Wednesday, January 21, 2026
FOUR UKRAINIAN REFUGEES NAVIGATE WAR'S AFTERSHOCKS IN A NIGHTMARE OF BUREAUCRACY Natalka Vorozhbyt's darkly funny, deeply bruising play finds Trap Door Theatre at its most urgent"and most hu…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:58AM[SHARE]Tuesday, December 16, 2025
A HOLIDAY MYSTERY WITH VICTORIAN MISCHIEF ON ITS MIND Chesterton by way of Conan Doyle, wrapped in Wodehouse-style tomfoolery Arthur Conan Doyle wrote only one Christmas-themed Sherlock Holm…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 10:00PM[SHARE]Friday, December 12, 2025
A THRILLER THAT OUTLASTS ITS TWIST Even when we know what's coming, the tension holds Let's talk about the cojones required to mount a production of Gaslight nowadays. Even if we assume " a …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 09:19PM[SHARE]Wednesday, December 10, 2025
A FAIRYTALE REBORN ON THE SOUTH SIDE Wheeldon's Chicago-set Nutcracker still casts a decade-long spell Ten years in, Pyotr Tchaikovsky and the World's Columbian Exposition are still a match …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 11:21PM[SHARE]Tuesday, December 9, 2025
THE OG CHRISTMAS GHOST STORY The Goodman puts the chills back in the chestnuts ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ In some ways, it is remarkable that Goodm…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:50AM[SHARE]Monday, December 8, 2025
NO GROWN-UPS ALLOWED " SORT OF CCT's Beatrix Potter party charms kids, critics, and everyone in between ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ "Channel your in…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:00AM[SHARE]THE LONGER CHRISTMAS DINNER In Wilder's meditation on time, the actors have to do the heavy lifting ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ "Only time, only the…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:50AM[SHARE]Sunday, December 7, 2025
TOAD-ALLY DELIGHTFUL Ribbiting from start to finish, this Year goes by in a flash. ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ Arnold Lobel's Frog and Toad series h…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 12:41PM[SHARE]Saturday, December 6, 2025
THERE IS NO TAMING THIS PRICKLY AND INVIGORATING SHREW ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ I won't deny it: I squealed in excitement when I received the inv…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:59AM[SHARE]THE OTHER CHRISTMAS CAROL A clever, moving tale of a ghost searching for grace ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ Boy does it suck to be Jacob Marley. You …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:51AM[SHARE]Monday, December 1, 2025
A WIG-PULLING, EYE-SCRATCHING BAUBLE OF HOLIDAY CHEER ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ When The Real Housewives of Orange County premiered on Bravo in 20…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 09:37PM[SHARE]Sunday, November 30, 2025
COARSE, HAIRY FUN ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ The Christmas pantomime, or "panto", as it is colloquially called, is a longstanding English holiday t…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:50AM[SHARE]Sunday, November 16, 2025
HELL'S ON FIRE Hell's Kitchen, a jukebox musical featuring the music of R&B superstar Alicia Keys (with several new songs) and a book by Kristoffer Diaz, took Broadway by storm in 2024, …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 11:00PM[SHARE]Saturday, November 15, 2025
MURDER, MAYHEM, AND A MANUSCRIPT TO DIE FOR Sometimes uncontrollable forces work in your favor. How fortunate then for MadKap productions that on the opening night of their production of Ira…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:55AM[SHARE]Thursday, November 13, 2025
SHARP CAST, BLUNT SATIRE A Fierce Ensemble Fights for Meaning in Angry Fags Topher Payne's Angry Fags first made its appearance in 2015, in a world that was decidedly different from what it …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:50AM[SHARE]Sunday, November 9, 2025
