Friday, December 17, 2021
AN UPDATED AND STILL OUTDATED KISS In William Shakespeare’s 16th-century comedy The Taming of the Shrew, a wandering fortune hunter named Petruchio does battle with a fiery independent wom…
SOURCE: stageandcinema.com at 12:55PMWednesday, December 15, 2021
Pretty Woman: The Musical is an adaption of the 1990 motion picture that made a star of Julia Roberts as Vivian, a Hollywood prostitute who wants out of her life on the streets. Providential…
SOURCE: stageandcinema.com at 05:32PMMonday, December 13, 2021
English novelist Charles Dickens once actually used his hat to carry water to victims of a train wreck in Victorian England. Playwright Michael Hollinger uses that odd historical incident as…
SOURCE: stageandcinema.com at 02:30AMSunday, December 12, 2021
A SOBERING EXPERIENCE When Harry Met Rehab is a new play at the Greenhouse Theater Center that takes on the uninviting subject alcoholism. The title may suggest that the play intends a light…
SOURCE: stageandcinema.com at 02:59AMThursday, November 18, 2021
PARADISE, INDEED The eyes of the theater world, both in Chicago and New York City, are likely now focused on the James M. Nederlander Theatre where Paradise Square is performing before its t…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 11:02PMWednesday, November 17, 2021
THIS BUGABOO WILL FOLLOW YOU HOME The Steppenwolf Theatre’s extraordinary production of Tracy Letts’s Bug was winding down its highly praised production in March 2020 when the drama was …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 06:06PMSaturday, November 13, 2021
Sister Act at the Mercury Theater is the 2011 Broadway adaptation of a 1992 movie that became a surprise box office hit, largely elevated by a star performance from Whoopi Goldberg. The show…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:23AMMonday, November 1, 2021
SEEING THIS REVUE MAY BE THE BEST DECISION YOU’VE EVER MADE I entered the Second City e.t.c. on opening night with a sense of unease. Two weeks earlier the Second City mainstage company, t…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:51AMThursday, October 28, 2021
WHAT A GREAT SHOW CAN MEAN TO YOU What the Constitution Means to Me is back at the Broadway Playhouse after a two year pandemic hiatus. Again, it is delivering an entertaining, thoughtful, h…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:23PMFriday, October 22, 2021
IS LESS MOOR? The Court Theatre artistic management is giving William Shakespeare’s great tragedy Othello a startling makeover. The play has been condensed into a single 110-minute act. Th…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:06PMSaturday, October 16, 2021
YOU WILL LIKE IT In As You Like It, the new production at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater, the company unites William Shakespeare’s classic romantic comedy, with the Beatles songbook. And …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:25PMFriday, October 15, 2021
TOGETHER IN SPIRIT MORE THAN LAUGHS After an 18-month hiatus inflicted on Chicagoland theater because of the virus pandemic, the Second City has finally opened its 109th revue, the upbeat-ti…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:37PMMonday, October 4, 2021
SONGS FOR EVERYBODY In the spring of 2020 the Northlight Theatre was set to present Bethany Thomas in “Songs for Nobodies,” a one-performer show that would celebrate five iconic female s…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 10:38PMThursday, September 23, 2021
DON’T STOP THIS WORLD The Marriott Theater is reopening for business with a revival of “The World Goes ‘Round,” a review (originally titled “And the World Goes ‘Round”) that fe…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 11:07PMThursday, September 2, 2021
The Paramount begins the post-COVID pandemic theater scene with an exhilarating revival of Kinky Boots. We likely won’t see a better musical comedy production the rest of this season. The …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:59PMSaturday, December 8, 2012
A HOLIDAY CHESTNUTCRACKER The Joffrey Ballet is celebrating the 25th anniversary of its holiday production of The Nutcracker, which means audiences have enjoyed an evening of grace, beauty, …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 06:53PMThursday, November 29, 2012
IT’S STILL WONDERFUL In just a few seasons, It’s a Wonderful Life: The Radio Play has ascended to the top of the Christmas tree of essential local holiday entertainments. A show that…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:55PMMonday, November 19, 2012
HOGWARTS AND ALL The Harry Potter parody called Potted Potter is the joint creation of a couple of Englishmen named Daniel Clarkson and Jefferson Turner (Dan and Jeff on the stage). The duo …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:53PMANYTHING BUT DEAD James Joyce is not usually considered a source of Christmas cheer, but the great Irish author did write one Christmas piece of sorts, a short story called The Dead that app…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:25PMSunday, November 18, 2012
WORTH THE FARE Hellcab opened in Chicago in 1992 for a 12-performance run and the immediate audience buzz had the show playing for the rest of the decade. Now it is is back at the Profiles T…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:25PMTuesday, November 13, 2012
NOT IN THE CARDS Northlight audiences should cut the theater’s revival of The Odd Couple some slack. The production took a major hit when co-star George Wendt was forced to drop out of the…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:35AMWednesday, October 24, 2012
A FELLOWSHIP IN THE RING The Opponent is a play about the gritty world of small time boxing. Brett Neveu’s world premiere two-hander at A Red Orchid Theatre explores the relationship betwe…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:16PMFriday, October 19, 2012
A POWERFUL WASTELAND AT TIMELINE Wasteland is a two-character play but the audience only sees one in this drama about two American soldiers held as prisoners during the Vietnam War, now rece…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:40PMTuesday, October 16, 2012
SMOKIN’ When Smokey Joe’s Café opened on Broadway in 1995, the critics were only mildly impressed and suggested that this revue of rock “n” roll songs composed by Jerry Leiber and M…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 10:32AMFriday, October 12, 2012
NOT AS BLOODY AS THE TITLE IMPLIES Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson is an audacious rock musical tracing the life and times of Andrew Jackson, the 7th president of the United States. The show is…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 12:12PMWednesday, September 26, 2012
NOTHING EQUIVOCAL ABOUT IT In Bill Cain’s entertaining, stimulating Equivocation, William Shakespeare (spelled Shagspeare in the play) doesn’t radiate awe-inspiring genius. Instead, he�…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:25AMTuesday, September 25, 2012
NEITHER WILLIAMS OR THE GOODMAN AT THEIR BEST Sweet Bird of Youth is not top drawer Tennessee Williams. The play has some of Williams’ lyricism and humor, and at least one sharply etch…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:28PMMonday, September 24, 2012
INTO THE WOODY American folksinger/composer/political activist Woody Guthrie lived during the Great Depression of the 1930’s and the turbulent wartime and postwar years of the 1940’s. I…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:15PMGOOD PEOPLE; GREAT PLAY; AMAZING PRODUCTION David Lindsay-Abaire’s Good People is a wonderful play receiving a terrific production at the Steppenwolf Theatre and headed by a magnificent pe…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 12:11PMThursday, September 20, 2012
THIS ISN’T GREAT THEATER, BUT IT’S TERRIFIC NOSTALGIA The American novelist Peter De Vries once wrote that nostalgia isn’t what it used to be. Maybe he would have modified his …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:03PMWednesday, September 19, 2012
THE DANE’S THE THING The oft-produced Hamlet demands countless choices by a director and Michael Halberstam has met all the challenges; instead of overloading the evening with grandiose di…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 12:58PM 
