Wednesday, January 28, 2015
RECOMMENDED Samuel Beckett’s “Godot,” as presented by the Court Theatre’s resident artist Ron OJ Parson, has all of the existential tremble without the hard edges of complete despair…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 12:30PMRECOMMENDED Anyone looking for a primer on the kind of work that Oracle Theatre does would be well-served by seeing “Circle-Machine.” Steeped in the language of the European stage, “Ci…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 08:00AMTuesday, January 27, 2015
RECOMMENDED Winter can be rough for parents and their children. Snow and cold and sniffles lock them inside for weeks or months, with only intermittent sledding sessions or the occasional pi…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 08:00AMMonday, January 26, 2015
RECOMMENDED “Sorry” is the third play in playwright Richard Nelson’s four-part cycle “The Apple Family Plays,” which mixes contemporary political history with the story of a loomin…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 05:45PMRECOMMENDED In his funny, wise family drama set in Rhinebeck, New York, playwright Richard Nelson blends Dreiser’s naturalism with Chekhov’s impressionistic allusiveness to show us that …
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 05:00PMRECOMMENDED Covetousness, fueled by ambition and greed, drives the plot of Shakespeare’s tragedy “Macbeth,” where Scotland’s political system is upended twice, with murder the tool t…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 03:00PMRECOMMENDED Puccini’s score for “Tosca” is chock-full of thrilling moments. The crashing opening chords introduce us to Angelotti, whose escape from prison drives the plot. We don’t …
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 01:00PMRECOMMENDED If you have ever attended a small party at which everyone else got stoned and drunk while you remained completely sober, then you know what experiencing Signal Ensemble Theatre�…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 08:00AMSunday, January 25, 2015
RECOMMENDED I will never forget the tears I shed reading the story of Demario Bailey, the Chicago teen gunned down three days shy of his sixteenth birthday, because he refused to give up his…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 12:30PMRECOMMENDED Aaron Holland, Bailiwick’s resident playwright, took it upon himself to read one of the world’s longest books, Leo Tolstoy’s “War and Peace.” Grasping Tolstoy’s purpo…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 08:00AMSaturday, January 24, 2015
RECOMMENDED Those who know have concluded that Leonard Bernstein’s “West Side Story” occupies the summit of American musical theater. I was curious to see what the reputable suburban …
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 06:00PMFriday, January 23, 2015
With “The Life and Sort of Death of Eric Argyle,” Steep Theatre Company dares to ask the big question of whether a person’s life matters at all; if a life lived simply and quietly can …
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 06:00PMBy Aaron Hunt Rodgers & Hammerstein’s third stage production, fall of 1947’s “Allegro,” opened to mixed reviews, creating controversy rather than covenant. After a scrape between…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 05:18PMWednesday, January 21, 2015
Had “Plastic Revolution” consisted only of its first act, I would have thought it to be an unpolished musical of the ilk that often graces stages of Fringe Festivals around the country. …
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 07:00PMRECOMMENDED It has been said that casting is directing. The right cast will work out many a kink, but a bad choice in a key role cannot be made good by any stagecraft. So it is with director…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 05:30PMTuesday, January 20, 2015
RECOMMENDED At first blush a play that is set at Christmastime may seem misplaced when presented a month later, but Grant James Varjas’ play about grief in a gay bar, though by turns funny…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 05:00PMMonday, January 19, 2015
What annoyed me most about City Lit’s “Father Ruffian” is that it is something very old doing all it can to convince you that it is something new. By condensing Shakespeare’s “Henr…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 01:00PMSunday, January 18, 2015
“Top Girls,” a 1982 play by the prolific dramatist Caryl Churchill, begins with Marlene (Patricia Lavery) preparing to celebrate her promotion at the Top Girls employment agency in Londo…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 08:00AMWednesday, January 14, 2015
RECOMMENDED Self-schooled Broadway scribe, gifted theatrical gossip, and Jeff Award nominee Christopher Pazdernik offers up his second dose of Cult Classics-medicine, certain to heal the gre…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 04:00PMA flop is a painful thing for everyone concerned, but as with all adversity, there are lessons to be learned. So it is with this ten-car pileup of a play presented by the newborn Cor Theatre…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 10:30AMMonday, January 12, 2015
RECOMMENDED The publicity materials for “Lions in Illyria” boast that it is a “brand new comedy for the whole family,” and Robert Kauzlaric’s new adaptation of William Shakespeare�…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 04:00PM RECOMMENDED Aside from the constant presence of two very-well-made-up zombies (impressive work by costume and makeup designer Aly Renee Amidei) and an effectively creepy scene with on…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 11:23AMSunday, January 11, 2015
RECOMMENDED Steve J. Spencer’s “Push Button Murder” starts out as a slice-of-life play, telling the tale of two bored drone pilots on a long shift doing surveillance around the world f…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 01:30PMThursday, January 8, 2015
A new musical can often have some rough spots when it first sees the light of day. “Penny the F*ckable Dolphin: A Love Story” certainly has its share of them. This play by Kristina F…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 03:30PMWednesday, January 7, 2015
RECOMMENDED “Sorry I’m dressed like an S&M nanny,” Susan Messing announces in her smokily enticing voice as she takes the stage. She’s introducing the weekly improv show in which…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 08:00AMWednesday, December 31, 2014
RECOMMENDED Many Catholics could use a refresher course in good old Christian beliefs. And Lord knows some facets of religion can be so ridiculous that one has to laugh. For the last twenty-…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 08:30PMMonday, December 22, 2014
RECOMMENDED I’m not the first to say this, and I certainly won’t be the last: Go to The Hypocrites’ revival of their 2010 staging of “The Pirates of Penzance.” Don’t be put off b…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 02:00PMOh, ho, ho. It appears that a holiday-season association is developing between Christmas, the time of wretched excess, and the comic operetta warhorse “The Merry Widow.” I hope I’m wro…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 12:00PMSunday, December 21, 2014
RECOMMENDED A frequently cited frustration for those of the Christian faith is the supposed secularization of one of their most sacred observances. As the holiday hustle and bustle is increa…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 01:30PMThursday, December 18, 2014
“Once upon a dream…” begins the brief narrative introduction for this trippy holiday dazzler, before launching into over two hours (including a twenty-minute intermission) of singing, …
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 03:00PMRECOMMENDED Light as down, raucous as the title bird and quick as the famous Baker Street sleuth’s brain cells, Raven Theatre’s revival of its mystery-cum-musical-cum-sing-along …
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 10:30AM 