THIS HOUSE STANDS ON FAITH AND FURY Invictus Theatre's The House That Will Not Stand blazes with wit, grief, and grace Following the smashing success of its production of Angels in America, …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:31AM[SHARE]Monday, October 27, 2025
TOWERING TALENT ELEVATES A MUSICAL AS SCHIZOPHRENIC AS JEKYLL & HYDE THEMSELVES Next up for Halloween, and my second gothic horror in as many days, is Kokandy Productions' presentation o…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:00AM[SHARE]Sunday, October 26, 2025
A Bite Out of Minimalism: Timothy Griffin's imaginative adaptation turns Stoker's most chilling chapter into a voyage of dread, myth, and mind In 1897, Bram Stoker published a gothic horror …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:00AM[SHARE]Saturday, October 25, 2025
YOU'RE NEVER GOING TO SEE A BETTER PRODUCTION OF THIS EVERGREEN MUSICAL. JUST BRING SOME CAUTIOUS OPTIMISM. How do you solve a problem like the schmaltz in The Sound of Music? Or even, how d…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:19AM[SHARE]Friday, October 24, 2025
ROXIE'S BACK IN TOWN! MY KIND OF PLAY, CHICAGO IS In Jazz Age Chicago, 1924 to be precise, Beulah Annan and Belva Gaertner were tried and subsequently acquitted of murder. A young Tribune re…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:58AM[SHARE]Wednesday, October 22, 2025
A revolution without an end game misses the mark, but only by this much. Babes With Blades, a theatre company that uses stage combat to create striking, thought-provoking theatre, presents a…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:13PM[SHARE]A REVOLUTION LOST IN THE (BEAUTIFUL) NOISE Revolution(s) is the first Owen Theatre production of Goodman's centennial celebration. With a book by Zayd Ayers Dohrn and music and lyrics by mul…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:20AM[SHARE]Tuesday, October 21, 2025
A CIRCUS OF CULTURE, A CABARET OF CONSCIENCE: STEP RIGHT UP TO THE UNITED STATES OF ZINZANNI The gorgeous Art Deco Spielgeltent still sits on the fourteenth floor of the Cambria Hotel in the…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:00PM[SHARE]All happy families are alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. Â Â " Leo Tolstoy The most remarkable thing about Joel Drake Johnson's Four Places is how it prepares you …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:30AM[SHARE]Friday, October 17, 2025
DON'T KILL THE FATTED CALF JUST YET " THE PRODIGAL SON RETURNS EMPTY-HANDED "I was fifteen. Do you remember fifteen? For me, it was a special, beautiful room in Hell." That brilliant line op…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:59AM[SHARE]A BEAUTIFUL NIGHTMARE IN A HOUSE THAT BLEEDS ART As a fan of the horror genre in every medium, how could I resist the chance to review something as delightfully titled as House of the Exquis…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:52AM[SHARE]AN OAK WHOSE ROOTS WON'T LET GO A flashlight illuminating a face from below: what else could follow that image but a ghost story. And what better time for a ghost story than the month that c…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:00AM[SHARE]Tuesday, October 14, 2025
ON THE THIRD RAIL: STRONG ACTORS KEEP THIS DUTCHMAN FLYING The Trap Door Theatre is a quintessential Chicago storefront theatre " it's housed in a converted garage, accessed through a narrow…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:57AM[SHARE]Sunday, October 5, 2025
SINK YOUR TEETH INTO THIS BLOODY CUT OF MEAT At some time in the future, a band of rebels have staged a successful coup against the United States. The prevailing system of order has been vio…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:00AM[SHARE]Thursday, October 2, 2025
CARB-LOADERS OF THE WORLD, UNITE! "For the gods know I speak this in hunger for bread…" Alright, so that's not from Julius Caesar but Coriolanus, that other Shakespeare play about a politi…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:00AM[SHARE]Tuesday, September 30, 2025
A thing of beauty is a joy forever. " John Keats Sleep-deprived and fortified with four cups of coffee, I hauled my cranky, cynical self on a Sunday morning to the Chicago Children's Theatre…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:23PM[SHARE] 
