golden legacy in Our Town or The Ski…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:23PMMonday, October 22, 2018
TRENCH STAGEFARE It’s a small-scale marvel, a feat to treasure: In only 80 minutes director/adaptor Simon Reade and performer Shane O’Regan do total justice to Private Peaceful, Michael…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 12:58PMSunday, October 21, 2018
LET HER ENTERTAIN YOU! Some people say Gypsy: A Musical Fable is the greatest Broadway musical ever written. And some people are probably right. It isn’t just a stirring story of an …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:50PMFriday, October 19, 2018
MARY SHELLEY’S ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: FRANKENSTEIN’S TRICK IS OUR TREAT Creating a Halloween story for all seasons in a novel that launched a terror genre, Mary Wollstonecraft Shel…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:27PMThursday, October 18, 2018
THIS TURKEY IS SO SCARY, YOU HAVE TO KEEP REPEATING TO YOURSELF, “IT’S ONLY A PLAY… IT’S ONLY A PLAY…” There’s a glaring contradiction in It’s Only a…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:02PMSunday, October 14, 2018
THE HOLY ROMAN EMPEROR AS FLOWER CHILD Some shows stay young by never growing up: Stephen Schwartz’ silly-stupid 1972 musical is the (im)perfect example of a musical that’s saved by its …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:29PMFriday, October 12, 2018
FLYIN’ HIGH: THE HEARTLAND SOLIDARITY OF SODBUSTING SISTERS For a while it must have seemed like a black Eden. Founded in 1877, Nicodemus, Kansas was a Reconstruction success story fou…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:42PMTuesday, October 9, 2018
CRUMBS IS A RICH MEAL Much like Lorraine Hansberry and Tennessee Williams, Lynn Nottage is a memory-monger. She sees truth in small stuff that looms larger later. And as with Arthur Miller o…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:34PMSaturday, October 6, 2018
BACK FROM OVER THE RAINBOW Please don’t take my word for it. See, hear and cherish for yourselves Angela Ingersoll’s wonderful reclamation of the great Judy Garland — the look, voi…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:11PMThursday, October 4, 2018
MORE LIKE A SILVER TICKET Saccharinity, like speed, can kill: The guilty pleasure of loving chocolate can, it seems, cover a multitude of sins. Harnessing “pure imagination” as well as a…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:49PMMonday, October 1, 2018
CHILD MOLESTERS GET A PLAY Some underdogs seem deeply deserving — which makes sympathy for devils a tricky proposition. Pulitzer-winning Bruce Norris has never shied away from upsettin…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:57PMSunday, September 30, 2018
THE BELLE OF COAL YARD ALLEY LEAVES YOU GWYNNING FROM EAR TO EAR When you’re mistress to a monarch, your perch is precarious. Envy supplants praise as, moving from “rags to royalty,” y…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:59PMTuesday, September 25, 2018
A RETROACTIVE RECKONING IN 12 SONGS His seventh coming is a gift worth opening. It’s been 13 years since Obie-winner David Cale has appeared on the Goodman Theatre stage. That’s where he…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:21PMMonday, September 17, 2018
ARMS HAS LEGS George Bernard Shaw was not amused when his serious-minded “pleasant play” Arms and the Man, produced in 1894, was diminished into the 1908 operetta The Chocolate Soldier. …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:57PMThursday, September 13, 2018
FORGET STICKS AND STONES: WORDS WILL ALWAYS HURT YOU Who says words can’t kill? In BigMouth, flawlessly intoning English, Walloon, French, and German (with captions), Belgian solo perfo…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:52PM 
