All stories by Deanna Isaacs on BroadwayStars

Monday, June 17, 2024

Opera as oratorio by Deanna Isaacs

It’s safe to assume that any Haymarket Opera Company performance will transport you from the blare of contemporary life to the more genteel soundscape of the baroque. Last weekend’s prod…

SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 03:15PM
Friday, January 26, 2024

When Cinderella meets a control freak by Deanna Isaacs

Gioachino Rossini’s rambunctious 200-year-old score for his comic opera, La Cenerentola, gets very serious attention in Lyric Opera’s current revival of a 55-year-old production. Origina…

SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 12:38PM
Wednesday, October 12, 2022

From domestic terrorism to the voting booth by Deanna Isaacs

When Michael Fanone, the former Trump supporter and D.C. cop who nearly died at the hands of the January 6 mob at the U.S. Capitol, comes to the Chicago Humanities […] The post From domest…

SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 12:57PM
Wednesday, September 28, 2022

Anti-abortion activists float a new argument: ageism by Deanna Isaacs

Move over, Grandpa. You think ageism is your cause? Last week, Created Equal, an Ohio-based organization opposed to ending unwanted pregnancies came to town, making stops at the city’s lar…

SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 10:17AM
Wednesday, September 21, 2022

Tradition with a twist by Deanna Isaacs

Lyric Opera introduced Chicago audiences to director Barrie Kosky last year, when it brought his production of The Magic Flute—created for Komische Oper Berlin, where he’s been music dir…

SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 09:41AM
Friday, September 16, 2022

Some best bets for the fall harvest of performance by Kerry Reid, Irene Hsiao and Deanna Isaacs

It’s impossible to summarize everything that’s happening onstage this season. (It’s also hard to tell you exactly what COVID-19 precautions are required at venues now; we suggest check…

SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 02:09PM
Wednesday, September 14, 2022

The U.S. and the Holocaust by Deanna Isaacs

Starting Sunday, for three consecutive nights, WTTW will air a new six-hour Ken Burns documentary series, The U.S. and the Holocaust. Burns and his filmmaking partners, Lynn Novick and Sarah…

SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 10:20AM
Monday, September 12, 2022

When melodrama meets breaking news by Deanna Isaacs

Thanks to CNN, this weekend I went right from Lyric Opera’s season-opening production of Ernani—featuring Charles V of Spain—to the pomp and circumstance surrounding the launch of Char…

SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 05:32PM
Wednesday, August 17, 2022

Pox Americana by Deanna Isaacs

Last Sunday, stuffed with antibiotics, numbed by painkillers, and facing a date with an oral surgeon the next morning, I made my way to the International Museum of Surgical Science […] The…

SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 10:00AM
Wednesday, August 3, 2022

Walking with the dead by Deanna Isaacs

When Anne Ford interviewed Adam Selzer for the Reader in 2014, it was all about his job as a ghost tour leader. You didn’t have to read between the lines to sense that it wasn’t the perf…

SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 10:00AM
Wednesday, July 20, 2022

Sun, sand—and segregation by Deanna Isaacs

So, a bicyclist walks up to a beach on the North Shore. It’s hot, he’s been riding, he just wants to put his feet in the cool Lake Michigan water that he can see sparkling behind a booth…

SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 11:50AM
Wednesday, July 6, 2022

A bloody Independence Day in Highland Park by Deanna Isaacs

Nothing was said about it on the July 4 television interviews I saw, but among the security experts interviewed during coverage of the Highland Park parade shooting, one face and name had re…

SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 10:42AM
Wednesday, June 22, 2022

Sun, surf, summer: time to head to the library by Deanna Isaacs

There’s a whole lot of story in history. And so much depends on the perspective of the storyteller.   What, for example, will the future think it knows of our fraught time? What will be …

SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 04:22PM

Hot weather, hot shows by Kerry Reid, Irene Hsiao and Deanna Isaacs

Summer is officially here, in case the sweat and lightning bugs weren’t enough of a clue. In addition to the shows and artists we profiled in our summer arts preview issue this week, we’…

SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 04:01PM
Wednesday, June 8, 2022

Out at the Center by Deanna Isaacs

They were there. No fuss, no ballyhoo, but queer artists have been a significant part of Bronzeville’s South Side Community Art Center since its founding in 1940. You might or might not se…

SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 04:21PM
Wednesday, May 25, 2022

Flashpoints, free speech, and the law by Deanna Isaacs

Last week, amid the usual tsunami of grim news about inflation, mass shootings, pandemic, and war, came word that the New York Court of Appeals is considering whether the Bronx Zoo is violat…

SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 10:00AM
Wednesday, May 11, 2022

