140 stories by "Aaron Hunt"
RECOMMENDED As the latest torrents of terrorism shatter our souls with their senseless deaths and enhanced suspicions, Lyric Opera of Chicago's world-premiere production of "Bel Canto" could…
RECOMMENDED If you've groused about Christmas decorations already taking over the seasonal aisle of Walgreens, grumbled about the Christmas tree already glistening from behind the draperi…
RECOMMENDED Franz Lehár’s beloved, wildly successful operetta "The Merry Widow" will woo and then suspend in delicious wistfulness even the staunchest objector to its inclusion i…
From the program notes of Northlight Theatre’s "You Can't Take It With You": "The Sycamore family lives in Morningside Heights, which was a distinctly middle-class neighborhood i…
Eclipse Theatre Company ends their Terrance McNally season with "The Lisbon Traviata." The author of the Maria Callas-centric play "Master Class", “The Lisbon Traviata” suffer…
RECOMMENDED A film-to-stage musical enjoying regional success, "White Christmas" is based on the 1954 movie of the same name. Starring Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Elle…
RECOMMENDED Lyric Opera of Chicago launched its season with two confections"cakes appeared on stage in both"and now moves on to meat. If "Le Nozze di Figaro" and "Cenerentola" focused on the…
RECOMMENDED The Dead Writers Theatre Collective focuses on presenting classic pieces in the style and ethos of the period in which they were first produced, and they do so with great verve a…
RECOMMENDED This little operetta dinghy overcame modest box office and, proving the critics right for once, sailed away with the 2014 Tony Award for Best Musical. No small feat in an era whe…
RECOMMENDED Willy Russell, playwright of "Educating Rita" and "Shirley Valentine," wrote the book, music and lyrics for the folk cantata "Blood Brothers," which ran for twenty-four years in …
RECOMMENDED Remember banker's boxes? Those white, cardboard, 10″H x 12″W x 15″D storage bins that arrived flattened, to be unfolded and refolded until they took a shape tha…
RECOMMENDED With a splash of commedia dell’arte, a spoonful of Restoration comedy, and pounds of clowning, director Barbara Gaines has exploded the up-and-downstairs Mozartian confecti…
RECOMMENDED Chicago's opera enthusiasts must be collectively humming as the 2015/2016 opera season explodes on the scene with two Mozart operas, "Lucio Silla" at Chicago Opera Theater, and "…
RECOMMENDED Despite four Tony Award nominations, "Side Show" seemed destined for the Forgotten Musicals shelf. But after enjoying success in regional theater, the show was reworked, and a le…
RECOMMENDED From Homer J. Hickam's memoir, to a Universal Studios film, comes a musical retelling of an ageless, American story of the right, and the ability, to rise above one's circumstanc…
RECOMMENDED Follow the fluorescent yellow paint on the floor through a dark, winding corridor, and you'll find yourself immersed in the ethos of the secretive gay bars of the 1970s. A few la…
RECOMMENDED Mind-numbing with its soft-rocky up-tempo songs and pop-ish ballads, the 1973 and 2014 Tony Award-winning "Pippin" continues to charm all save the occasional music lover. If any …
By Aaron Hunt Chicago Summer Opera advertises itself as another of our city's startup, storefront, non-profit operatic enterprises; its title promises a spoonful of gastronomical respite as …
Having first been groomed in Chicago, "Kinky Boots" won the 2013 Tony Award for Best Musical. Rock icon Cyndi Lauper finagled Best Score, despite its jumps from song to song without connecti…
How To Run For Mayor The Chicago Musical Theatre Festival provides an important birthing-space for Chicago-connected, nascent musical theater to access our city's storefront-ethos, where new…
RECOMMENDED I thought a show where the colorful people stayed on one side of the stage while the colorless people stayed on the other, plot lines fizzled, and the leading players were a scre…
RECOMMENDED Playwright Brad Fraser examines the nature of true love through the tortured lens of fetishism, idolatry and narcissism in his spectacularly vivid play "Love and Human Remains." …
RECOMMENDED If winter plunged directly into summer and robbed us of a gentle rebirth, Court Theatre's very new production of "The Secret Garden" reawakens optimism in life, and the state of …
By Aaron Hunt In May 2012, Julieanne Ehre and Katy Collins co-produced what they coined a "Fable Festival" in Edgewater. Cafes, empty storefronts and restaurants hosted such delectable, mult…
RECOMMENDED It all began with a stag party skit, which explains the madcap, innuendo-filled, my-uncle's-got-a-barn quality that blessedly remains, despite Broadway spit-and-polish. Bob Marti…
