"Accidents of fate are just the probabilities playing out," says Liz — half of the two-lives-in-one protagonist, Elizabeth, in "If/Then," the heart-on-sleeve musical about roads taken and …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:42PM"Accidents of fate are just the probabilities playing out," says Liz — half of the two-lives-in-one protagonist, Elizabeth, in "If/Then," the heart-on-sleeve musical about roads taken and …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:22PMYou could say that Sarah Gubbins' "Cocked" feels especially timely in the wake of the spree shootings in Kalamazoo, Mich., this weekend. But sadly, those events happen so often now that we l…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:43PMSisters are doing it for themselves — with a glitzy assist from an on-the-run disco queen wannabe — in Lincolnshire. And unless you've given up silly-but-soulful musicals for Lent, Marri…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 06:46PMI've never seen earlier incarnations of the 2006 musical version of "High Fidelity," based on the 2000 film starring John Cusack, itself based on Nick Hornby's novel. It had a brief Broadway…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 05:58PMIf British playwright Joe Orton hadn't already used it, "What the Butler Saw" would be a highly apropos title for James Still's 2001 solo play. Instead, he went with "Looking Over the Presid…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:12PMThe toast of Mayfair is back in town, and she's looking a little desperate. Sally Bowles, I mean — not "Cabaret." The touring version of the Roundabout Theatre Company's 2014 revival of S…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 07:32PMThe toast of Mayfair is back in town, and she's looking a little desperate. Sally Bowles, I mean — not "Cabaret." The touring version of the Roundabout Theatre Company's 2014 revival of Sa…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:35PMBefore "Mad Men," Todd Haynes' 2002 film "Far From Heaven" cornered the post-millennial market on the rotting underbelly of mid-century upper-middle-class suburbia. But while "Mad Men" took …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:58PMBefore "Mad Men," Todd Haynes' 2002 film "Far From Heaven" cornered the post-millennial market on the rotting underbelly of mid-century upper-middle-class suburbia. But while "Mad Men" took …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:05PMRohina Malik's new play, now in a world premiere at Berwyn's always-enterprising 16th Street Theater, could almost be described as a bait-and-switch — except what you end up catching is a …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 08:49PMWhere do we learn to hate our own vessel? How do we figure out how to carry it with grace and gratitude throughout the span of our lives? Those questions are the spine of Danielle Pinnock's…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:45PMWhere do we learn to hate our own vessel? How do we figure out how to carry it with grace and gratitude throughout the span of our lives? Those questions are the spine of Danielle Pinnock's …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:54PMEugene O'Neill and Ralph Ellison generally don't hang out together, in my experience. But as I watched Monty Cole's taut and imaginative staging of O'Neill's "The Hairy Ape" at Oracle Theatr…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 06:32PMEugene O'Neill and Ralph Ellison generally don't hang out together, in my experience. But as I watched Monty Cole's taut and imaginative staging of O'Neill's "The Hairy Ape" at Oracle Theatr…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:12PM"Is there anything you can't do, Jeeves?" asks the perpetually-in-a-pickle Bertie Wooster of his stoic manservant — to which the latter responds "I couldn't say, sir." And indeed, over the…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:36PMThere's a wistful irony threaded throughout Signal Ensemble's final production. In Heidi Schreck's "The Consultant," a struggling graphic designer at an equally struggling pharmaceutical mar…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:40PMThere's a wistful irony threaded throughout Signal Ensemble's final production. In Heidi Schreck's "The Consultant," a struggling graphic designer at an equally struggling pharmaceutical mar…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:00PMThere's a whole lotta shaking going on this month in the western suburbs with two musicals about teen culture, late 1950s-to-early 1960s style. Aurora's Paramount Theatre is opening a new pr…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:09PMSomething's rotten in the duchy of Malfi. Lust, revenge, double-crosses — even the holy books are poisonous. But in Christopher Marino's high-octane staging of "The Duchess of Malfi" for T…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 06:28PMA belated Christmas card has just arrived in Chicago theater. It's a bit grimy around the edges and smells like it spent the holidays passed out in a gin joint. But tarnished tinsel still sh…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:22PMA belated Christmas card has just arrived in Chicago theater. It's a bit grimy around the edges and smells like it spent the holidays passed out in a gin joint. But tarnished tinsel still sh…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:47PMContrasting the lineup for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination (where, whatever their politics, at least candidates and former candidates such as Ben Carson, Bobby Jindal, Marco Rubio and T…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:24PMAs the Obama years wind down and the election season heats up, Pearl Cleage's funny and cunning, if occasionally discursive, portrait of an earlier time in black political activism still fee…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 11:00AMWhen the Chicago Sketch Comedy Festival (aka "SketchFest") first started in 2002, it stretched out over seven weeks. Now claiming bragging rights as the world's largest festival of its kind,…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 11:40AMIn addition to sharing the "On the Fringe" column with Nina Metz, I have the pleasure of reviewing many other individual shows throughout the year for the Chicago Tribune. Here are three of …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:40PMIn addition to sharing the "On the Fringe" column with Nina Metz, I have the pleasure of reviewing many other individual shows throughout the year for the Chicago Tribune. Here are three of …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:00AMNothing says "holiday extravaganza" like Alfred Lord Tennyson. Alright — lots of things say that with cheerier panache than the author of "The Charge of the Light Brigade." But one can cer…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 07:14PMFirst things first: "Barney the Elf," the Other Theatre Company's brand-new entry into the Naughty Holiday Camp category (where Hell in a Handbag has reigned supreme for years) is not for ki…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 05:45PMThe British holiday "panto" tradition, which ransacks classic fairy tales through music, parody and healthy doses of audience participation, doesn't have the same broad cultural currency sta…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:15PMFew plays could be less seasonal — but more of the moment — than Arthur Miller's 1964 one-act about a group of men gathered in a war zone, wondering if their identity papers will save th…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:31PM