The end of Roe by Deanna Isaacs

Regarding the recently revealed U.S. Supreme Court draft ruling on Roe v. Wade: WTF? Because, it’s the F we’re talking about, right? That little itch we’re biologically programmed to s…

SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 10:14AM
Wednesday, August 4, 2021

With the Thompson Center on the block, CAC celebrates its late creator by Deanna Isaacs

"Helmut Jahn: Life + Architecture" at CAC offers big pictures and tiny buildings. It's sad but true that we're never so much appreciated as when we're newly dead…

SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 10:00AM
Wednesday, July 7, 2021

Looking for YOMHN with Monica Brown by Deanna Isaacs

In “Roots, Branches: Ancestor(s) Stones,” Monica Brown traces ancestral legacies. Memory is an abstraction. It holds our entire history, but how much of that…

SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 12:00PM
Wednesday, June 23, 2021

Sheboygan visionaries by Deanna Isaacs

Dr. Charles Smith and other artists find a new home at the Art Preserve. Before Black Lives Matter was a movement, Black lives mattered in the work of Dr. Charle…

SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 10:20AM
Wednesday, June 9, 2021

Terell Johnson joins Chicago Philharmonic as executive director by Deanna Isaacs

The "musician-governed" Chicago Philharmonic looks to innovative programming for the future. Last week the Chicago Philharmonic Society announced the appointment…

SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 11:45AM
Tuesday, June 8, 2021

Lyric's al fresco Hansel and Gretel is a family-friendly treat by Deanna Isaacs

North Park Village Nature Center provides an ideal setting for Lyric's Hansel and Gretel. There’s no more perfect setting for Lyric Opera’s Hansel and Gretel…

SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 11:40AM
Tuesday, May 25, 2021

The art of war and more from Bill Mauldin by Deanna Isaacs

The Pritzker Museum highlights Bill Mauldin's 50-year fight with injustice. Editorial cartoonist Bill Mauldin, whose bedraggled “Willie and Joe” characters f…

SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 08:18PM
Wednesday, May 19, 2021

Lyric and Joffrey, together at last by Deanna Isaacs

Lyric Opera of Chicago and the Joffrey Ballet announce in-person 2021-2022 seasons. At a joint press conference today on the stage of the opera house, Lyric Oper…

SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 07:00PM
Wednesday, May 12, 2021

Helmut Jahn is gone, and the Thompson Center is for sale by Deanna Isaacs

Can we save his most important Chicago building? We didn't need the death of architect Helmut Jahn to bring the plight of the James R. Thompson Center to our att…

SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 10:00AM
Thursday, May 6, 2021

Opera on your phone; CSO (lite), live and in person by Deanna Isaacs

While Chicago opera plays on your phone, Symphony Center announces May opening. We'll have to wait until sometime this summer to get the video stream Lyric Opera…

SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 03:30PM
Wednesday, March 31, 2021

On display at MoCP: Reproductive: [Women’s] Health, Fertility, Agency by Deanna Isaacs

The Museum of Contemporary Photography's "Reproductive" raises questions about the future of Roe v. Wade. In startling news today, doctors in Missouri are report…

SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 10:30AM
Wednesday, March 17, 2021

Lyric and CSO face the music by Deanna Isaacs

A year after the shutdown, they’re bringing it back. It was Friday, the 13th of March, 2020, when Lyric Opera general director Anthony Freud had to cancel the…

SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 11:00AM
Wednesday, February 17, 2021

The Obama Center: opening in 2025 by Deanna Isaacs

But Protect Our Parks says more legal challenges are coming for the Jackson Park plan. It was hot on the August day in 2016 when Mayor Rahm Emanuel presented the…

SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 11:15AM
Wednesday, January 6, 2021

An encounter with Vicki Quade by Deanna Isaacs

The nuns are in COVID shutdown, but she's got a new, Chicago-centric book Vicki Quade had a new show opening at the Royal George Theatre the weekend of March 15,…

SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 12:20PM
Wednesday, December 9, 2020

Angela Jackson is the state’s new poet laureate by Deanna Isaacs

That shouldn’t cost her, right? It was great to hear, late last month, that Chicagoan Angela Jackson has been chosen as the new Illinois poet laureate. Great b…

SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 10:00AM

All that Chat

2024-2025 BROADWAY SEASON
Jun 05, 2024: Home - Todd Haimes Theatre
Jul 11, 2024: Oh, Mary! - Lyceum Theatre
Jul 30, 2024: Job - Hayes Theater
Sep 12, 2024: The Roommate - Booth Theatre
Nov 14, 2024: Tammy Faye - Palace Theatre
Dec 12, 2024: Cult of Love - Hayes Theater
Dec 19, 2024: Gypsy - Majestic Theatre
Mar 15, 2025: Purpose - Hayes Theater
Apr 01, 2025: Glengarry Glen Ross
TBA: Titanic