Tuesday, January 26, 2016
STAGNANT STAGING AND CRAZY COSTUMES, BUT THEÂ CAST AND CHORUS CAPTIVATE There's a good reason why Verdi's operas are typically described as "grand opera." They're big and bold, requiring m…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:02PM [SHARE]Wednesday, December 9, 2015
DISAPPOINTING DEBUT DELIVERS DAMAGED GOODS Lyric Opera's world premiere production of Bel Canto fails to live up to its name (translation: beautiful singing). While first-time opera composer…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 06:05AM [SHARE]Wednesday, November 18, 2015
A MERRY WIDOW MAKES FOR A MERRY AUDIENCE After the unbearable ugliness of Berg's Wozzeck, Lyric Opera's beautiful production of Franz Lehár's The Merry Widow (Die Lustige Witwe) comes as …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 10:43AM [SHARE]Tuesday, November 10, 2015
HURRAH FOR HAYMARKET'S HANDELIAN HERO Appropriately enough, Haymarket Opera Company (HOC) is kicking off its fifth season with a Handel opera that premiered on London's Haymarket Street 300 …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:56PM [SHARE]Monday, November 2, 2015
WHAT'S UP WITH WOZZECK? Alban Berg's Wozzeck must have been quite shocking in 1925 at its first public performance in Berlin. Why? Musically, it's regarded as the first opera in the 20th-cen…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 10:30PM [SHARE]Thursday, October 15, 2015
A MARRIAGE MADE IN CHICAGO Lyric Opera's season-opening production of Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro celebrates love and beauty with vibrant colors, light-hearted laughter and sublime music…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:32PM [SHARE]A CINDERELLA FOR ALL AGES You might think you know the story if you've seen Disney's animated version, but Rossini's Cinderella (or La Cenerentola, literally "little girl of the cinders") is…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:32PM [SHARE]WHAT'S GOOD FOR OTTO ISN'T GOOD ENOUGH FOR GIFT Seldom have I sat through such a long-winded play (nearly three hours!) that said so little. I struggled in vain to find some deeper meaning i…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 10:53AM [SHARE]LUCIO SILLA REVELS IN YOUTH'S BEAUTY Mozart's early chamber opera Lucio Silla, written at the precocious age of sixteen, is an excellent example of the bel canto style. Not only is the singi…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 10:53AM [SHARE]Monday, April 27, 2015
SISTERS AND SOLDIERS Following their rather loose and unconventional takes on Greek tragedy and Gilbert and Sullivan, The Hypocrites return to a more classic approach with Anton Chekhov's Th…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:51PM [SHARE]Tuesday, March 31, 2015
GOOD BOOKS? The world premiere production of a new play about the Bible by Denis O'Hare and Lisa Peterson, The Good Book is impressive, complex, informative, and entertaining, perhaps even p…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 11:18AM [SHARE]Sunday, March 15, 2015
HAYMARKET TRIUMPHS WITH TELEMANN RARITY Closing out their fourth season with Georg Philipp Telemann's Don Quichotte auf der Hochzeit des Camacho (Don Quixote at the Wedding of Camacho), Haym…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:59AM [SHARE]Wednesday, March 11, 2015
BETRAYED BY THE KISS OF BROADWAY In the small confines of the No Exit Café in Rogers Park, one might have expected a more intimate, low-key version of Jesus Christ Superstar, especially con…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 11:06AM [SHARE]Monday, March 9, 2015
GRASP THIS HAMMER WHILE THE IRON IS HOT! Considering the popularity of fantasy epics The Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones, it is a wonder that more theaters aren't performing them. Whil…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 12:45PM [SHARE]Wednesday, March 4, 2015
SMART DRAMA REVEALS POLAR ATTRACTION A world premiere production, Mat Smart's The Royal Society of Antarctica at The Gift Theatre is easily one of the year's best new plays. Smart, who worke…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:34AM [SHARE]Saturday, February 28, 2015
