Wednesday, November 22, 2017
Attention, residents of Whoville! It’s that time of year again. And while we know you’re busy with your snoof and your fuzzles, your tringlers and trappings, don’t forget to take time …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 08:00AMSunday, November 19, 2017
Take the football culture of “Friday Night Lights,” mix it with the supernatural clamminess of “The X-Files,” and strain it through the satiric/horror filter of “Get Out,” and yo…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:10PMTuesday, November 14, 2017
For those who grow sick and tired of being sick and tired about patriarchy and its abuses (so much in the spotlight in recent weeks, but never out of the picture), Pegasus Theatre Chicago ha…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:25PMTuesday, October 24, 2017
Earlier this month, Ta-Nehisi Coates appeared on “The Late Show,” where he seemed to rattle Stephen Colbert by refusing to say that he had hope for the United States. As Coates rightly p…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 11:05AMTuesday, October 17, 2017
A troubled family gathers one last time at their ancestral home after the death of the patriarch. Over the course of the play, drinks are guzzled, grievances are aired and revelations are re…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:35PMWednesday, October 11, 2017
Global climate change, cataclysmic hurricanes, the threat of world war — with headlines like those, who wouldn’t want to escape to the theater? Kidding aside, Remy Bumppo has picked a fi…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 05:51PMTuesday, October 10, 2017
Lycanthropes, rejoice. (You know how to rejoice, don’t you? Just throw your head back and howl.) There’s a werewolf story prowling Mayslake Peabody Estate in a DuPage County forest prese…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 10:05AMWednesday, October 4, 2017
The relationship between psychiatrist and patient offers a wealth of dramatic possibilities. You’ve got the power dynamic between an authority figure and a person whose fate may well rest …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 08:00AMThursday, September 28, 2017
Last month’s Emmy Awards may have represented a stride toward diversity for many artists of color. But as Patricia Garcia of Vogue (and many others) noted, “Where were the awards and nom…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:00PMWednesday, September 27, 2017
Elizabeth Gilbert’s popular 2006 healing-heartbreak-through-travel memoir, “Eat, Pray, Love,” earned backlash from those who saw it as a high-profile example of privileged Western wome…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 08:00AMWednesday, 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 …
SOURCE: 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…
SOURCE: 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 …
SOURCE: 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…
SOURCE: 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…
SOURCE: 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…
SOURCE: 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…
SOURCE: 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…
SOURCE: 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 …
SOURCE: 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…
SOURCE: 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…
SOURCE: 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…
SOURCE: 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…
SOURCE: 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…
SOURCE: 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…
SOURCE: 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…
SOURCE: 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…
SOURCE: 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…
SOURCE: 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 …
SOURCE: 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 …
SOURCE: 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…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:48PM 
