Monday, August 17, 2015
NO MAN IS AN ISLAND Whenever it's revived, it's hard to imagine a more necessary musical than this 1949 Pulitzer Prize winner. Seventy years after the Japanese surrender, it remains a healin…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:36PM[SHARE]Saturday, August 8, 2015
RISING UP FROM DOWN UNDER 23 years ago, mega-entertainer Peter Allen died of AIDS. But The Boy from Oz is the story of a survivor. The self-made star refused to be stifled by the Australian …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 06:42PM[SHARE]Friday, August 7, 2015
CIRQUE DU FIN DE SIÈCLE This is a snazzy and pizzazz-packed blast from the past: Kurios: Cabinet of Curiosities draws its whimsical magic from the "steampunk" style that melds Victoria…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:41PM[SHARE]Tuesday, August 4, 2015
THE NEW DEAD-END KIDS It’s easy to hate the surly slackers in subUrbia, Eric Bogosian’s slice of strife. In this 1994 play, they infest the parking lot of a 7-Eleven–now ch…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:50AM[SHARE]Saturday, July 25, 2015
STILL BREATHING 15 years ago a new show called First Breath launched the About Face Youth Theatre Ensemble. Appropriately, the current showcase 15 Breaths is presented by the next gene…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:55PM[SHARE]Monday, July 20, 2015
DIVA TO THE TOWEL SET In this summer fluff title tells all–Bette, Live at the Continental Baths (in Chicago, upstairs at Mary's Attic). This uncredited concoction by Hell in a Handbag …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:30PM[SHARE]Thursday, July 16, 2015
TIME HEALS ALL PLOTS Shakespeare's strange romance, which begins with gratuitous jealousy and ends with gratuitous forgiveness, is best treated as a fairy tale for grownups: A virtuous queen…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 09:19PM[SHARE]Monday, July 13, 2015
IS IT REALLY HUMAN TO FORGIVE? Heidi Schreck's powerfully pleasing play exists for its final moment. So this critique will be strategically selective and shorter than usual. In any case, tha…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 10:33PM[SHARE]BLACKBUSTERS A dozen shows in one and a showcase of solos to beat any band, Black Ensemble Theater's summer blockbuster Men of Soul pays kickass tribute to the greatest soul singers–bl…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 10:32PM[SHARE]Friday, July 10, 2015
TIME TRAVEL AS URBAN RENEWAL U.K. playwright Alistair McDowell likes to break the rules to reach a crowd. An intriguing U.S. premiere by Steep Theatre Company, his sardonically titled Brilli…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:23PM[SHARE]Thursday, July 2, 2015
A DELIVERANCE IN DACHAU Even in the Holocaust’s democracy of death each victim could only die once. But some seem to have died a bit less than others. Remembering the unnumbered thousa…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:13PM[SHARE]Tuesday, June 30, 2015
UNQUIET DESPERATION IN BUCKS COUNTY He's no longer an angry young playwright and gay avenger, the bad-boy Jeremiah who unleashed scorched-earth provocations (Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:09PM[SHARE]Sunday, June 21, 2015
A LEVIATHAN BEACHES ON MICHIGAN AVENUE Moby Dick, Herman Melville's whale of a tale (or tale of a whale) from 1851, is as unsinkable as its title cetacean. It's never been more so than in Lo…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:25PM[SHARE]Friday, June 19, 2015
THE GIFT OF JOY, FROM LONDON TO CHICAGO It's been 37 years–two generations!–since the Royal Ballet visited Chicago and the Auditorium Theatre. They couldn't have come bearing a b…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 09:49PM[SHARE]STAGE NOIR This non-dancing, Tony-winning, cinematic musical by the terrific trio of jazz composer Cy Coleman, bookwriter Larry Gelbart and lyricist David Zippel brilliantly lampoons Hollywo…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:24PM[SHARE]Monday, June 15, 2015
OUR FEATHERED FIENDS This is not Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds, a 1963 horror fest about being pecked to death and delighting in Tippi Hedrin and Suzanne Pleshette's contagious distress. It's…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:47PM[SHARE]Sunday, June 14, 2015
HISTORY IN A HOLE The America Play was inspired when author Suzan Lori-Parks observed a professional African-American Lincoln impersonator hard at work pleasing a crowd. This strange early w…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:58PM[SHARE]CLOSET EMANCIPATOR For what it's worth, the other "F-word" is now a play's title, presumably rivaling the "N-word" for shock effect. Well, anything called Abraham Lincoln Was A F*gg*t is not…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 11:42AM[SHARE]Saturday, June 13, 2015
PRIVATE DANCERS It's a stunning vote of artistic confidence. The repertory of Hubbard Street Dance Chicago's Summer Series, their latest dancefest at the Harris Theatre, consists of three wo…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 11:17AM[SHARE]Sunday, June 7, 2015
COPE WITH HOPE A tale for all ages, this perennially popular musical by Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt (creators of I Do! I Do!) got a major make-over in 1990: The 30th anniversary tour with R…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:34PM[SHARE]Saturday, June 6, 2015
SIX SINGULAR SENSATIONS No text or context, no name-dropping or dates delivered, no editorials about the art–the songs just sing for themselves. The revue's title–A Marvin Hamlis…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:28PM[SHARE]Wednesday, June 3, 2015
WINDOWS ZERO This could have been a conversation. Employing flashy strips of LED lights, twelve video monitors, and digitalized backdrops, Goodman artistic associate Regina Taylor's stop. re…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:38AM[SHARE]Monday, June 1, 2015
NO FLOWERS IN A TOO-SECRET GARDEN It's right that Court Theatre completes its 60th season with this redemptive tale–and it comes just as summer finally delivers its much-appreciated pr…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:36PM[SHARE]Monday, May 25, 2015
Tracy Letts and Amy Morton make this latest visit to George and Martha riveting.
SOURCE: CurtainUp at 05:58PM[SHARE]Friday, May 22, 2015
THE LAST VICTIMS An urban massacre grabs headlines for days, then burns out as quickly as it erupted. There's always the next shock of the known to deal with: Without meaning to be cruel, we…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:55PM[SHARE]Monday, May 18, 2015
DEAF, DUMB, BLIND–AND FABULOUS! Right now there's a lot of noise in the attic–Mary's Attic in Andersonville. The uproarious occasion is Miracle!, a gender-bending, cross-dressing…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:17PM[SHARE]Sunday, May 17, 2015
A METAPHORICAL MESS "The truth can be cruel." That's the twisty motto of the interactive quiz show within Quiz Show, a maddeningly metaphorical one-act from Strawdog Theatre Company. The U.S…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:47PM[SHARE]Friday, May 15, 2015
LIVING A LEGACY At this very moment Islamic State terrorists are on the brink of invading–and possibly destroying–the ancient Roman capital of Palmyra. Loathing any past but thei…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:40PM[SHARE]Tuesday, May 12, 2015
DIRTY DOINGS IN DIXIE In a way The Little Foxes is a complete complement to Margaret Mitchell's antebellum revisionism in Gone With The Wind (which appeared the same year as Lillian Hellman'…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:09PM[SHARE]Saturday, May 9, 2015
DISTURBED DANCES Two years ago Boris Eifman brought his all-absorbing story recital Rodin to the Auditorium Theatre. It delighted audiences with its stream of 1,000-word pictures: The vibran…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:19PM[SHARE]Wednesday, May 6, 2015
THE ONCE AND FALLEN DREAM It's a continuing crisis seen from the inside out, fleshed out with warmth and truth. In The Project(s), American Theater Company artistic director PJ Paparelli …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:56PM[SHARE] 
