With Beauty’s Daughter, Playwright Dael Orlandersmith returns to the broken beauty of Harlem, where she came of age. Directed by Ron OJ Parson, and starring the indelible Wandachristine, t…
SOURCE: Chicago Theater Beat at 09:06PMAs national tours go, Something Rotten! is something splendid - a mindess but gleeful hoot-and-a-half. If you aren’t laughing five minutes in, you seriously need to lighten up. Highly Rec…
SOURCE: Chicago Theater Beat at 08:48PMMoliere penned The School for Lies more than 350 years ago, but in David Ives’ insouciant, gleefully anachronistic reboot, the satire still glitters and cuts like fine-cut diamonds. The rh…
SOURCE: Chicago Theater Beat at 07:42PMRock critic Lester Bangs didn’t live long – he died at 33 after overdosing on cough syrup – but his short career chronicling the gods of rock and roll had lasting impact. In the one-ma…
SOURCE: Chicago Theater Beat at 05:36PMThe plot of D. L. Coburn’s 100-minute, two-person drama sounds so simple you wonder how it could possibly be a compelling drama: Two people play half a dozen hands of gin. Yet within this …
SOURCE: Chicago Theater Beat at 07:48PMEnter the world of most Eugene O’Neill plays and you’ll find yourself in a world of hurt. The exception that proves the rule is Ah, Wilderness!, O’Neill’s sole romantic comedy. Set o…
SOURCE: Chicago Theater Beat at 08:32PMVisually sumptuous and sonically gorgeous, Broadway in Chicago's opulent national tour of The King and I is a throwback to the golden era of Rodgers and Hammerstein. Highly Recommended! (rea…
SOURCE: Chicago Theater Beat at 11:18PMHoly Virginia Creeper On a Stick. Not since before the November election have I laughed as long, hard and cathartically as I did at Karen Zacarias’ Native Gardens. But what starts as a com…
SOURCE: Chicago Theater Beat at 12:36AMSteppenwolf's world premiere Pass Over is the rare drama that will keep you utterly rapt from start to finish, while also spinning an unforgettable commentary on the problems that plague 21s…
SOURCE: Chicago Theater Beat at 06:48PMPlaywright Mark St. Germain’s intriguing Relativity, directed by BJ Jones, goes far deeper than the famously tousled shock of white hair that Einstein will forever be associated with. As E…
SOURCE: Chicago Theater Beat at 06:48PMUnder Gary Griffin’s direction, the musical Parade is an exquisitely rendered ensemble piece defined by richly nuanced performances and sonic majesty. Anchored by Patrick Andrews as Leo Fr…
SOURCE: Chicago Theater Beat at 02:05AMWith the funny, perceptive T., playwright Dan Aibel’s shows that an infamous sports attack didn’t happen in a vacuum. Figure skating (and society’s) rigid rules about how women should …
SOURCE: Chicago Theater Beat at 12:18AMThere’s a fascinating, important story in Detroit’s Black Bottom community, both in its thriving heyday and in the institutionalized racism that erased it. Playwright Dominique Morisseau…
SOURCE: Chicago Theater Beat at 11:06PMAfter over a decade of pursuing the elusive rights to the show, Drury Lane finally got the green light to put their stamp on John Kander’s and Fred Ebb’s classic musical. Director Willia…
SOURCE: Chicago Theater Beat at 11:12PMSparkling wit, a feel-good romance and a sexy, sassy, intelligent heroine - with those elements firmly in place, Chicago Shakespeare's Shakespeare in Love is just the thing to usher in the s…
SOURCE: Chicago Theater Beat at 07:54PMAs romances go, She Loves Me, by Sheldon Harnick and Jerry Bock, is as pretty as a glossy-page perfume insert. In the Marriott Lincolnshire production, It is also just about as deep. Slightl…
SOURCE: Chicago Theater Beat at 09:36PMAs a piece of storytelling, Objects in the Mirror is riveting. Playwright Charles Smith’s world premiere drama about a Liberian refugee is so fraught with tension that it makes you forget …
SOURCE: Chicago Theater Beat at 10:42PMIt’s tough to find words to describe the the vocal magnificence and dramatic intensity of Paramount Theatre’s extraordinary production of Jesus Christ Superstar. Andrew Lloyd Webber (mus…
SOURCE: Chicago Theater Beat at 11:05PMThere’s no denying that My Fair Lady is a sonic masterpiece. For a gloriously full-throated, lushly orchestrated rendition of Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe’s 1956 classic, the Lyri…
SOURCE: Chicago Theater Beat at 01:24AMWith 3C, David Adjmi deconstructs the inherent hatefulness of the 70's sitcom Three’s Company. Watch the show today, and you’ll cringe at how it dehumanizes gay men, turning them into n…
SOURCE: Chicago Theater Beat at 02:18AMThere's not a child in the land who wouldn’t love Disney's Aladdin. The music is terrific, from the adventuresome romance of “Whole New World,” to the splendor-on-steroids treasure cav…
SOURCE: Chicago Theater Beat at 12:24AMFrank Loesser’s score has some fine moments, Adam Veness' vineyard set is impressive, and newcomer Molly Hernandez’ powerful soprano and radiant stage presence is a huge new talent who s…
SOURCE: Chicago Theater Beat at 07:31PMMadhuri Shekar's Queen a is fascinating, provacative world premiere about the science and research surrounding bee ecology. The dialogue is witty and insightful that delves both the sense a…
SOURCE: Chicago Theater Beat at 02:02AMIn Porchlight Music Theatre's 70-minutes two-hander romance of Stephen Sondheim out-takes, Austin Cook and Bethany Thomas deliver sonic wonders and emotional depth. The songs of Marry Me a L…
SOURCE: Chicago Theater Beat at 02:54AMPlaywright Tracy Letts certainly knows how to deliver dialogue that’s balanced on a razor-wire between edgy and Neil Simon. With Linda Vista, he’s does this deftly, scoring numerous audi…
SOURCE: Chicago Theater Beat at 01:48AMDirector Marti Lyons deploys a deft hand with Bathsheba Doran's The Mystery of Love and Sex. She keeps the pacing taut and elegantly navigates the thin line between humor and pathos. What sh…
SOURCE: Chicago Theater Beat at 10:42PMMake no mistake - Odysseo is breathtaking from start to finish. Starring 65 horses and 48 human aerialists, acrobats and riders, the tech-heavy production is a staggeringly beautiful and imp…
SOURCE: Chicago Theater Beat at 03:02AMAfter a rather uneventful first act, Born Yesterday picks up the steam of a runaway downhill freight train in the second act, powering through to a finale that feels downright prophetic. Pla…
SOURCE: Chicago Theater Beat at 08:36PMKokandy director Lili-Anne Brown takes a literal stance on The Wiz, billing it as an urbanization of L. Frank Baum’s beloved tale, setting it in the amongst the graffiti-strewn Kansas Home…
SOURCE: Chicago Theater Beat at 08:24PMIt’s been over a century since the publishing of Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, the seminal, muckraking expose of working conditions in Chicago’s stockyards. Alexander Zeldin’s Beyond C…
SOURCE: Chicago Theater Beat at 10:24PMWith Goodman Theatre's Destiny of Desire, playwright Karen Zacarias might have invented a new theatrical genre. The unabashedly histrionic production is part Greek tragedy, part frantic sex …
SOURCE: Chicago Theater Beat at 09:06PM
