A PARTY WITH TOO MANY UNINVITED GUESTS Insightful, hilarious, and ultimately undone by its own ambitions Phanésia Pharel’s Dead Girl’s Quinceañera, now being performed at the Goodman T…
NO CATHARSIS, NO COMPROMISE A fearless musical refuses easy answers Could we compel Raven Theatre to mount at least one unconventional musical every season? After the smashing success of the…
WHERE THERE’S A WILL, THERE’S A WAY OUT A son gets the boot, his parents get their kicks, and the audience gets a riot In keeping with the expectation at Trap Door Theatre, when one walk…
BLOWN AWAY Jon Fosse’s haunting meditation on life, companionship, and depression becomes an extraordinary theatrical experience in the hands of two remarkable actors In a misty space, two…
A STREETCAR NAMED BRANDO Johnny Galecki’s marvelous Tennessee Williams anchors an enormously entertaining imagined encounter that offers more theatrical fun than insight In the summer of 1…
DEAD MAN WALKING—STRAIGHT INTO THE THIRD REICH A corpse, a preposterous plan, and five tireless performers make this British spy caper an enormously funny exercise in controlled chaos Mont…
A BLUE-SKY BALLET WITH A DARK HEART John Neumeier turns a brutal tale of love, violence and redemption into an exquisite and haunting ballet The first thing you notice on stage when you walk…
A LIFE IN THE AIR Shana Carroll’s extraordinary theatrical memoir finds wonder in the moments between falling and flying Well, it’s finally happened; I’ve been rendered speechless. The…
FIVE MONOLOGUES IN SEARCH OF A PLAY A sharp, funny satire of academia wrestles with difficult questions—and nearly gets derailed by its sexual detours They’re back! After a four-year hia…
AN EASY PILL TO SWALLOW The opening production of TimeLine’s first full season in its gorgeous new home in Uptown, the world premiere of Jessica Huang’s The Birth of the Pill, gets off t…
NO MIRACLE HERE Moments of brilliance cannot make this uneven García Márquez adaptation cohere It has been raining for several days, and in a small house, a husband (Dan Cobbler) and wife …
SCRATCH IT Silverman’s Jacobean reworking is hilarious, dark, and exhilarating How does one determine if an adaptation is a success? Does it require rigorous fidelity to the source materia…
THE CASE AGAINST AN EASY OUT A darkly funny, anxiety-inducing thriller loses its footing in the final stretch In the skies over Texas, a pregnant young woman called Nessa faints on a plane e…
A GLITCH IN THE FAMILY Brenda Barrie shines, but this AI drama does not compute A spare stage greets you as you walk into the Gillian Theatre for Matthew Libby’s Sisters, the opening play …
HELL HATH NO FURY LIKE JOAN CRAWFORD Four Joans, three Christinas, and a torrent of gags make this trip to hell devilishly funny Beginning her film career as a body double for Norma Shearer,…
KOKANDY GETS THE PICTURE A splendid revival turns this cranky critic into a dewy-eyed theatre kid again “Work is what you do for others, Liebchen. Art is what you do for yourself.” In a…
CITY LIT SADDLES UP A WINNER A terrific central trio and striking stagecraft make Mark Pracht’s world-premiere adaptation a winner The venerable City Lit opens its 46th season with Shane, …
GOOD NEWS, BAD NEWS Five headlines become five new plays, with one terrific entry leading the edition Jackalope Theatre Company’s 17th Annual Living Newspaper Festival, currently being per…
DYING TO BREAK THE CYCLE Three generations speak across time in a harrowing, beautifully orchestrated exploration of trauma and inheritance To a theatre-lover, going to a first production fr…
WINDOWS NEEDS MORE SPIT AND POLISH An appealing young cast can’t overcome a world-premiere script that remains frustratingly unformed On a couch in a small apartment sits a sullen young wo…
SOUND AND FURY, SIGNIFYING PLENTY A sound artist steps out of the booth with a powerful, deeply personal work that, in production, may be better heard than seen Over five thousand shows: tha…
STAY GOLD, GREASERS This gripping musical adaptation honors its beloved source while finding an emotional life all its own S.E. Hinton’s first novel, The Outsiders, written while she was s…
A CRACK IN THE ORDINARY Four remarkable performances make the leap from surrealism to domestic drama worthwhile Marina Carr’s Marble, now in its Chicago premiere at the Copernicus Center a…
CRAM SESSION, CRASH COURSE Natalie Margolin’s sharply observed comedy captures the fleeting intensity of college friendships Natalie Margolin’s All Nighter, which opened Off-Broadway in …
ALL ABOARD THE S.S. SEX FARCE These gender-liberated pirates need to boink more and bicker less On the deck of the pirate ship Revenge, a buxom young lass leads a blindfolded young man to a …