Monday, December 9, 2024
In Mula’s rendition of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” we hear the events of that Christmas Eve from Marley’s perspective. Scrooge’s partner in life, now dead, is no longer…
SOURCE: www.newcitystage.com at 08:00AMTuesday, December 3, 2024
The show doesn’t shy away from the ground swell of sadness, but it also reminds us of just how many things there are to live for. I can’t imagine a better time to stage this play.
SOURCE: www.newcitystage.com at 08:00AMTuesday, November 5, 2024
Although the play itself may not be for everyone, if there was ever a “Pericles” to see, it is this one.
SOURCE: www.newcitystage.com at 08:00AMThursday, October 3, 2024
At 140 minutes with intermission, this electropop opera only captures a fragment of Tolstoy’s "War and Peace"—but the juiciest bit.
SOURCE: www.newcitystage.com at 08:00AMTuesday, August 20, 2024
Existing IP doesn’t always translate from screen to musical theater stage. In many ways, Back to the Future: the Musical is one of those shows. Some of the songs are mediocre at best and i…
SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 04:17PMWednesday, August 14, 2024
There is irony in this play bookending itself with a Blanche DuBois scene from A Streetcar Named Desire, because those moments hold more nuance than the rest of This One Will Grow. As the yo…
SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 09:06AMThursday, July 25, 2024
It takes a special kind of person to enjoy Saw the Musical. That’s because you must be a fan of the film to appreciate this production’s absurdity at its fullest. Luckily, Saw is my Rock…
SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 05:21PMMonday, July 22, 2024
“The Mad Ones” is a calculated musical risk—though however you look at it, Blank Theatre Company’s production comes out ahead.
SOURCE: www.newcitystage.com at 08:00AMThursday, July 18, 2024
It was the unsecured, random bundle of cords that first caught my eye at Otherworld Theatre’s The Lightning Thief: A Percy Jackson Musical. They were slung around the railing to the audien…
SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 12:36PMMonday, July 15, 2024
Just as Hedwig changed her life amid upheaval, so too will the talented folks behind the groundbreaking Haven. Thank you for over a decade of one-of-a-kind work.
SOURCE: www.newcitystage.com at 08:00AMTuesday, July 9, 2024
“Beehive the Sixties Musical” is a trip. Even if you don’t fancy revues, this one may have you rethinking that stance.
SOURCE: www.newcitystage.com at 08:00AMTuesday, June 18, 2024
As Dennis Dent’s undeniably charming Hustleman makes all too clear, there is always more to every story. And this story? It may be called The Salon, but its roots run far deeper than its p…
SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 05:53PMWednesday, May 1, 2024
Self-indulgent. A blunt word, yet little else feels appropriate for a show that ran three hours and eight minutes—from late start to the end of curtain call—when it is said to be two hou…
SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 03:17PMWednesday, March 6, 2024
“Sludge and slurry!” Badger (John Drea) frequently exclaims to giggles and muted repeat-backs from the littlest of audience members. Utterly enchanted, the children in this audience seem…
SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 12:00PMThirteen-year-old Amanda, not quite a Twihard herself but an avid reader who loved Twilight, would have died over Otherworld Theatre’s Twihard musical parody. Thirty-one-year-old Amanda th…
SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 11:23AMWednesday, February 28, 2024
"It is one of my all-time favorite plays, and Invictus Theatre’s production is a brilliant example of how to handle this intense two-hander."
SOURCE: www.newcitystage.com at 08:00AMTuesday, February 20, 2024
“Band’s Visit” takes so many of the traditional musical theater-type songs and mashes them together into an enchanting story about what it means to be a person in the world with other …
SOURCE: www.newcitystage.com at 08:00AMTuesday, February 13, 2024
When we meet Gigi (Iris García) she is having a crisis of personality. Staring horrified in front of her bedroom mirror, the blonde wealthy woman is suddenly a dark-haired Indigenous woman.…
SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 01:07PMWednesday, February 7, 2024
Sitting in near silence in an apartment, curtains drawn, television above a whisper, and fans oscillating to feign static sound. That is how we meet Taroon (Owais Ahmed). Alone in a Kabul re…
SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 04:00PMMonday, November 27, 2023
This is Aaron Posner’s very loose adaptation of Chekov’s “The Seagull.”
SOURCE: www.newcitystage.com at 08:00AMTuesday, November 21, 2023
Based on the true story of a battle between essayist John D’Agata and fact checker Jim Fingal, “Lifespan” bemoans the realities of journalism that few in the general public truly under…
SOURCE: www.newcitystage.com at 08:00AMWednesday, November 15, 2023
A carnival of famous American assassins who got their day in history or missed their mark, Stephen Sondheim uses them as thematic devices. Are they misunderstood outsiders? Misguided patriot…
SOURCE: www.newcitystage.com at 08:00AMThursday, August 10, 2023
Settled in the grass at Moore Park in the Austin neighborhood, a baby clad in a vegetable-patterned onesie coos to the music, while a toddler wriggles, wiggly worms in hand, to the aptly nam…
SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 12:11PMWednesday, July 26, 2023
The stages at Chicago Shakespeare Theater are accustomed to classic tales of daring sword fights, magic spells, and a prince in disguise—just the kinds of stories that Belle loves to read.…
SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 04:01PMTuesday, May 23, 2023
Heidi Schreck’s play showcases our narrator regaling us with her complicated love story. This romance between an American teen circa the 1980s and the United States Constitution circa the …
SOURCE: www.newcitystage.com at 08:00AMTuesday, April 18, 2023
No one does thriller or horror like A Red Orchid Theatre, truly.
SOURCE: www.newcitystage.com at 08:00AMMonday, April 17, 2023
A simple lit rooftop, church steeple, or body-as-a-temple metaphor greets you as you enter the theater. Two bright lines meet in the middle, seemingly pointing upwards towards something grea…
SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 06:06PMThursday, March 30, 2023
Like the people in the allegorical Tower of Babel, the citizens of Jacqueline Goldfinger’s futuristic Babel are seeking oneness. The kind of oneness that mankind has never reasonably come …
SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 11:49AMThursday, March 23, 2023
Hajja Souad’s story, eight decades of life lived, is woven into a narrative of resilience, hope, and the changing tides in Palestine during her long lifetime. Brought to life in the U.S. p…
SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 09:41AMWednesday, March 22, 2023
We are reminded, subtly, that we too are made up of the stuff of those who have loved us. Whether we like it or not there are characteristics and tendencies we each carry within ourselves ta…
SOURCE: www.newcitystage.com at 08:00AMThursday, March 16, 2023
