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Friday, November 10, 2017

Chicago Theater Review: SIGNIFICANT OTHER (About Face Theatre and Theater Wit) by Lawrence Bommer

PASSIONS OF A PITY PARTY We’re born alone. We die alone. But in between we need people—for love or money. That’s searingly so for Jordan Berman. The gay anti-hero of Significant Other…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:52AM
Tuesday, November 7, 2017

Chicago Music Review: REGRESAR/REVISIT: A DÍA DE LOS MUERTOS CELEBRATION (Chicago Sinfonietta) by Lawrence Bommer

DEATH DANCES TO LIFE’S BEATS It took us from Mozart to Mexico. Now, alas, it’s over for another year—Chicago Sinfonietta’s much anticipated, annual A Día de los Muertos Celebra…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:00PM
Monday, November 6, 2017

Chicago Theater Review: J.B. (City Lit at Edgewater Presbyterian Church) by Lawrence Bommer

THE ULTIMATE ‘PROOF OF PAIN’ “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.” He certainly doth in the Book of Job. In this brief but telling chronicle, a catalogue of catastrophes is vis…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:44PM
Friday, November 3, 2017

Theater Review: SCHOOL OF ROCK THE MUSICAL (National Tour at the Cadillac Palace Theatre in Chicago) by Lawrence Bommer

WEBBER RETURNS TO HIS ROCKIN’ ROOTS “Out of the guitars of babes”: The 2003 film was a four-star charmer: Jack Black, a screen actor with the chops to be richly ordinary, depicte…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:27PM
Thursday, November 2, 2017

Chicago Theater Review: NEWSIES (Marriott Theatre) by Lawrence Bommer

START THE PRESSES! Imagine the Hardy Boys times ten or Nancy Drew’s crew times five and you’re still not close to Newsies, perpetual motion in a blast from the past. Never before witnes…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:02PM
Tuesday, October 31, 2017

Chicago Theater Review: YASMINA’S NECKLACE (Goodman Theatre) by Lawrence Bommer

HOME HEALING FOR BROKEN DREAMERS How much “home” can first-generation Americans abandon in order to make a new one? Acculturation, assimilation, adjustment—they’re not necessary evil…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:45PM
Sunday, October 29, 2017

Chicago Theater Review: MARIE CHRISTINE (BoHo Theatre at Theater Wit) by Lawrence Bommer

VENGEANCE STALKS THE CENTURIES, OR DO DO THAT VOODOO It’s a (forced) marriage made in musicals. You don’t immediately think of Marie Laveau and Medea as soul sisters with a common cause…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:27PM
Friday, October 27, 2017

Chicago Theater Review: IN THE NEXT ROOM, OR THE VIBRATOR PLAY (TimeLine Theatre at Stage 773) by Lawrence Bommer

THE SPARK OF LOVE, OR CURRENT EVENTS Sarah Ruhl’s 2006 drama In the Next Room, or the Vibrator Play ruefully wonders whether sex can be turned on like a light bulb. Or is love the best t…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:49PM
Monday, October 23, 2017

Chicago Theater Review: LYSISTRATA JONES (Refuge Theatre Project at Unity Lutheran Church) by Lawrence Bommer

A SEX STRIKE FOR SMALL STAKES, OR JONESING FOR LESS Maybe—dammit!—we get the comedy we deserve, cut to fit and ready to wear. Take Lysistrata Jones (please). Aristophanes’ mo…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:03PM
Saturday, October 21, 2017

Chicago Theater Review: HIS GREATNESS (Pride Films and Plays at the Pride Arts Center) by Lawrence Bommer

HIS FALL FROM GREATNESS By 1980 Tom “Tennessee” Williams was on a constant skid: His last great play, The Night of the Iguana, had premiered two decades before. Ever since, the once-sup…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:07PM
Thursday, October 19, 2017

