Monday, July 1, 2013
RECOMMENDED Just in time for Pride and the death rattle of DOMA, Bailiwick Chicago offers a heartfelt portrait of a family redefining itself after a loss as its members fail to connect. It�…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 06:37PMMonday, June 24, 2013
RECOMMENDED Director Shane Carruth’s 2004 movie “Prime” discusses the hazards and pitfalls of time travel, as two engineers voyage into the future to enhance their fortunes and…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 04:35PMFriday, June 14, 2013
RECOMMENDED As the gay community inches toward legalized marriage in the Illinois legislature, it cannot escape the fact that no amount of social sanction will save it from the melancholia o…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 02:47PMSunday, May 26, 2013
The tortured artist is a cliché for a reason. Creators have exorcised their demons through their chosen disciplines since art’s beginning. But “Reverb” playwright Leslye Headland’s …
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 11:06AMWednesday, May 15, 2013
RECOMMENDED Full disclosure: I, Lisa Buscani, am the 1982 Ohio State Duet Acting Champion, a card-carrying, pin-wearing member of the National Forensic League. Hold your applause. I took it …
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 04:54PMMonday, May 6, 2013
RECOMMENDED There’s no tragedy like a Greek tragedy; outsized bad decisions from deeply flawed characters, combined with unknown information make for eye-popping, head-spinning catastrophe…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 04:27PMMonday, April 29, 2013
RECOMMENDED Playwright Nina Raine is very good at investigating tangents. Her characters have mean fun with each other, exploring gender differences, mocking each other’s vocational direct…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 01:03PMSunday, April 21, 2013
RECOMMENDED As honorable as it may be, most of us could never submit to the punishment that is military service. Imagine then, being forced to submit to that part of military service that is…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 03:19PMMonday, April 8, 2013
RECOMMENDED Equal parts humbug and dazzling accomplishment, P.T. Barnum’s life was so extraordinary, it’s amazing someone didn’t think of setting it to music before 1980. And since the…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 09:40AMMonday, April 1, 2013
RECOMMENDED The kidnap and murder of the Lindbergh baby remains one of the media’s “trials of the century,” a hype fest that turned an outrage into a freak show. But the tragic crime…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 01:15PMSaturday, March 9, 2013
RECOMMENDED Sherry (Jessica Saxvik), the ninth victim of serial killer The Marrying Man (Robert Montgomery), attempts to distract her assailant with a series of stories that sample numerous …
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 05:26PMSunday, February 24, 2013
Andrew Bovell revamped “Speaking in Tongues”(1996) and brought it to the screen as the critically praised and popularly well-received “Lantana” (2001). The film corrected much of wha…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 04:39PMWednesday, February 20, 2013
RECOMMENDED As an instructor in DePaul’s College of Computing and Digital Media, I chafe when I see “computer geeks” dramatized for the stage. They never resemble the folks I work with…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 05:15PMSunday, February 10, 2013
RECOMMENDED The barbaric Sandy Hook shootings left us all wondering, “when will it stop?” “columbinus,” Stephen Karam and PJ Paparelli’s updated dramatization of the Columbine mass…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 03:49PMSaturday, January 26, 2013
As the wars wind down, American servicemen and women will return and assimilate into a peacetime society. Ethan Lipton’s script attempts to examine whether we’re ready for that eventuali…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 10:29PMTuesday, January 15, 2013
RECOMMENDED When Terence Rattigan’s chronicle of the lives and loves of British airmen debuted in 1942, England had been at war with Germany since 1939. While American audiences might view…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 11:54AMMonday, January 14, 2013
Brecht’s parable looks at class warfare, loyalty and the then-revolutionary idea that an adoptive parent might be more suitable than a biological one. Unfortunately, Promethean Theatre Ens…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 08:18PMTuesday, November 20, 2012
RECOMMENDED It isn’t easy to dramatize what can’t be dramatized on stage; a horseracing play can’t rely on the nags to get the point across. But Carter Lewis’ script captures the ene…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 02:30PMMonday, November 12, 2012
RECOMMENDED Amnesia victim Claire (Kathryn Bartholomew) wakes each morning to a new reality; she can’t remember her old one. Husband Richard (Giuseppe A. Ribaudo) and son Kenny (Kevin Lamb…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 03:00PMMonday, October 22, 2012
RECOMMENDED “Why is everyone always cryin’ at your house?” asks Pale (Ryan Kitley) in “Burn This.” Because it’s a Lanford Wilson play. Everyone’s always crying, circumstances a…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 03:00PMSunday, October 21, 2012
Irvine Welsh’s popular tour of heroin addiction’s seamy landscape has moved from Edinburgh, Scotland to Kansas City. Welsh’s original text presented a downtrodden group of Scots escapi…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 05:00AMMonday, October 8, 2012
RECOMMENDED The pressures of masculinity require that its terrors go unspoken; young men and boys often negotiate violent worlds without help or outlet. Solo writer/performer Dael Orlandersm…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 03:42PMTuesday, September 25, 2012
RECOMMENDED Remember, remember the fifth of November, gunpowder, treason and plot… So begins the rhyme that commemorates the central event of Bill Cain’s immensely entertaining ode …
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 11:01AMMonday, September 24, 2012
RECOMMENDED Margaret (Mariann Mayberry), a local from working-class South Boston, loses her job at the dollar store and reaches out to ex-flame and successful doctor Mike (Keith Kupferer) fo…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 09:50AMSunday, September 23, 2012
RECOMMENDED Gangsters Santee (Mark Vallarta) and Beaujo (Rudy Galvan) stand guard over Cody (Gavin Robinson), who’s capable of dreaming horse-race winners. Problem is, he’s in a slump. B…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 01:54PMTuesday, September 18, 2012
RECOMMENDED Caryl Churchill made her name exploring the politics of sex and gender. In “The Skriker,” she folds post-natal psychoses and fairytales into the mix for a hard watch that’s…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 10:30AMSunday, September 16, 2012
Emerson once said, “I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.” Someone needs to tell playwright David Hirson; his attempt to dramatize artistic struggle sounds like an over-long reading …
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 06:00PMSaturday, September 8, 2012
Has-been football players Roy (Howie Johnson) and Cody (Steve Key), find themselves outside Wallace’s (Dennis Zacek) house when Roy’s POS Chevy breaks down. Roy is convinced Wallace is t…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 11:16AMMonday, September 3, 2012
RECOMMENDED Outdoor theater is fun but has its drawbacks; the most talented ensemble fights for its life against ambient distraction. “Ah fair Imogen, my life, my wife… THIS IS THE ROU…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 03:00PMMonday, August 27, 2012
RECOMMENDED The bohemian world rejects mainstream competition and greed, devoting itself to truth, beauty, freedom and love. And anybody who believes that has never tried to make a living se…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 04:00PMTuesday, August 7, 2012
No community has a monopoly on savagery; every population shows a disregard for human decency from time to time. Josh Nordmark’s new offering attempts to examine civilization’s failures …
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 08:05PM 
