Roger Bean's jukebox musical has pleasant songs, but no point to its journey. There is no story in Roger Bean's jukebox musical, nor are there any characters, on…
SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 08:00PMSteven Dietz's family drama doesn't give us enough reasons to care. Steven Dietz's family drama lacks high stakes. Nothing is as it seems to be in How a Boy Fall…
SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 07:25PMScott Weinstein's staging is far more knock-out than knockoff. It is hard not to have low expectations for yet another revival of Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey's 1…
SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 06:00PMHer new monthly showcase at Duke of Perth creates a community for newbies and vets alike. Gina DeLuca is a 32-year-old Chicago-based writer and live lit performe…
SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 01:30PMBulgarian playwright Zachary Karabashliev's ddrama shows promise, but falters. Bulgarian playwright Zachary Karabashliev's 2008 play, about two entwined dysfunct…
SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 12:45PMThe Guatemalan immigrant shares his own perspectives on failure and finding his voice. Nestor Gomez, "creator, producer, curator, and host" of the immigrant-focu…
SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 06:55PMSome familiar cast-offs get a chance to show off their reality-competition chops in this new musical. America's Best Outcast Toy, by Larry Todd Cousineau (book a…
SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 06:20PMMaya Malan-Gonzalez's contemporary Latinx take on A Christmas Carol shows promise despite production difficulties. In retelling Charles Dickens's perennial holid…
SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 01:30PMA young girl must save Christmas in this new family musical. This original Christmas show (story by Larry Little, music by Dylan MarcAurele, book and lyrics by J…
SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 07:01PMThe Dickensian melodrama-turned-musical features an outstanding ensemble. Lionel Bart's musical adaptation of Charles Dickens's 1839 novel Oliver Twist first pre…
SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 06:55PMNew American Folk Theatre's world premiere needs stronger characters and a more compelling story to match the music. The story Anthony Whitaker tells in his 90-m…
SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 07:00AMOak Park Festival Theatre's production promenades through the Cheney Mansion. Staged in various rooms throughout Oak Park's Cheney Mansion, David Rice's clever a…
SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 07:00AMHe never got the big breaks, but the 1990s improv and solo stalwart has figured some things out. Jimmy Carrane first made a name for himself 28 years ago when he…
SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 07:00AMRonnie Marmo's one-man show isn't hilarious, but it's arrestingly honest. In the painfully honest spirit of Lenny Bruce, let's begin with a couple of blunt obser…
SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 07:00AMA real-life Jewish "catcher" for the Gestapo never takes compelling shape in this Agency Theater Collective production. Nicknamed "blond poison" by the Nazis (he…
SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 07:00AMIt flopped on the Great White Way, but BoHo Theatre's production finds the heart in this musical about tall tales and father-son relationships. Based on Daniel W…
SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 07:00AMLili-Anne Brown's staging of the musical based on Alice Walker's classic novel brings down the house. There is no doubt the 2005 musical adaptation of Alice Walk…
SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 07:00AMMark St. Germain's play outlines an unlikely friendship between a Black civil rights activist and a onetime member of the KKK. Some plays seem tailor-made for sm…
SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 07:00AMIn Rick Cleveland's play, the five men who followed Richard Nixon as POTUS open up about the job at his memorial. American Blues Theater's Chicago premiere of en…
SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 07:00AMThe playwright's second play in a trilogy comes from a place of personal experience and pain. Hannah Ii-Epstein hunches over when she talks, her voice soft and v…
SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 09:00PMTwo brothers try to steal from the Bard in Marriott's entertaining take on the Broadway musical comedy. Set in 1595 during the glorious reign of Elizabeth I, thi…
SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 05:00PMLaugh Out Loud's LA import can't find the funny. Few things age as quickly as topical satire, especially in an age of unrestrained Twitter bursts and 24-hour new…
SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 07:00AMMark Larson explains how he created his 700-page behemoth. For the past few years followers of Chicago author Mark Larson on Facebook have been teased with littl…
SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 03:30PMBeatrice and Benedick are better apart than together in Oak Park Festival’s production. Chemistry is everything in romance. The folks at Oak Park Festival Thea…
SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 07:00AMPerfect casting in the title role saves First Folio’s production from a conceptual misstep. Shakespeare's Henry V is very much a play of words not action, this…
SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 07:00AMDavid Cerda’s latest classic makeover for Hell in a Handbag is a winner for summer camp. David Cerda's camp parody of Mervyn LeRoy's 1956 film The Bad Seed, ab…
SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 07:00AMMarriott’s new musical hits standard narrative notes, but the songs soar Daniel Zaitchik's new musical (he wrote the songs and the book) is a sweet little show…
SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 07:00AMHe's become a master at the kind of storytelling he pioneered 28 years ago in I'm 27, I Still Live at Home, and I Sell Office Supplies. It has been 28 years sinc…
SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 07:00AMIn which five actors play the entire village of Highbury. Phil Timberlake's new dramatization of Jane Austen's 1816 masterpiece, written especially for Lifeline …
SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 12:00PMThe ever-present danger is as much a part of a Cirque show as the spectacle. Volta is Cirque du Soleil's 41st production since 1983 and, like all the others befo…
SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 12:00PMIt's a rock musical about suffering from bipolar disorder and getting electroshock treatment. This award-winning 2008 musical by Brian Yorkey (book and lyrics) a…
SOURCE: www.chicagoreader.com at 12:00PM