Chicago Dance Review: GISELLE (Joffrey Ballet) by Lawrence Bommer

DANCES OF THE DEAD Both classic ballet and romantic fantasy, Adolphe Adam’s 1841 masterwork is for a rightly renewed reason a worthy offering by Chicago’s Joffrey Ballet. Playing the gor…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:26PM
Monday, October 16, 2017

Chicago Theater Review: BILLY ELLIOT THE MUSICAL (Porchlight Music Theatre at Ruth Page Center) by Lawrence Bommer

DANCING OUT A DREAM Billy Elliot was born to dance; likewise his cinematic tale just had to become a musical. But it’s a case of apples and oranges: If you loved the Universal Pictures f…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:16PM
Sunday, October 15, 2017

Chicago Theater Review: HARD TIMES (Lookingglass Theatre Company) by Lawrence Bommer

CHARLES DICKENS, RINGMASTER EXTRAORDINAIRE This exuberant offering first appeared 16 years ago: Lookingglass Theatre Company reinvented Charles Dickens’ tough-loving and always topical Ha…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 06:58PM
Saturday, October 14, 2017

Chicago Theater Review: DRACULA (The Hypocrites at Mercury Theater) by Lawrence Bommer

LOST IN TRANSFUSION Halloween is dangling out in the future, which means that Washington D.C. is finally getting competition in the terror market. The indefatigable Sean Graney, disruptive d…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:35PM
Friday, October 13, 2017

Chicago Theater Review: BLUE MAN GROUP (20th Anniversary at Briar Street Theatre) by Lawrence Bommer

A TWENTY-YEAR ALIEN INVASION The azure takeover began in 1991. Six years later, Blue Man Group—the company that is a show—debuted in Chicago’s Lakeview neighborhood. 20 year…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:48PM
Wednesday, October 11, 2017

Chicago Theater Review: THE SKIN OF OUR TEETH (Remy Bumppo at Greenhouse Theater Center) by Lawrence Bommer

THORNTON WILDER’S SURVIVAL SAGA It’s a play for all seasons and all sorrows: Writing during the uncertainty of a world war, Thornton Wilder intended The Skin of Our Teeth to be a three…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:50PM
Monday, October 9, 2017

Theater Tour Review: PIAF! THE SHOW (global tour at the Athenaeum Theatre in Chicago) by Lawrence Bommer

THE ULTIMATE FRENCH KISS It was a one-off last night at the Athenaeum Theatre. But a long run on the road continues to beckon to Awesome Company’s bravura showcase Piaf! The Show (which …

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:14PM

Chicago Theater Review: THE CRUCIBLE (Steppenwolf) by Lawrence Bommer

FEAR FACTOR: 1692 = 2017 325 years ago, a witchhunt gave this continent one of its most chilling and cautionary cases of panic-peddling and persecution: In assorted “witch trials” the su…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:02AM
Saturday, October 7, 2017

Chicago Theater Review: DUKE ELLINGTON’S GREATEST HITS (Music Theater Works) by Lawrence Bommer

HE STILL GOT THAT SWING In his 75 years of marvelous music-making, Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington really was American nobility if not royalty. The sultan of swing was alsoy the jazz kin…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:54PM
Wednesday, October 4, 2017

Chicago Theater Review: CHOIR BOY (Raven Theatre) by Lawrence Bommer

SINGING, SURVIVING, AND SPIRIT It’s a fine fit: As much as molding character is the goal of the imaginary Charles R. Drew Prep School for Boys in Choir Boy, it’s also the purpose of Chi…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:20PM
Saturday, September 30, 2017

Chicago Theater Review: FUN HOME (Victory Gardens) by Lawrence Bommer

MORE “FUN” THAN THE FIRST TIME AROUND Wise and warm, the 100-minute family memoir Fun Home charts the twisted courses of two generations of the Bechdels—a self-shaming ga…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:55PM
Wednesday, September 20, 2017

Theatre Review: THE TOAD KNEW (James Thiérrée’s La Compagnie du Hanneton at Chicago Shakespeare) by Lawrence Bommer

MORE PLAYS ON THE PIER Tuesday night’s “consecration of the house,” attended by Chicago’s Mayor Emmanuel, was a celebration that this care-ridden city badly needed. The big news is …

