Monday, April 13, 2015
By no coincidence whatsoever, my saddest, oldest, drunkest (SOD) friend is a big fan of pro wrestling, so a trip to the Annoyance to see some ladies go at it seemed like just the ticket. Dir…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 02:00PM[SHARE]RECOMMENDED Alongside the Neo-Futurists, Waltzing Mechanics are purveyors of micro theater. Their latest edition in the "El Stories" series ought to be called "Not Talking to Strangers," fol…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 10:15AM[SHARE]Sunday, April 12, 2015
RECOMMENDED While Marcus Gardley's "An Issue of Blood" is not a perfect play, it is indeed a powerful one. Set on a tobacco plantation in 1676 Virginia owned by Negro Mary (Lizan Mitchell), …
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 01:30PM[SHARE]Friday, April 10, 2015
RECOMMENDED Note the quotation marks in the title of Director Taylor Hackford's near-perfect tribute to Louis Prima and Keely Smith, the 1950s act that made Vegas its own. The quotes aren't …
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 08:00AM[SHARE]Tuesday, April 7, 2015
RECOMMENDED The customer is always right. Even when they're wrong. So goes the logic of the service industry, a labor market whose sole purpose is to chew up disposable, well-meaning persons…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 12:00PM[SHARE]RECOMMENDED The bygone era of jukebox music still has something that keeps crowds reveling in nostalgia and "Chicago Dreams" at MCL has a skilled comedic cast that, with a little audience pa…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 08:00AM[SHARE]Sunday, April 5, 2015
The slow spread of ticket discounts for twenty-somethings and the barely concealed air of desperation regarding the median age of theater audiences all add up to what a polite Midwestern art…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 02:00PM[SHARE]Monday, March 30, 2015
RECOMMENDED Since the whole God thing is a joke anyway, it makes all the sense in the world to throw some gnarly guitar riffs at the New Testament and call it a musical. Director Fred Anzevi…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 01:45PM[SHARE]Sunday, March 29, 2015
RECOMMENDED In Court Theatre's world premiere of "The Good Book" we follow the lives of Miriam (Hollis Resnik) and Connor (Alex Weisman) as they struggle with their personal faith. Miriam, w…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 03:30PM[SHARE]Saturday, March 21, 2015
By Zach Freeman There are very few theatrical venues in the world that can boast anything like the history, cachet and all-around tourist-centric sexiness of Moulin Rouge, now celebrating it…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 10:57AM[SHARE]Tuesday, March 17, 2015
RECOMMENDED Magic is tricky (eh?). If it's not your genre of choice it could be difficult to summon the proper enthusiasm to enjoy yourself. This particular show opens with a montage demonst…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 08:25AM[SHARE]Thursday, March 12, 2015
RECOMMENDED Pass through the ornate 1918 façade of the Chopin Theatre, bounce down a few generously carpeted stairs, and you'll find yourself in the gregarious Pregnant Buffalo Lounge. Ch…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 04:25PM[SHARE]Wednesday, March 11, 2015
Joy is clumsy. It's been known to cause shouting from rooftops and singing in the rain. Art is restrained. Even at its most chaotic"think Pollock and his fractals or Hendrix and his walls of…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 08:30AM[SHARE]Tuesday, March 10, 2015
Heat Wave/Cold Basement Dramatics RECOMMENDED A mention of the skin-ripping heat plague that either directly caused or contributed to 739 deaths in Chicago in the summer of 1995 still causes…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 09:15AM[SHARE]When I first sat down in the Athenaeum Theatre's third-floor studio, I noticed that Brian Browne's set design for "Picture Imperfect" includes a wall that obscures the view from much of the …
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 08:00AM[SHARE]Monday, March 9, 2015
RECOMMENDED Chicago's Uptown neighborhood celebrates the long-delayed opening of a venue for burlesque, cabaret, music, magic and comedy. Located in a bunny warren under the refurbished Walt…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 07:15PM[SHARE]Thursday, March 5, 2015
By Mary Kroeck In 2007, the Goodman Theatre gave August Wilson's "Radio Golf" its Chicago debut. With that, the theater did something historic. It became the first theater in the country to …
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 11:00AM[SHARE]Wednesday, March 4, 2015
"The Talky Bore" would be a more apt title for this 2002 play about the birth of psychoanalysis. British playwright Christopher Hampton never finds the dramatic marrow in the tale of Sabina …
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 01:15PM[SHARE]The television series "Lost" followed people trapped on a tropical island. Primarily driven by character development, the series ran for six seasons. The Gift Theatre's World Premiere of Mat…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 09:00AM[SHARE]Tuesday, March 3, 2015
Tenor Brandon Jovanovich has played heroic tenor roles here and around the world but this month is revealing two other sides of himself: playing the role of Walter, a German diplomat and hus…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 05:00PM[SHARE] RECOMMENDED Steven Dietz's brilliant 2008 play, beautifully realized by American Blues Theater, is about the after-effects of 9/11, a catastrophe that produced not only terror and dea…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 12:00PM[SHARE]Monday, March 2, 2015
The legacy of the 1981 film version of "On Golden Pond," with iconic, Oscar-winning performances by Henry Fonda and Katharine Hepburn, weighs heavily on the heads of the actors who take on t…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 02:30PM[SHARE]Sunday, March 1, 2015
RECOMMENDED After a successful run at Mary's Attic, Pride Films and Plays has relocated "The Book of Merman" to the Apollo Theater Studio. The extremely intimate space is terrific for a show…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 04:00PM[SHARE]RECOMMENDED "Vandals cover Art Institute of Chicago's wall with graffiti," the headlines read in February 2010. Yet again five of this city's degenerates decided to add to the already five m…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 01:45PM[SHARE]Saturday, February 28, 2015
The threadbare line between cynicism and sentimentality gets even thinner at Christmas. TV and movies would have you believe that the world is divided between smoldering Scrooges and gee-whi…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 11:00AM[SHARE]Friday, February 27, 2015
RECOMMENDED Before the production leaves for New York City, TUTA Theatre Chicago's "Music Hall" is a show that you should make special effort to get to. Zeljko Djukic's interpretation of the…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 06:00PM[SHARE]RECOMMENDED The question on my mind as I listened to the second act of Mieczyslaw Weinberg's opera "The Passenger" at the Lyric Opera Tuesday night was: Am I listening to great musical art? …
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 08:00AM[SHARE]Thursday, February 26, 2015
RECOMMENDED The theme of familial loss, with the potential for reconnection and affirmation, is universal, crossing boundaries of place and creed. As Lyric Opera of Chicago presents the holo…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 02:30PM[SHARE]RECOMMENDED Decades ago when the Neo-Futurists were new at what they do here, I once duplicated scripts or some such documents for them in my arduous and artless role at the Kinko’s of…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 11:00AM[SHARE]Wednesday, February 25, 2015
RECOMMENDED American Theater Company's production of Marco Ramirez's "The Royale" has as much heart as its title character Jay Jackson (Jerod Haynes). Inspired by the life of Jack Johnson, t…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 08:00AM[SHARE]Tuesday, February 24, 2015
We savor our mysteries for that flashpoint moment when all the pieces of the puzzle interlock perfectly. Red herrings can show up to dinner, as long as they make sense in the final analysis.…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 11:25AM[SHARE] 
