Wednesday, September 20, 2017
Using your socially connected friends and acquaintances as models for your fictional characters often leads to blowback. Just ask Truman Capote, who became an outcast when excerpts from his …
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 08:00AMMonday, September 18, 2017
For nearly eight years, “Million Dollar Quartet” packed the intimate Apollo Theater in Lincoln Park. The story of the fabled night that four giants of popular music all turned up in Memp…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:09PMFriday, September 15, 2017
Early 2009 seems like a lifetime ago — a point when the inauguration of the first African-American president signaled that, while racism was far from over, it at least couldn’t keep all …
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:50PMThursday, September 14, 2017
Sandwiched between the 1980s teen-angst comedies of John Hughes and the famous-for-being-famous post-millennium reality television antics of the Kardashians, the kids of “Beverly Hills, 90…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:25PMWednesday, September 13, 2017
Last year, the fall theater season had to compete with the Cubs’ historic journey to the World Series. We don’t know if they’ll repeat that feat this year. But we do know that there ar…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:00PMWednesday, September 6, 2017
Conor McPherson’s work shows up regularly on Chicago stages. So it’s puzzling that his 2011 play, “The Veil,” has been missing until now. However, Idle Muse Theatre Company’s stagi…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 08:00AMTuesday, August 22, 2017
Kristoffer Diaz’s “The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity” caused a bone-shaking, brain-tickling sensation when it premiered nearly nine years ago at Victory Gardens. It transferred to o…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 07:33PMMonday, August 21, 2017
“Everybody needs something impossible to hope for” sounds like an inspirational sentiment you’d find embroidered on a throw pillow. But cozy domesticity and its accouterments have litt…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:55PMWednesday, August 9, 2017
In May of this year, Edward Albee’s 1962 classic “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” became controversial all over again, when the late playwright’s estate withheld the rights for a …
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:50PMTuesday, August 8, 2017
Reality television has come in for more than its usual share of shaming as a blight on the body politic since November — though in fairness, populist entertainment throughout history has b…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:25PMTuesday, August 1, 2017
Buckle up, Buttercup — there’s a new “Princess Bride” in town. Well, actually — she’s not new. And she’s not a princess. But Thomas Heywood’s 16th-century swashbuckling roman…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:45PMTuesday, July 25, 2017
The future is female — but it's still an unholy mess. That's the dystopic premise in Scott OKen's "Fight City," now in a slam-bang world premiere with Factory Theater. Set in 2077, where a…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:33PMWednesday, July 19, 2017
Deborah Eisenberg, whose short stories have been popping up in the New Yorker and in acclaimed collections since the 1980s, began writing when she stopped smoking. She stopped because her lo…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:30PMMonday, July 17, 2017
On a clear and pleasant July evening, with just enough breeze to keep the mosquitoes at bay, First Folio Theatre's pastoral setting gives the forest of Arden a run for its money. But that ca…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:54PMThursday, July 13, 2017
If the Reduced Shakespeare Company and Forbidden Broadway had a musical baby, it would probably look and sound a lot like "Something Rotten!" No insult intended to the appearance of this ima…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:12PMTuesday, July 11, 2017
The story of the USS Indianapolis perhaps remains best known in popular culture through "Jaws." Robert Shaw's Quint delivers an unforgettable monologue outlining his experiences in the shark…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:00PMFriday, July 7, 2017
In 1937, Marc Blitzstein's famous pro-labor musical, "The Cradle Will Rock" (created through the Federal Theatre Project of the Works Progress Administration) was shut down by federal author…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:48PMTuesday, June 27, 2017
City Lit Theater's current staging of 1841's "London Assurance" marks the first local production of Dion Boucicault's comedy in 120 years. Felicitously, it opens just a month ahead of Defini…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:27PMMonday, June 26, 2017
"If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me, Without my stir." In that one line, William Shakespeare lays bare the central paradox of "Macbeth" — the play and the man. Arguably …
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:37PMMonday, June 12, 2017
Alfred Jarry's 1896 absurd and grotesque "Ubu Roi" should be the perfect play for our current political moment. After all, it involves an impulsive vulgarian who, while utterly unacquainted …
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:00PMFriday, June 9, 2017
One of the markers of adulthood is recognizing that your parents had lives of their own that had nothing to do with you. Often you don't see it until at least one of them has died. They live…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:48PMWednesday, June 7, 2017
Nature may abhor a vacuum, but holes in the timeline offer catnip to authors of historical fiction. Where facts cannot be found, imagination runs wild. In "Her Majesty's Will," David Blixt's…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:21PMTuesday, June 6, 2017
"Get out of my way. I feel like making some money today." Few of us can imagine sweeping into our workplace and making that pronouncement in anything other than an ironic tone. But Liz Rico …
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:54PMTuesday, May 30, 2017
A couple of years ago, the feel-good channels of social networking lit up with a story about a Dutch nursing home where college students live rent-free. The idea of old and young living toge…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:41PMFriday, May 26, 2017
In "Great Expectations," Charles Dickens crafted an indelible portrait of a young man of no means whose desires to be a "gentleman" almost come true — but with tragic consequences. At its …
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:30PMThursday, May 25, 2017
Summer in Chicago focuses on outdoor fun, whether it's at music festivals, street fairs, ballgames or beaches. But Chicago's red-hot theater scene also has plenty of option. Here are 30 show…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:44PMFriday, May 19, 2017
As a playwright, Luis Alfaro is best known in Chicago for his contemporary updates of Greek tragedies, such as "Oedipus El Rey," which reimagines the story of Oedipus through the lens of Chi…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:12PMOn the heels of its timely and sardonic production of "The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui," Trap Door Theatre takes a turn toward the elliptical and symbolic with "Into the Empty Sky," based o…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 11:55AMWednesday, May 17, 2017
"Everybody dies frustrated and sad and that is beautiful," They Might Be Giants sang years ago. Young Jean Lee's "We're Gonna Die," now getting a heartfelt and high-energy production with Ha…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 11:16AMThursday, May 11, 2017
We all know the litany of complaints about life near Wrigley Field. Nonexistent parking. Drunk people committing various, um, quality-of-life offenses. But for decades, the Cubs and the loca…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:00PMMonday, May 8, 2017
What's your poison? Noir? Musicals? Gender-bending camp with a twist of melodrama? Well, guys and dolls, stir your stumps upstairs to Mary's Attic, where Hell in a Handbag's "Lady X: The Mus…
Linked From Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:48PM 