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 12:46PM
Tuesday, September 19, 2017

Chicago Theater Review: A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE (Goodman Theatre) by Lawrence Bommer

UNSTOPPABLE AND UNSPARING This week Goodman Theater’s season-opener, a landmark drama from 1955, exploded into relevance. A rarity worth a return, Arthur Miller’s original 120-minute, on…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:44PM
Monday, September 18, 2017

Chicago Theater Review: THE REMBRANDT (Steppenwolf) by Lawrence Bommer

A PAINTING IS A PORTAL Art is never still, not just still lifes but landscapes, genre scenes, even abstract configurations and, especially, portraits. Every painting is a time capsule that a…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 06:43PM
Saturday, September 16, 2017

Chicago Theater Review: 1984 (AstonRep Theatre Company at The Raven Theatre) by Lawrence Bommer

ORWELLIAN OR TRUMPIAN?: 1984 MEETS 2017 Everything evil is new again: What George Orwell wrote 69 years ago still remains ahead of our time—but, with a President in power who purveys…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:28PM
Tuesday, September 12, 2017

Chicago Theater Review: BULLETS OVER BROADWAY (NightBlue Performing Arts Company at Stage 773) by Lawrence Bommer

A THUG BECOMES A MUSE “Fish out of water” humor meets showbiz stereotypes—that’s the gag-winning formula in the 1994 film Bullets Over Broadway, starring John Cusack, Jennifer T…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:29PM
Monday, September 11, 2017

Chicago Theater Review: DEIRDRE OF THE SORROWS (City Lit at Edgewater Presbyterian Church) by Lawrence Bommer

FACING FATALITY It’s the last play written by John Millington Synge. This Irish minstrel-playwright died in 1909 at only 37 after penning stunning beauties—Riders to the Sea and his…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:21PM

Chicago Theater Review: THE HEAVENS ARE HUNG IN BLACK (Shattered Globe Theatre) by Lawrence Bommer

A STUNNING RECLAMATION OF OUR 16th —AND BEST—PRESIDENT Right now—bar none—the most stirring chronicle on a Chicago stage is Shattered Globe Theatre’s enthralling 155-minute…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:42AM
Saturday, September 9, 2017

Chicago Theater Review: THE AMERICAN MERCY TOUR (Greenhouse Theater Center) by Lawrence Bommer

WHEN MEDICINE GETS SICK “First, do no harm.” A no-brainer, this unarguable warning in the Hippocratic Oath apparently defies and defines the medical profession in 2017. Mercy Killings …

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:48AM
Thursday, September 7, 2017

Chicago Theater Review: THE CIVILITY OF ALBERT CASHIER (Permoveo Productions at Stage 773) by Lawrence Bommer

BECOMING A “MAN” A brand-new musical about the past intersects the present with a vengeance. A world premiere from Permoveo Productions and Pride Films & Plays, The CiviliTy of Albe…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:22PM
Sunday, September 3, 2017

Chicago Theater Review: BONNIE AND CLYDE (Kokandy Productions at Theater Wit) by Lawrence Bommer

SYMPATHY FOR SCUMBAGS How can two white-trash lovers—“small town nobodies,” as the press release puts it—“search for meaning at the height of the Great Depression”? Patro…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:31PM

All that Chat

2024-2025 BROADWAY SEASON
Jun 05, 2024: Home - Todd Haimes Theatre
Jul 11, 2024: Oh, Mary! - Lyceum Theatre
Jul 30, 2024: Job - Hayes Theater
Sep 12, 2024: The Roommate - Booth Theatre
Nov 14, 2024: Tammy Faye - Palace Theatre
Dec 12, 2024: Cult of Love - Hayes Theater
Dec 19, 2024: Gypsy - Majestic Theatre
Mar 17, 2025: Purpose - Hayes Theater
Apr 10, 2025: Smash - Imperial Theatre
TBA: Titanic
TBA: Ragtime