Sugarplums, sparkle, and a stellar cast can't quite overcome a treacly script. In commercializing Jane Austen's enduring appeal, playwrights Margot Melcon and La…
SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 07:08PMGenerational and racial divides light the fuse at Writers Theatre. In 2015, Yale University was rocked by student activists demanding change within an organizati…
SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 06:04PMJane Martin's story of a pregnant rape victim kidnapped by antichoice extremists wallows in both-sidesism. For decades, there has been speculation as to the iden…
SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 05:00PMTrap Door Theatre It's not uncommon for newbies to leave Trap Door wondering what just hit them.…
SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 01:00PMMuntu Dance Theatre Muntu's ambitions are vast, both in terms of space and time. Helmed by executive director Sekou Tepaka Lunda Conde, the 47-year-old South Sho…
SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 01:00PMRed Clay Dance Unlike musicians, dancers never put their instruments down. That's especially true of Red Clay Dance, where the intersection of art and activism f…
SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 01:00PMCourt Theatre Under artistic director Charles Newell, Court Theatre is all over the place in the best possible way.…
SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 01:00PMThree one-acts from the fight for women's franchise provide a cutting history lesson with Artemisia. If nothing else, this trio of one-acts that explore the uphi…
SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 07:00AMA new musical about mental illness provided its creators a chance to confront their own struggles. Mental illness as woman: It's a trope that keeps on giving. Fr…
SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 07:00AMLevi Holloway's horror show for A Red Orchid Theatre gives a feminist makeover to a familiar genre. Onstage or -screen, the tropes of horror (teens in peril, dem…
SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 07:00AMIda Cuttler's solo show for the Neo-Futurists considers the stories women tell to save their lives. Toward the end of her rambunctious and profound one-woman sho…
SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 07:00AMThree Crows tries to breathe life into a play bogged down in stereotypes. Think The Dukes of Hazzard meets Night of the Living Dead, but more reliant on stereoty…
SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 07:00AMThe star of Porchight's revival talks about surviving the postingenue years. Since arriving in Chicago in 1980, Ohio native Hollis Resnik has embodied a pantheon…
SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 07:00AMWalkabout Theater's ensemble-created show suffers from too many unresolved threads. Imagine watching a class of preschoolers hopped up on cupcakes, acting out th…
SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 07:00AMChicago Shakespeare's production is pretty and witty, but lacks dramatic tension. The rise of Albert, Duke of York, from stammering puddle of self-doubt to globa…
SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 07:00AMThirty years later, Lauren Yee's play depicts the events during the failed Chinese uprising with sympathy and surprising humor. In June, the Washington Post publ…
SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 07:00AMJessica Swale's set-in-1896 drama feels depressingly contemporary in Promethean's production. Jessica Swale's 1896-set drama should come with a trigger warning. …
SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 07:00AMIn His Shadow, an aspiring football player confronts his brother's legacy and the price of protesting. Back in 2016 when she was still practicing law in Chicago,…
SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 07:00PMTerry Guest's two-character play for Story Theatre delivers an emotional knockout. When you think of the staggering levels of violence that members of the LGBTQI…
SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 05:00PMProductions this fall in Chicago suggest their numbers are growing, but women in theatrical design still struggle for jobs and recognition. Roughly 15 or so year…
SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 07:00AMJillian Leff's world premiere for Right Brain Project offers a fantasy version of the publishing world. Playwright Jillian Leff's tale of a rookie novelist whose…
SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 07:00AMMatt Foss's adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque's World War I classic is both powerful and frustrating. Red Tape Theatre's take on Erich Maria Remarque's 1929 cla…
SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 07:00AMA jukebox musical provides a stirring history lesson about gay life in the 1930s. Long before the Viagra Triangle took root in the Gold Coast, 909 Rush Street wa…
SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 07:00AMCollaboraction's annual anthology of short plays about peace, love, and understanding kicks off its season on the south side. Eviction and art. As a grade-school…
SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 07:00AMA touring musical about the town that hosted the world after 9/11 brings the love. From the iconic image of the lone "falling man" to the gut-punch visual of wal…
SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 07:00AMBlack Ensemble Theater’s celebration of the history of funk dazzles with defiant joy. Now onstage at Black Ensemble Theater: a hard-charging, gotta-dance, groo…
SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 07:00AMJon Michael Hill and Namir Smallwood breathe fire into Steppenwolf’s revival. If you've been banging around the Chicago theatrosphere longer than 25 seconds, y…
SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 07:00AMAn adoptee seeks comfort and safety in lupine identity in Hansol Jung's latest. Never doubt the emotional layers possible from an expertly crafted, exquisitely m…
SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 07:00AMA binary-busting love story weds a 16th-century romance and the music of the Go-Go’s. When the Go-Go's debuted the irresistibly catchy titular song in 1984, MT…
SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 07:00AMMary Zimmerman’s production sings, though the gender politics creak. You can say this for director Mary Zimmerman's staging of Meredith Willson's multiple Tony…
SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 07:00AMIn the title role, Will Lidke is a nova of charisma. It hasn't always been blindingly obvious that Hedwig and the Angry Inch is a riff on Plato's "Symposium." Bu…
SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 07:00AM
