My best friend is Catholic. I remember having a particularly pointed conversation with her asking if she believed I was going to hell because I was gay. While her response was “no,R…
Every year around this time I take my parents to The Second City. Dad loves the irreverent and topical comedy, but cringes when they break the fourth wall for a surprise audience interact…
The cast of Theo Ubique’s “Smokey Joe’s Cafe” As a powerhouse songwriting duo, Jerome “Jerry” Leiber and Mike Stoller cranked out some significant hits in…
*Well, mostly since 1995, when I started watching the Tony Awards religiously. Every year. Without fail. In fact, the year I lived in Germany (2001, the season The Producers swept the awa…
Writer, director and performer Ben Rimalower knows a thing or two about high belting. No, he’s not a singer per say, but he does appreciate the finer belts in life — including th…
Actor and playwright Sentell Harper feels trapped. As a gay black man, he’s disinterested in “throwing shade,” lip syncing for your life or being on the DL as a way to surv…
Have you ever been so enraged that you’ve almost lost it? I'm talking the kind of red-hot rage that creeps behind the eyes, makes you tense and sweaty, brings you right up to the boili…
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Anything Goes is one of those shows that never takes itself too seriously. It isn’t afraid to get a little bawdy and bend the rules — but it always comes out on top, full of clas…
Susie McMonagle in Porchlight Music Theatre’s “Pal Joey” “They just don’t write ‘em like that anymore!” That classic turn of phrase kept running thr…
Who doesn’t enjoy a good story? It’s why we love the theatre. Through words, music, dance and imagination, theatre helps shape a shared moment. It transports us to another place …
Brutal honesty. That’s playwright Samuel D. Hunter’s razor-sharp focus in his deeply significant play, The Whale. And through Charlie, a 600-pound gentle giant played by the supe…
Sometimes all you need is a star-making performance to make a show. The fresh-faced and ideally cast Stephen Anthony, who plays infamous con man Frank Abagnale Jr., offers such a performance…
P.T. Barnum knew how to put on a show. With some manipulative marketing and a dash of spectacle, he could sell you a wooden nickel for a dollar. The 1980 musical Barnum, which features a jov…
I’ve never met Roger Ebert. However, I felt like I knew him. I’ve been reading his blog, his tweets and his reviews for many years. The man personified prolific. Robbed of his sp…
I’m all for firsts. And Artistic Home’s very solid production of Tennessee Williams’ The Night of the Iguana presented a whole world of them. It was my first time seeing an…
You think you’ve seen Julius Caesar? Think again. Yes, Chicago Shakespeare Theater’s bold, modern-day production (closing March 24) has its share of surprises and risk, but there…
While I’m not sure how much it cost to produce the national tour of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, I’d wager that a sizable, of not primary, chunk of the change went into the sh…
Due to work obligations, I couldn’t make press opening of the national tour of Jekyll & Hyde, which is set for a Broadway revival following a two-week Chicago engagement. So, I tur…
Time Out Chicago announces that Chicago Shakespeare Theater will produce that American musical comedy classic, Gypsy, along with Stephen Sondheim’s Road Show, a show that got one of it…
While the rest of Europe was suffering through WWII, Ireland stood fast in its neutrality, even referring to the war as “The Emergency” in an attempt to mitigate the impact of th…
I heartily applaud Saint Sebastian, a spirited storefront company, for taking on Lefties, a highly ambitious world premiere by promising playwright Leigh Johnson. Johnson, a talented writer …
As you enter Chicago Shakespeare Theater’s Court Theater to see English director Jonathan Munby’s take on Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, you know you’re in for somethin…
Christine Sherrill has ‘New Ways to Dream’ as Norma Desmond in Drury Lane’s “Sunset Boulevard” Before I begin to discuss Drury Lane’s disappointingly drea…
In one of several charming anecdotes told by Joan Curto in her new Cole Porter cabaret show now playing at Davenports Piano Bar through February 10, she talks about how Broadway legend (and …