Saturday, February 4, 2012
THE SILLY BLONDE MUSICAL THAT ACTUALLY WORKS Local musical productions will have problems hiring skilled and energetic young performers for the next couple of months. The Chicagoland talent …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:45AM[SHARE]Tuesday, January 31, 2012
WHOSE ETHNIC HERITAGE IS IT, ANYWAY? Black Pearl Sings! is a two-hander that explores the odd couple relationship between a black woman in prison for murder and a white female academic in Te…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:00PM[SHARE]Monday, January 30, 2012
A FEAST FOR THE SENSES (LEAVE YOUR MIND BEHIND) Chicago's Redmoon Company is famous for its work in puppet theater. The Chicago Shakespeare Theater is the preeminent classical theater in the…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 12:35PM[SHARE]MAMET CONFRONTS RACISM David Mamet's Race looks at the racial situation in this country and sees an unbridgeable chasm between blacks and whites in our society. It's a bleak vision, fortunat…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 11:59AM[SHARE]INVISIBLE MAN IS DIFFICULT TO SEE Invisible Man is a complex, panoramic, symbolic novel that's an unlikely candidate for adaptation to the stage. It's a sprawling work crowded with character…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 11:22AM[SHARE]KLEA BLACKHURST IS QUEEN OF THIS GYPSY Gypsy is a musical theater biography of striptease performer Gypsy Rose Lee; but it's really about Gypsy's mother, Mama Rose, immortalized by Ethel Mer…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 10:43AM[SHARE]Tuesday, January 24, 2012
DECIDING THE FATE OF BLACK MEN IN BASEBALL In 1947, Jackie Robinson broke the color line in major league baseball, the first black man in modern baseball history to play in the majors. That'…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:09PM[SHARE]Monday, January 23, 2012
THIS SHOWGIRL NEVER AGES For the typical visitor, Don Arden's Jubilee! is what Las Vegas entertainment is all about " spectacle, elegance, and acres of nubile topless young ladies descending…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:37AM[SHARE]DRINK PLENTY OF ABSINTHE BEFORE YOU ATTEND THIS FRAT PARTY Absinthe " an uneasy cross between terrific variety acts and a stag party " takes place near the entrance to Caesars Palace Hotel, …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:35AM[SHARE]OH, WHAT FOOL THIS IMMORTAL BE After a short run in Las Vegas, Cirque du Soleil's Michael Jackson THE IMMORTAL World Tour begins its 48-city North American excursion that will last through A…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:28AM[SHARE]A VIRTUAL VOLCANO OF VISCERALLY VIVACIOUS VARIETY Not every rewarding entertainment experience in Las Vegas tries to blow audiences' minds with a massive cast, dazzling special effects, and …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:19AM[SHARE]Friday, December 9, 2011
MEET THE QUEEN Timothy Findley's Elizabeth Rex confines Queen Elizabeth I and William Shakespeare inside a royal barn one wintry night in February 1601. The placement of the two most lum…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 12:42PM[SHARE]Sunday, December 4, 2011
IT'S A WONDERFUL PRODUCTION A stage adaptation of the movie classic It's a Wonderful Life premiered in Connecticut in 1997 and, before long, the adaptation became a staple of the regional th…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 12:57AM[SHARE]A CAROL FOR THE PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE The Goodman Theatre is the custodian of the most popular tradition in Chicagoland holiday entertainment, Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. The 201…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 12:52AM[SHARE]Wednesday, November 30, 2011
THE 1700s MEET THE 60s Back in the early 1700's, Pierre Marivaux was a major playwright in France, but his romantic comedies never made much of an impact on the American stage until the 1990…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 11:30AM[SHARE]Friday, November 25, 2011
MEMPHIS PROVIDES RHYTHM BUT ULTIMATELY GIVES YOU THE BLUES Kicking off its national tour, Memphis blew into Chicago trying to sell itself as a romping, stomping celebration of rhythm and blu…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 11:31AM[SHARE]Tuesday, November 22, 2011
THE JACKIE TAYLOR STORY TAKES PRECEDENCE OVER THE JACKIE WILSON STORY Jackie Taylor is a happy lady these days, and everyone with a fondness to Chicagoland theater should rejoice with her. T…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 11:07PM[SHARE]HO HO HUM Alan Ayckbourn's Season's Greetings is an anti-holiday-cheer comedy which should be appropriate for audiences ready for an excursion into the dark side of the Christmas season. The…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 10:54PM[SHARE]A HOMER RUN One-actor shows are by their nature demanding, but Timothy Edward Kane's volcanic storytelling in An Iliad is a stunning marvel. This retelling of the famous epic The Iliad " att…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 10:48PM[SHARE]Saturday, November 19, 2011
STILL WAITING TO SEE IF THIS DOUGH WILL EVER RISE The Baker's Wife never made it to Broadway. The musical folded in Washington. D.C. in 1976 before reaching New York City but has since gaine…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:53PM[SHARE]TAKING CARE TO CREATE EXCELLENT THEATER The plot of Harold Pinters' The Caretaker is uncomplicated on the surface and densely complex in its subtexts; it is a melding of realism and theatre-…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 06:57PM[SHARE]Saturday, November 12, 2011
PROFILES OF A DREARY EXISTENCE The Profiles Theatre has carved out an essential niche for itself on the local Chicagoland theater scene with sexy, violent, and edgy modern dramas. Recently, …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 06:21PM[SHARE]BERNSTEIN IN SOME OF HIS GLORY Older spectators will remember Leonard Bernstein not just as a conductor, composer, and pianist, but as one of the most vivid personalities and astonishingly e…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:50PM[SHARE]Thursday, November 10, 2011
A DREAMBOAT IN DREAMCOAT In just two productions, the Paramount Theatre has elevated itself to the top of the class in Chicagoland musical theater, in company with Drury Lane in Oakbrook Ter…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:20AM[SHARE]Thursday, November 3, 2011
PROMISING PREMISE PRODUCES PREPOSTEROUS PRODUCT Katha and Ryu are a modern married couple fed up with their harried lives: Ryu hates his 60-hour workweeks as a doctor and Katha is discontent…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:27PM[SHARE]Monday, October 31, 2011
HAND OVER GIST Martin McDonagh, the English dramatist known for his quirky and violent plays set in rural Ireland, sets A Behanding in Spokane in the United States, but the setting hasn't in…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 09:33PM[SHARE]Saturday, October 29, 2011
A RESONANT AND RESOUNDING SOUND OF MUSIC Although the Drury Lane Theatre extended the run of its revival of THE SOUND OF MUSIC even before the show opened, the laudable theater company might…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:22PM[SHARE]I'M DREAMING OF A WHITE CHRISTMAS THAT WORKS It is possible that Irving Berlin's White Christmas might succeed with audiences. Possible, that is, if they are willing to tolerate a lame, clic…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:30PM[SHARE]Tuesday, October 18, 2011
COUNTRY MUSIC PARODY BETTER THAN COUNTRY MUSIC ITSELF Country music can be whiney, right wing, corny, and macho. In the case of The Doyle and Debbie Show, it is also hilarious. I am no lover…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 11:34PM[SHARE]CHARACTER PORTRAYALS BRING BUS STOP TO LIFE William Inge was a hot American playwright during the 1950's, but in the turbulent 1960's and beyond, his realistic studies of small town Midweste…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 11:27PM[SHARE]Sunday, October 2, 2011
REVUE REVIEW Richard Maltby, Jr., and David Shire are not household names among the teams of composers who have contributed to the American musical stage. Although their collaboration goes b…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:47AM[SHARE] 
