A musical based on War and Peace sounds like a ludicrous proposition. And of course it is—which is why Dave Malloy’s Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812 only focuses on a 70-pa…
SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 05:26PMYou think the Titanic had a disastrous maiden voyage? Consider the Vasa, a Swedish warship constructed by King Gustavus Adolphus (sometimes called “the father of modern warfare”) between…
SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 11:53AMThe tense family dinner has long been a trope for American realism. Just off the top of my head, plays that have such a device as a central dramatic event include Tracy Letts’s August: Osa…
SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 11:25AMJanet Ulrich Brooks is my kind of theatrical royalty: a no-nonsense performer who can play everything from firebrand playwright Lillian Hellman to diva Maria Callas with riveting conviction.…
SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 10:32AMIn Jonathan Demme’s 1986 anti-screwball comedy, Something Wild, Jeff Daniels’s straight-arrow yuppie gets his life turned upside down in a scary way by Melanie Griffith’s wild child, L…
SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 12:08PMWith The Full Monty, Paramount Theatre completes the trifecta of musicals derived from movies about British deindustrialization, on the heels of 2021’s Kinky Boots and Billy Elliot earlier…
SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 11:57AMIn a couple of weeks, the national tour of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child lands at the James M. Nederlander Theatre. The show, written by Jack Thorne from an original story by Harry Potte…
SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 04:58PMSteppenwolf has been mixing it up in recent (post-COVID shutdown) years with solo comedy outings from national names like Mike Birbiglia (The Old Man and the Pool) and Alex Edelman (Just for…
SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 05:28PMI’d never heard of Neal Adelman before seeing brand-new Dodge Box Theatre’s evening of one-acts, presented under the somewhat confounding omnibus title of Legato Limbo Loud or GoFastWait…
SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 04:50PMDomestic violence, suicide, bullying—Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II’s 1945 musical Carousel is as famous for its dark subject matter as its soaring score. (My high school gradu…
SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 10:26AMDuring the pandemic shutdown, perhaps nothing surprised me as much with Zoom theater as seeing magicians work their craft without the close-up settings we’re so used to, especially in Chic…
SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 10:05AMFor their follow-up to 2006’s Spring Awakening, composer Duncan Sheik and librettist and lyricist Steven Sater turned to Lewis Carroll’s children’s classic. Set in a bomb shelter durin…
SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 04:05PMWe’re spoiled for choice when it comes to magic practitioners in Chicago, but David Parr is always a good bet for a fun and thought-provoking night out. His current Wednesday-night show at…
SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 11:54AMThere’s a cartoon that made the rounds on social media a few years ago laying out the dissonance for the modern comedy scene. In the first two frames, labeled “Comedians at the Club,” …
SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 03:26PMIn the tradition of rom-coms like the 1998 Gwyneth Paltrow vehicle Sliding Doors, Audrey Cefaly’s The Last Wide Open uses the conceit of what-ifs to take us through a missed-it-by-that-muc…
SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 02:08PMHaven Chicago is going out the way they came in 11 years ago—sweaty, sexy, sinuous, and unapologetic. In 2013, the company announced their presence with a production of John Cameron Mitche…
SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 01:06PMRomeo and Juliet has been on my mind lately, ever since I saw the lovely made-in-Chicago indie film Ghostlight earlier this summer. In that movie, Dan, a middle-aged construction worker (Kei…
SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 06:05PMThe Revival celebrates its new South Loop location with Blank! The Musical, an off-Broadway hit created a decade ago by Michael Girts, T.J. Shanoff, and Mike Descoteaux. Shanoff, who also di…
SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 05:51PMCooking as the crucible for family and friendship, as well as self-discovery, is familiar territory in theater and film. Whether it’s Jenna in Waitress working out her personal angst throu…
SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 05:17PMGoing into a Second City revue during an election year always feels like an anxiety-making proposition and that feels even more true this year. We already know what’s at stake—do we real…
SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 04:59PMFleetwood-Jourdain Theatre moves into movement (and movements) for their summer season; next month, they open Ntozake Shange’s classic choreopoem For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suic…
SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 04:42PMKhaled Hosseini’s 2003 novel, The Kite Runner, about the diverging paths of two boys in Kabul during the 1970s and after, is a moving and sorrowful story of how geopolitical, class, and re…
SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 04:27PMIf you’ve ever imagined how Oscar Wilde would fare in contemporary queer Chicago life, look no further than Strawdog Theatre’s sparkling and delightful adaptation of The Importance of Be…
SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 02:19PMMartin Crimp’s 1997 play, Attempts on Her Life, won international acclaim. But Crimp, like fellow controversial 90s Brit playwright Sarah Kane, remains more talked about than seen onstage,…
SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 01:28PMKwame Ture (formerly Stokely Carmichael) has seemingly existed in popular culture mostly as a footnote to other, better-known civil rights figures. In George C. Wolfe’s Rustin and Ava DuVe…
SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 10:53AMRight after the curtain call at First Floor Theater’s world premiere of Pro-Am, a colleague sitting behind me leaned over and asked, “Have you ever seen Stage Door?” Despite the fact t…
SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 04:40PMJoshua Allen’s third installment in his Chicago-set “Grand Boulevard Trilogy” (after The Last Pair of Earlies, which alternated between 1921 and 1938, and October Storm, set in 1960) t…
SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 04:23PMEverything about Jay Stull’s The Singularity Play, now in a world premiere at Jackalope Theatre (directed by Georgette Verdin) should feel timely and tense. It’s about the effects of AI …
SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 03:57PMSwiss playwright Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s The Visit has found many reimaginings since it was first produced in 1956. The story of a wealthy woman returning to the town that once scorned her…
SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 11:48AMFirst coproduced in 2014 by Court Theatre and American Blues Theater, Nambi E. Kelley’s adaptation of Richard Wright’s 1940 novel Native Son is now in a stirring revival at Lifeline unde…
SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 12:43PMWith stories of migrants and climate change in the news every day, Chicago playwright Dolores Díaz’s Black Sunday couldn’t be more timely—even if it is set in 1935. TimeLine Theatre�…
SOURCE: chicagoreader.com at 12:05PM
