Something unusual is happening onstage at Black Ensemble Theater: No one is singing. If you've always viewed the House That Jackie Taylor Built as the place to go for roof-raising musical bi…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:07PMThe towering genius and caprices of Mark Rothko provided onetime Chicagoan John Logan with a large canvas that ultimately proved profitable.
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:54PM"Paint the picture." With those three words, the two isolated souls at the heart of Shepsu Aakhu's "Softly Blue" attempt to transcend their own limitations — real and imagined.
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:02PMOne doesn't need to be an NBC news anchor to struggle with memories. If you're from a family, you already know how fungible they can be, with siblings offering contrasting views of past even…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:07PMBefore "The Writers' Room" became the name of a Sundance Television program examining the ins and outs and ups and downs of crafting popular television shows, Neil Simon created his own trib…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 09:47AMOracle Theatre's latest intriguing meditation on the perils and promises of populism takes its inspiration from several sources, most notably Charles Mee's "Full Circle," which Tina Landau d…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 06:57AMBrett Neveu's "Red Bud" stakes its claim in the oft-plowed landscape of midlife males at a reunion — think Jason Miller's "That Championship Season" with a decidedly rougher patina. Brant …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 05:57PMThough Aaron Holland's new play claims inspiration from Leo Tolstoy's "War and Peace," it really is a straight-up (well, sort of) bildungsroman about a young gay black man finding his true n…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 06:40PMThree years ago, Shattered Globe produced "Orpheus Descending," Tennessee Williams' gothic tragedy about an unhappily married Italian woman on the Gulf Coast and the drifter who temporarily …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 07:43AMMuch as Bailiwick Repertory was reborn as Bailiwick Chicago a few years ago, Pegasus Players has rebranded itself as Pegasus Theatre Chicago. While the company's flight from its longtime hom…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 09:01PMMuch as Bailiwick Repertory was reborn as Bailiwick Chicago a few years ago, Pegasus Players has rebranded itself as Pegasus Theatre Chicago. While the company's flight from its longtime hom…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 09:01PMPuppets have been around for centuries. But Blair Thomas, the artistic director of the brand-new Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival, points out the term "puppeteer" only came into…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:38PMIn addition to the "On the Fringe" column I share with Nina Metz, I review many other individual shows for the Tribune over the year. Below are my picks for the 2014 productions that shone m…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 06:34PMSmall budgets and even smaller venues are often part of the fringe theater equation. But what sets Chicago apart from most other theater towns is that our grass-roots scene blossoms with wor…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 07:25PMAmid the Christmas shows (Ebenezer, meet George Bailey) and anti-Christmas shows (you know who you are, Crumpet!) flooding theaters this time of year, Redmoon's annual "Winter Pageant" stand…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:27PMWhen Desi Arnaz performed "Babalu" on "I Love Lucy," it was an exercise in sheer head-tossing, tie-loosening, id-releasing exuberance. That same number in "I Love Lucy Live On Stage," despit…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:17PMCaroline needs change. More to the point, she needs a new liver. Holed up in her bedroom, the critically ill teen mostly communicates through social media. So she's not particularly amenable…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 05:37PMFor those who still find mordant mirth in the scene in "Gremlins" where Phoebe Cates' character recalls the horrible way she learned the truth about Santa, Sheila Callaghan has got your holi…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 05:37PMSeldom has a coffee table so earned its moniker as in Scott T. Barsotti's "Jet Black Chevrolet" at the Side Project. The table in question — the banged-up centerpiece of the seen-better-da…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 05:08PMImagine a creepier version of Lake Wobegon — perhaps one designed by Harold Pinter. That gives you some idea of the claustrophobic but ultimately uninvolving world of Mary Hamilton's "We T…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 05:08PMBefore the polar vortex takes all the fun out of winter, there are plenty of ways to get out and celebrate the stories and sounds of the season. Below is just a partial list of some of the b…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 06:47PMI thought I might make it through this holiday season without a sighting of a panto dame. Then I went to Factory Theater's "Hotel Aphrodite."
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 05:56PMThere is an intriguing concept underpinning the Waltzing Mechanics' latest outing, "Line One," which originated with John Kaufmann at Seattle's Annex Theatre 10 years ago. But at least on th…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 05:56PMMany years ago I was visiting a friend in Wicker Park whose musician boyfriend was heading out to rehearsal. "What are you girls doing tonight?" he asked. "Just hanging out," we replied. He …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:48PMThe 25th annual Chicago Humanities Festival, built around the theme of "Journeys," wrapped up in a most appropriate manner on Friday night with Anjelica Huston, who spoke candidly and someti…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:15PMThe 25th annual Chicago Humanities Festival, built around the theme of "Journeys," wrapped up in a most appropriate manner on Friday night with Anjelica Huston, who spoke candidly and someti…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:15PMTeacher-as-rehabilitator-of-troubled-youth is well-worn dramatic territory. Toss in a horse barn as the classroom, as William Mastrosimone does in "Tamer of Horses," and you might think you'…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:34PMLong before she won the Pulitzer Prize for "Ruined," her searing drama about abused young women in the Congo seeking respite from soldiers on both sides of a civil war by working in a bar/br…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 05:36PMBefore playwright Lydia Diamond went to Broadway in 2011 with "Stick Fly," her compelling and witty story of a wealthy black family on Martha's Vineyard confronting secrets and prejudices, s…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:24PMWe often hear that what separates animals from humans is that the former don't know that they're going to die. Of course, since we lack the interspecies communications skills of Dr. Dolittle…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:24PMWhat does it mean to record your experiences even as you're experiencing them? Are you living a life of pastiche, with the cultural influences and opinions of friends and strangers who are j…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:02PM
