Tuesday, April 23, 2024
... a newly revised musical version of From Here to Eternity by Sir Tim Rice, lyricist of many of the most successful musicals of the past 50 years, along with composer Stuart Brayson, and b…
SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 10:25AMSunday, April 10, 2022
Good Night, Oscar might be suspected of being a vehicle for Hayes, and while it succeeds on that level, it's more than that. It's also a touching biography of Levant, told through the lens o…
SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 10:42AMSunday, December 30, 2018
Music Theater Works’ two-weekend, eight-performance run is one of those rare opportunities to see this Sondheim musical performed by a cast that can deliver the goods on both Sondheim’s …
SOURCE: Chicago Theater Beat at 12:04AMTuesday, October 30, 2018
This Hello, Dolly! is classic Broadway showmanship in all the most important ways - in Betty Buckley we have a major Broadway performer that we all ought to see at least once, a top flight s…
SOURCE: Chicago Theater Beat at 08:48PMWednesday, February 21, 2018
With its story of mostly young (22-42 year old) people, Merrily We Roll Along is popular with high school and college groups, but it’s rare to find a large scale professional production li…
SOURCE: Chicago Theater Beat at 09:16PMFriday, September 22, 2017
You sorta have to love the rare musical like Marriott Theatre's Honeymoon in Vegas that sets a world we know to music. Sure, it’s based on a 25-year-old film comedy, but the targets of thi…
SOURCE: Chicago Theater Beat at 07:48PMMonday, September 18, 2017
In expanding the story of the short film to a full length (two-hour, including intermission) stage musical, writer Dan Collins and composer Julianne Wick Davis have kept the warmly comic ton…
SOURCE: Chicago Theater Beat at 06:12PMFriday, September 15, 2017
Theater Faction's One Thousand Words is a musical drama that began life under the title Maybe, Someday at Louisiana State University in 2014, where the young writers Michael Braud and Curran…
SOURCE: Chicago Theater Beat at 11:04PMTuesday, August 22, 2017
Always a demanding musical to produce, this Gypsy is a huge production by any standards. Rudy Hogenmiller, Clayton Cross and Roger Bingaman lead an accomplished cast of 31 performers (that i…
SOURCE: Chicago Theater Beat at 01:06AMFriday, June 16, 2017
... Pass Over is using both realism and absurdism to make a powerful piece of political theater. The three styles are seamlessly blended by director Danya Taymor and her superb cast.
SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 11:21AMTuesday, April 18, 2017
Letts's script is both funny and intense—and edgy in its depiction and discussion of sex. If the topic of midlife crisis among men is not new, Letts treats it freshly and uncompromisingly.
SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 04:23PMMonday, March 13, 2017
Anton Chekhov's timeless Uncle Vanya questions how to be kind, loyal and useful to others while being true to oneself is the deeper theme inherent in the play. With ticket prices of $20 to …
SOURCE: Chicago Theater Beat at 12:24AMSunday, February 26, 2017
For Lyric Opera's 2017 production of Geoges Bizet's Carmen, they have successfully adapted it to 1930s Spain. And to amp up the entertainment value, Lyric Opera has brought in Broadway showm…
SOURCE: Chicago Theater Beat at 02:04AMThursday, February 9, 2017
Playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins makes his points clearly and viciously in this sharply-observed satire of contemporary life, his primary target being millennials in the workplace. His dial…
SOURCE: Chicago Theater Beat at 07:06PMMonday, January 23, 2017
Writers Theatre's world premiere The Hunter and the Bear, created by PigPen Theatre, may be a tad long for what it has to say, but with just a little judicious trimming it can have legs for …
SOURCE: Chicago Theater Beat at 10:12PMFriday, January 20, 2017
Lookingglass Theatre’s Doug Hara has fashioned a charming and touching fable, presented with the help of some highly inventive multi-media stagecraft in this charming and touching world pr…
SOURCE: Chicago Theater Beat at 07:42PMSunday, January 1, 2017
Stage Director Rudy Hogenmiller and Music Director Roger L. Bingaman have assembled a dream cast for the 10 principal roles in Die Fledermaus, and the outcome is near perfection. Operettas m…
SOURCE: Chicago Theater Beat at 07:24PMThursday, December 22, 2016
As done here, Mercury Theater's The Christmas Schooner is a perfect mid-size production, offering strong visual design and a good sized cast, while still retaining the intimacy of this gentl…
SOURCE: Chicago Theater Beat at 04:18PMTuesday, December 6, 2016
Though not produced by Disney, it clearly feels and looks like a Disney-style production in the tradition of their big shows. The original film score has been greatly (and nicely) expanded b…
SOURCE: Chicago Theater Beat at 05:12PMWednesday, November 30, 2016
With Broadway in Chicago's Finding Neverland about J.M. Barrie's journey to write Peter Pan, director Diane Paulus has conceived the piece as a most family-friendly entertainment. There’s …
SOURCE: Chicago Theater Beat at 04:36PMMonday, October 24, 2016
Producers Jeffrey Seller et al have given Chicago a cast that could have opened the show on Broadway.
SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 12:20PMSunday, May 29, 2016
Through its four thoroughly original inner-city dwelling characters and a plot that, like Disney's theme park ride Space Mountain, never lets you know exactly where the next turn or free fal…
SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 09:43AMSunday, April 10, 2016
The life of his titular heroine is examined in 11 scenes, from her infancy just after World War II to a short time before her death in our present day, but they are presented in a non-chrono…
SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 07:22PMSaturday, April 9, 2016
If there's one thing this new musical proves, it's that its star, Klea Blackhurst, who in the past has sometimes exploited her vocal resemblance to Ethel Merman, deserves a role made just fo…
SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 05:34PMMonday, March 21, 2016
With Hello, Dolly! viewed by many as "fluff," one may wonder what its source material has in common with Wilder's more serious Our Town. Minus the singing and dancing waiters of the Harmonia…
SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 01:54PMWednesday, February 3, 2016
The tone is one of light, yet grounded comedy. It's not farce or pastiche, and that's a good thing, considering the story touches on some very real and serious subjects.
SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 01:33PMMonday, October 26, 2015
It's a classy production, with solid performances and an attractive period look, but it's not much of an adventure. This version of the classic kids' adventure tale seems likely to bore kids…
SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 09:01AMTuesday, October 6, 2015
Galati is back as director and adapter of East of Eden, the last remaining of Steinbeck's "big three" to be adapted for the stage, and the Chicago Tribune has reported that the Steinbeck est…
SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 03:39PMSunday, July 5, 2015
There's a problem, though, in adapting this story for the musical stage, which is that in a musical, you sorta have to give songs to both your leads�and if one of the lead characters is a su…
SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 11:22AMThursday, June 18, 2015
Whether the blame falls on the multi-millionaire Estefans for putting such a bland biography on stage, on Dinelaris for failing to put more edginess or suspense on paper, or Mitchell for fai…
SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 11:54AMMonday, May 25, 2015