YANKEE DOODLE DUD Of all the plays inspired by the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, Yankee Tavern has got to be one of the worst. Steven Dietz's play, which takes place in New York C…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 12:28AM [SHARE]Monday, February 16, 2015
A REALLY REALLY TIMELY PLAY 29-year old playwright Paul Downs Colaizzo's Really Really premiered at Virginia's Signature Theatre in 2012 before heading to Off-Broadway, where it was helmed b…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 11:14AM [SHARE]Sunday, February 15, 2015
EVERYTHING A FIRST DATE SHOULD BE First Date, an enjoyable new musical comedy that opened on Broadway in 2013, should really be called Blind Date. Its two principal protagonists, awkward Aar…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:07AM [SHARE]Wednesday, February 11, 2015
TANNHÄUSER TIES TOSCA IN TERMS OF SIMILARLY SHODDY DIRECTION From the highpoint of Mozart's Don Giovanni, Lyric Opera's 60th anniversary season has been on a slow downward arc. That i…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:18AM [SHARE]Wednesday, January 28, 2015
BECKETT'S RIDDLE CONTINUES TO CONFOUND Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot is not an easy play to write about, let alone produce, act, or even watch. It's challenging, opaque, and ambiguous. …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:37AM [SHARE]Tuesday, January 27, 2015
WHEN IN ROME, DO AS THE ROMANS DO (NOT THE BRITISH) With Puccini's Tosca, Lyric Opera has done one update too many this season. Don Giovanni was bumped up 300+ years in time to the 1920s, Ca…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 12:52PM [SHARE]Monday, December 15, 2014
THE HOTTEST SHOW IN TOWN One of the best-reviewed and most popular Christmastime shows, The Ruffians' Burning Bluebeard, returns beginning tonight for three weeks only through Jan. 4, 2015, …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 06:04PM [SHARE]Friday, December 12, 2014
CST STAGES A FRESH AND FANTASTICAL PERICLES William Shakespeare is a man of many faces. To most, he is quite simply a master of the English language and one of the greatest playwrights who e…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:47AM [SHARE]RADVANOVSKY IS REGAL IN ANNA BOLENA With so much filmed and written about the six wives of Henry VIII, the Tudor period is perhaps one of the most familiar eras in English history. Yet Gaeta…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:27AM [SHARE]Tuesday, December 9, 2014
THIS SCHOONER SAILS IN ON YULETIDE EUPHORIA A joyous holiday tradition, The Christmas Schooner has been warming Chicagoan hearts for nearly two decades. Following a lengthy run at Bailiwick …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:59AM [SHARE]Sunday, December 7, 2014
TELL US SOME MORE Turin, Italy's Teatro Regio Torino opened its first ever North American tour with a magnificent concert performance of Gioachino Rossini's William Tell at the Harris Theate…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:49AM [SHARE]Wednesday, December 3, 2014
THE HYPOCRITES PLAYFULLY ROCK THIS BOAT A nautical joyride of musical mayhem, belly laughs, and unadulterated fun, this world premiere adaptation of H.M.S. Pinafore completes The Hypocrites'…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:47PM [SHARE]Tuesday, December 2, 2014
ARMACOST LIGHTS UP THE NULLITY OF SHINING CITY Hot on the heels of Steppenwolf's production of Conor McPherson's newest play The Night Alive comes Irish Theatre of Chicago's current producti…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:39PM [SHARE]Thursday, November 27, 2014
HOLLYWOOD HORROR STORY Director Michael Driscoll brings B-movie exploitation antics to Strawdog's Hugen Hall stage in Darren Callahan's Desperate Dolls. This over-the-top, no-holds-barred do…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:21PM [SHARE]Sunday, November 23, 2014
MARY, MARY, QUITE CONTRARY It begins with a woman taking a bath. The lighting is low and there are dozens of candles spread about the set. She slowly gets up and dries off, donning a linen s…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:01PM [SHARE]Saturday, November 22, 2014
LYRIC DOES THE BESS THAT IT CAN After two outings to Spain (Don Giovanni and Il Trovatore) and one to Paris (Capriccio), Lyric Opera is bringing audiences something homegrown, composed by an…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:35PM [SHARE] 
