Sunday, July 29, 2018
Back in 1997, I watched a guy named Rick Stone appear in a Black Ensemble Theater tribute to Otis Redding. A few weeks later, I went back to see another show there. Stone was taking my ticke…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:45PM[SHARE]Friday, July 27, 2018
In 2004, Dove launched its "Campaign for Real Beauty," one of the most successful marketing plans in history and, inarguably, a prescient bit of Madison Avenue understanding as to how the ad…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:50PM[SHARE]Thursday, July 26, 2018
Sir Philip Sidney, a modest and courtly chap of Shakespearean vintage, self-described his 1580 heroic prose poem "Arcadia" as "a trifle, triflingly handled." Back in the misogynistic wastela…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 09:00PM[SHARE]At the age of 80, the Michigan-born Martha Henry has played many of the roles in the Shakespeare canon during her 44 years at the flagship theater of her adopted Canada. As 10 artistic direc…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:55PM[SHARE]Tuesday, July 24, 2018
In April, the Paramount Theatre in Aurora will stage its first pre-Broadway tryout: "August Rush," a new musical by Mark Mancina and Glen Berger, based on the Keri Russell movie about an 11-…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:55PM[SHARE]Monday, July 23, 2018
It's popular to lament the isolation of the digital age. But "The End of TV," the deeply moving show from Manual Cinema now at the Chopin Theatre mainstage for the next few days, is a useful…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:10PM[SHARE]Sunday, July 22, 2018
Working at the Drury Lane, director Marcia Milgrom Dodge treats Tennessee Williams' "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" as if it were a spooky story of scary shadows from the all-American past. Haunting…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:00PM[SHARE]Friday, July 20, 2018
What better company at the theater than summer campers? Especially in a show that not only asks you to be up for an adventure but to bring a fairy back to life. (Before noon.) No problem for…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:20PM[SHARE]Thursday, July 19, 2018
The Broadway musical based on "The Color Purple" tried out in Atlanta in 2004. Sitting there in Georgia, I admired the zest and accessibility of the score and, in particular, the artful and …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:20PM[SHARE]On Wednesday, Chance the Rapper announced that he had purchased a dormant news-and-culture website called Chicagoist from the New York public radio station WNYC. His means of doing so " shar…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:40PM[SHARE]Wednesday, July 18, 2018
Michael Shannon, his acerbic biography in the program at A Red Orchid Theatre informs, is soon to be enshrined in wax at Madame Tussauds near Times Square. A lifetime achievement, for sure, …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:00PM[SHARE]Ten years ago " shudder " I pointed my Honda toward Munster, Ind., to check out a new musical about one of the Hoosier State's most vaunted citizens: Coach Knute Kenneth Rockne of the Notre …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 10:10AM[SHARE]Tuesday, July 17, 2018
"Heartbreak Hotel," the biographical Elvis musical from the creator of the Broadway shows "Million Dollar Quartet" and "Baby It's You," begins with a spirited gospel performance in an Africa…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:45PM[SHARE]Monday, July 16, 2018
"Hamilton: The Exhibition," the ambitious, tented attraction that aims to immerse fans of the hit Broadway musical in the life and nonfictional times of its central character, is postponing …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 05:30PM[SHARE]Lifeline Theatre, the venerable and ensemble-based Rogers Park arts institution known for its theatrical adaptations of literary classics, has a new artistic director. It's Ilesa Duncan, the…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:30PM[SHARE]"I've taken some hits," observes Stacy Keach, playing Ernest Hemingway in the solo play "Pamplona" at the Goodman Theatre. The venerable, courageous actor might well have been speaking of hi…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:15PM[SHARE]Sunday, July 15, 2018
The final Chicago performance of "The Cher Show" at the Oriental Theatre was cancelled Sunday afternoon after a technical malfunction. Instead of the planned performance of the pre-Broadway …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 08:45PM[SHARE]Thursday, July 12, 2018
Steppenwolf Theatre has announced a July 16 memorial service for Claude Binder, the theater's former production manager and general manager. Binder died July 1 from cancer. He was 65. A Step…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 11:30AM[SHARE]Tuesday, July 10, 2018
"We got such a kick out of doing the Tony Awards," Sara Bareilles said the other day, over the phone as she walked around Los Angeles. "Josh and me? We're such theater nerds. And we've been …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:20PM[SHARE]The Court Theatre " the long-established Chicago theater in residence at the University of Chicago " has a new executive director from outside the theater industry. Court will announce Tuesd…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 10:15AM[SHARE]Sunday, July 8, 2018
Born at Saint Francis Hospital in Evanston, the narrator of Adam Rapp's new play, "The Sound Inside," has ascended to one of those professorships, both tenured and scarce, teaching creative …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 11:30AM[SHARE]Thursday, July 5, 2018
On July 1, Neil Young played a sold-out concert at Chicago's historic Auditorium Theatre, part of the music legend's summer solo tour. Young saw great historical resonance in the gig, remind…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:00PM[SHARE]Tuesday, July 3, 2018
Above A Red Orchid Theatre in Old Town, there's a room. It's supposedly the A Red Orchid Theatre office, but it also has the air of a kitchen, or a basement, or a Chicago apartment shared by…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:35PM[SHARE]Monday, July 2, 2018
There is an atypical new comedy at the Goodman Theatre. Written and directed by women, it is a knowing, highly critical and laugh-out-loud funny work about a group of Americans in crisis: me…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 08:30PM[SHARE]Sunday, July 1, 2018
Sharon is a shy, 50-ish Iowan whose kitchen is filled with mason jars and decorated tiles, and who never locks her doors. Robyn is a confident vegan from the Bronx with no affinity for Midwe…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 08:00PM[SHARE]Friday, June 29, 2018
In 2010, a captive whale named Tilikum killed his trainer, Dawn Brancheau, by grabbing the 40-year-old woman's ponytail and pulling her into the water. This was the third death of a human th…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:10PM[SHARE]Two crucial, unmet challenges are faced by "The Cher Show," the far-from-finished new musical that celebrates one of the most resilient and self-transformative figures in American entertainm…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:00AM[SHARE]Thursday, June 28, 2018
After 35 years of stuttering starts, empty promises, a court-ordered sale and oft-reckless neglect, the 4,381-seat, 46,000-square-foot Uptown Theatre " once the gilded crown jewel of the Bal…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 10:00PM[SHARE]Tuesday, June 26, 2018
In 2009, a beautiful play called "Graceland" by a then-unknown Chicago writer named Ellen Fairey, opened at the now-defunct Profiles Theatre in Chicago. At the time, Fairey was waiting table…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:15PM[SHARE]Monday, June 25, 2018
The pop-culture polyglot known as Cher snuck quietly into Chicago this past weekend. She was here to see three weekend preview performances of "The Cher Show," a new Broadway musical about h…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 11:40AM[SHARE]Sunday, June 24, 2018
A girl of roughly middle-school age was directly in my field of vision Saturday night at the Den Theatre's mainstage. She was part of a large group of kids who had been taken to the show and…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:20PM[SHARE] 
