All stories by Albert Williams on BroadwayStars

Thursday, December 7, 2023

The Golden Girls Save Xmas is festive, raunchy, and heartwarming by Albert Williams

Hell in a Handbag Productions serves up a hefty helping of Christmas camp in this new episode of its “The Golden Girls: Lost Episodes” franchise, which purports to feature never-broadcas…

SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 10:39AM
Friday, November 3, 2023

City Lit’s The Night of the Hunter is a satisfying dark yarn by Albert Williams

City Lit Theater’s stage adaptation of Davis Grubb’s 1953 novel has a dark, homespun, campfire-tale feel that suits the folksy tone of its suspenseful Southern Gothic narrative. The Nigh…

SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 09:30AM
Friday, July 7, 2023

‘Storefront Sondheim at its best’ by Albert Williams

“It’s our time, breathe it in: / Worlds to change and worlds to win. / Our turn coming through, / Me and you, pal, / Me and you!” So proclaims “Our Time,” the soaring choral finale…

SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 11:35AM
Thursday, June 8, 2023

Faith and memory by Albert Williams

John Pielmeier’s 1979 drama Agnes of God—whose title is a reference to “Agnus Dei,” Latin for “Lamb of God”—is an intriguing if somewhat murky mystery that asks both “whoduni…

SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 11:26AM
Thursday, March 30, 2023

Guineverean legend by Albert Williams

Idle Muse Theatre Company’s The Last Queen of Camelot, scripted and directed by Idle Muse artistic director Evan M. Jackson, plays like an Arthurian fantasy graphic novel come to life. Jac…

SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 12:49PM
Wednesday, November 2, 2022

Villainy and vindication by Albert Williams

Every superhero saga needs a villain, and Mark Pracht’s new play The Mark of Kane—an origin story for the comic-book character Batman—provides one in the figure of Bob Kane. In […] T…

SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 03:41PM
Thursday, October 27, 2022

Democracy under siege by Albert Williams

Invictus Theatre Company delivers a solid, sometimes stirring, and strikingly relevant rendition of William Shakespeare’s 1599 tragedy. It’s the story of Marcus Brutus (played by Invictu…

SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 11:40AM
Thursday, October 13, 2022

The Scottish play, abridged by Albert Williams

Director Dusty Brown, who makes their Chicago directing debut with Three Crows Theatre’s storefront staging of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, has trimmed the tragedy down to a fast-paced, interm…

SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 02:40PM
Wednesday, October 5, 2022

Sexy screwball comedy with a twist by Albert Williams

“Extraordinary,” muses Amanda, the heroine of Noël Coward’s Private Lives, “how potent cheap music is.” Her rueful observation, uttered while she is standing on the terrace of a h…

SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 05:10PM
Wednesday, September 28, 2022

Split personality with a twist by Albert Williams

Idle Muse Theatre Company’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is good, dark Halloween-season entertainment, especially if you’re a fan of the Hammer/Amicus/American Internation…

SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 04:01PM
Wednesday, July 13, 2022

A ‘fully flavoured’ Playboy by Albert Williams

“In a good play every speech should be as fully flavoured as a nut or apple,” wrote Irish playwright John Millington Synge in the preface to his 1907 comedy The Playboy of the Western Wo…

SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 11:01AM
Wednesday, June 29, 2022

An Antigone for our times by Albert Williams

The central characters of Redtwist Theatre’s current production are a conservative male government leader determined to impose his laws on everyone around him and a radical young woman pas…

SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 11:15AM
Tuesday, May 17, 2022

Living room absurdism by Albert Williams

It may be difficult to comprehend today just how shocking Edward Albee’s drama Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? was when it premiered in October 1962, the same week that the Cuban missile…

SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 12:45PM
Tuesday, March 10, 2020

Judy and Liza—Once in a Lifetime shows the bond between two divas by Albert Williams

A cabaret homage to Garland and Minnelli lights up the Greenhouse. This cabaret by singer-actors Nancy Hays and Alexa Castelvecchi pays homage to two of the grea…

SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 05:30PM
Tuesday, February 11, 2020

The Boys in the Band returns for the first time in decades to Chicago by Albert Williams

The action in Mart Crowley's landmark gay play surrounds the audience at Windy City Playhouse. The Boys in the Band is a groundbreaking work in American theater …

SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 06:00PM
Thursday, January 23, 2020

Congo Square celebrates its roots with the satirical Day of Absence by Albert Williams

Douglas Turner Ward's classic one-act kicks off their 20th season. Derrick Sanders and Reginald Nelson arrived in Chicago in 1999 with a singular goal: to start …

SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 05:00PM
Tuesday, January 14, 2020

Whisper House makes its spooky and intimate Chicago debut by Albert Williams

A young boy and his reclusive aunt face down old ghosts during World War II One might have thought that a ten-year-old show with libretto by Kyle Jarrow (author …

SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 05:00PM
Tuesday, November 26, 2019

The Tall Boy brings Tandy Cronyn back to Chicago—and Germany by Albert Williams

Current events have caught up with this solo play about refugee children. Actor Tandy Cronyn, whose one-woman show The Tall Boy plays at Stage 773 for a limited …

SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 06:25PM
Tuesday, November 19, 2019

Nothing happens (twice) in Waiting for Godot by Albert Williams

Dennis Začek's solid staging lets Samuel Beckett's existential comedy be. Written in the wake of World War II, with its carnage and cruelty committed by all sid…

SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 06:13PM
Wednesday, October 23, 2019

Hollis Resnik is big, but the score stays small in Porchlight's Sunset Boulevard by Albert Williams

A great star turn can't quite overcome the limitations of Andrew Lloyd Webber's 1993 musical. In a city whose theater scene is rooted in an "ensemble" aesthetic,…

SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 07:00AM
Wednesday, October 9, 2019

The Hound of the Baskervilles gets a faithful and atmospheric staging by Albert Williams

Terry McCabe's adaptation for City Lit is minimalist but effective. Arthur Conan Doyle's 1902 thriller is one of those classics most people are more familiar wit…

SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 07:00AM
Wednesday, October 2, 2019

Equus explores how media fantasies feed a young man's violence by Albert Williams

A 46-year-old play contains contemporary resonance in AstonRep's staging. A haunted and haunting lead performance by the excellent Sean William Kelly drives Asto…

SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 07:00AM
Wednesday, July 17, 2019

20/20 celebrates being young, gifted, and queer by Albert Williams

About Face Youth Theatre turns 20 with this contemporary look at LGBTQ history. About Face Youth Theatre's company-created work explores the lives of LGBTQ young…

SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 07:00AM
Wednesday, July 10, 2019

Redtwist’s King Lear creates a tempest-torn world in an intimate setting by Albert Williams

Steve Scott's bare-bones production is storefront Shakespeare at its best. William Shakespeare's 1606 tragedy is often regarded as the Mount Everest of English d…

SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 07:00AM
Wednesday, July 3, 2019

The frothy fantasy Flower of Hawaii blooms again by Albert Williams

Folks Operetta revives a lost hit from pre-World War II Berlin. This operetta by composer Paul Abrahám and librettists Alfred Grünwald, Fritz Löhner-Beda, and…

SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 07:00AM
Wednesday, June 19, 2019

The new farce Prophet$ looks back on the good old days of corrupt televangelists by Albert Williams

It's firmly rooted in the 80s, in more ways than one. Anthony Tournis's new farce is based on the premise that televangelists are hypocritical crooks who fleece …

SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 07:00AM
Tuesday, June 18, 2019

Essential plays for Pride Month by Albert Williams

Out of the closets and onto the stage Lanford Wilson's 1964 one-act The Madness of Lady Bright, a dynamic character study of an aging drag queen, is frequently c…

SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 05:00PM
Wednesday, June 12, 2019

A ‘freaking fag revolutionary’ remembers the early years of gay liberation in Chicago by Albert Williams

And a new exhibit at Gerber/Hart Library and Archives provides the visual aids. When the annual Pride Parade steps off from the intersection of Broadway and Mon…

SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 07:00AM
Wednesday, June 5, 2019

Take Me is undermined by its own whimsy by Albert Williams

Guilt and grief lead a woman to imagine she's been contacted by aliens. Imaginative and often beautiful visual projections by designer Tony Churchill transform S…

SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 07:00AM
Thursday, May 2, 2019

City Lit presents not one, but Two Days in Court by Albert Williams

The Devil and Daniel Webster and Trial by Jury make up the musical doubleheader. The two short, rarely-seen comedies on this engaging bill share a common plot po…

SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 12:00PM
Wednesday, April 10, 2019

A search for a missing gay teen reveals The Absolute Brightness of Leonard Pelkey by Albert Williams

Joe Foust deftly portrays the detective and all the parties in the investigation. American Blues Theater presents the Chicago premiere of this 2016 play by James…

SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 07:00AM

All that Chat

2023-2024 BROADWAY SEASON
May 30, 2023: Grey House - Lyceum Theatre
Jun 26, 2023: Just For Us - Hudson Theatre
Jul 24, 2023: The Cottage - Hayes Theater
Nov 16, 2023: Spamalot - St. James Theatre
Dec 18, 2023: Appropriate - Hayes Theater
Mar 07, 2024: Doubt - Todd Haimes Theatre
Apr 14, 2024: Lempicka - Longacre Theatre
Apr 17, 2024: The Wiz - Marquis Theatre
Apr 18, 2024: Suffs - Music Box Theatre
Apr 25, 2024: Mother Play - Hayes Theater
Jun 10, 2024: The Drama Desk Awards