Monday, April 22, 2019
In its first full season under artistic director Cody Estle, Raven Theatre scored the most nominations in the 2019 Non-Equity Jeff Awards, with the all-volunteer committee of Chicago theater…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 11:00AMThursday, April 18, 2019
“Can I touch you?” John Lithgow’s Bill asks Laurie Metcalf’s Hillary. If looks could kill, the audience for playwright Lucas Hnath’s “Hillary and Clinton” at Broadway’s Golde…
Linked From New York Daily News at 09:30PMThe most fun you can ever have as a critic is watching a talented scribe take a great leap — in both thematic ambition and theatrical accomplishment. “Cambodian Rock Band,” already the…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:00PMDavid Korins is best known as a designer of Broadway shows, including, among others, “Dear Evan Hansen,” “Passing Strange,” “Beetlejuice” and, of course, “Hamilton.” But thro…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:00PMJoanne B. Freeman is one of the world’s foremost experts on Alexander Hamilton. A professor of history and American studies at Yale University, Freeman is the historical advisor for “Ham…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:00PMLin-Manuel Miranda — the creator of “Hamilton” — needs no introduction. He talked with the Tribune from New York about his mostly parental role in “Hamilton: The Exhibition.” Thi…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:00PMCan the famously smart and creative minds at Hamilton Inc. pull off their biggest gamble yet? With the acclaimed visual designer David Korins spinning the artistic roulette wheel, the brain …
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:00PMThe temporary exhibition opens April 27 on Northerly Island and will travel to other cities after the Chicago engagement, which is expected to last several months.
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:56PMWednesday, April 17, 2019
The moody Dane, known to his friends as “Hamlet,” is back in town. In honor of Barbara Gaines’ new production at Chicago Shakespeare Theater, which stars Maurice Jones, let’s take a …
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 06:00AMTuesday, April 16, 2019
When Lanford Wilson's "Burn/This" was first performed at Steppenwolf in Chicago at 1987, it famously starred John Malkovich and Joan Allen as, respectively, Pale and Anna: the coked-up, gang…
Linked From New York Daily News at 09:00PMMonday, April 15, 2019
The New York dancers who talked into a tape recorder for the rapacious director Michael Bennett at the Nickolaus Exercise Center on E. 23rd Street in 1974 are now, on average, more than 70 y…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:50PMSunday, April 14, 2019
Despite the title — or maybe because of the title — there’s a real warmth to “Grinning From Fear to Fear,” the new revue from Second City’s e.t.c. company and the director, Annel…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:20PMThursday, April 11, 2019
Enter the Apollo Theater and there will be a djembe drum on your seat. I speak not of some souvenir percussive takeaway nor of a cheap facsimile of the skin-covered goblet drum. Nope. Every …
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 09:00PMWednesday, April 10, 2019
Best puppet of the season? “King Kong” on Broadway. Height: 20 feet. Weight: 2,000 pounds. Style: Animatronic ape. Puppeteers: 14. Microprocessors: 16. Designer: Sonny Tilders. Cost: Goo…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:15PMThis summer in New York, Steven Spielberg and Tony Kushner are expected to begin filming their upcoming adaptation of “West Side Story,” a remake of the movie that won a fleet of Oscars …
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 06:00AMTuesday, April 9, 2019
Playwright Ike Holter’s extraordinary Rightlynd saga — a multi-part dramatic odyssey that has taken a lucky few of us over a five-year stretch to the Jackalope Theatre, Victory Gardens, …
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:25PMBritain's Royal Shakespeare Company will make its first visit to Chicago in 25 years, Chicago Shakespeare Theater announced Tuesday. The RSC will be part of an expansive 2019-20 season on Na…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:45PMMonday, April 8, 2019
Do we all enjoy an exemption from moral, unselfish behavior when it comes to fighting for our own kids? It might seem we’ve decided otherwise — look at the righteous scorn heaped upon th…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:00PMSunday, April 7, 2019
An "Oklahoma!" for an anxious, riven America unable engage in any kind of collective, cock-eyed optimism anymore, director Daniel Fish's Broadway revival at Circle in the Square Theatre is a…
Linked From New York Daily News at 09:00PMAn "Oklahoma!" for an anxious, riven America unable to engage in any kind of collective, cock-eyed optimism anymore, director Daniel Fish's Broadway revival at Circle in the Square Theatre i…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 09:00PMFriday, April 5, 2019
Joe Foust, a distinguished and versatile Chicago actor, is alone on the stage in “The Absolute Brightness of Leonard Pelkey,” an 80-minute monologue that begins with a detective from a s…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 10:50AMThursday, April 4, 2019
No crueler speech was ever uttered by a parent than the torrent of abuse that William Shakespeare's King Lear, that great beacon of self-awareness, unleashes on Goneril, the eldest of his th…
Linked From New York Daily News at 09:00PMWeary of these moralistic times? Nostalgic for an emo-loving, streaming-free, pre-social-media-outrage era of acceptable decadence, amoral cinematic narratives and fanciful sensual depravity…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:40PMWednesday, April 3, 2019
After more than 12 years as artistic director of the Drury Lane Theatre in Oakbrook Terrace, and an affiliation stretching back three decades, William Osetek said Wednesday that he had resig…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 05:40PMWhat’s your favorite scene in “Jersey Boys”? If you saw the show on Broadway or one of its earlier visits to Chicago, dollars to donuts it’s the moment when the horns come out for …
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 05:00PMFew wise heads would choose a candidate for the Mayor of the City of Chicago entirely on the basis of their arts policy — without job growth, high-quality public education, safe streets, s…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:15PMWhat's the difference between a clown and a fool? You might think the question moot, given the ample prevalence of both types in and around the White House. But it's the central issue in "Ga…
Linked From New York Daily News at 03:10PMJoe Keller, the tragic antihero of Arthur Miller’s “All My Sons” and a man who shipped out cracked cylinder heads to World War II fighter pilots, generally is played as a folksy sort o…
Linked From New York Daily News at 03:10PMAmerica's on the road to hell — better jump right off, my children. Too dangerous to look back. Instead, try and find the cracks in that famous wall we're building. That's pretty much the …
Linked From New York Daily News at 03:05PMQuestion. What do Harry Potter, the Ramones and the magician Jamie Allan all have in common? Canada. And trash cans. If there’s one common denominator to the marketing plan of the young Ca…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 09:30AMMonday, April 1, 2019
A problem with writing dystopian dramas, be they in the theater or on TV, is that the sources of societal anxiety change fast. That is not to say that we get any less anxious overall, merely…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:00PM 
