234 stories by "Catey Sullivan"
Director Marti Lyons deploys a deft hand with Bathsheba Doran's The Mystery of Love and Sex. She keeps the pacing taut and elegantly navigates the thin line between humor and pathos. What sh…
Make no mistake - Odysseo is breathtaking from start to finish. Starring 65 horses and 48 human aerialists, acrobats and riders, the tech-heavy production is a staggeringly beautiful and imp…
After a rather uneventful first act, Born Yesterday picks up the steam of a runaway downhill freight train in the second act, powering through to a finale that feels downright prophetic. Pla…
Kokandy director Lili-Anne Brown takes a literal stance on The Wiz, billing it as an urbanization of L. Frank Baum's beloved tale, setting it in the amongst the graffiti-strewn Kansas Homes.…
It's been over a century since the publishing of Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, the seminal, muckraking expose of working conditions in Chicago's stockyards. Alexander Zeldin's Beyond Caring …
With Goodman Theatre's Destiny of Desire, playwright Karen Zacarias might have invented a new theatrical genre. The unabashedly histrionic production is part Greek tragedy, part frantic sex …
Court Theatre's The Hard Problem, by Tom Stoppard, is sleek, smart and beguiling. Director Charles Newell's sharp and luminous cast keeps you engaged both intellectually and emotionally, eve…
The real stars of Circus 1903 are not humans. The show's signature is its life-sized puppet elephants, created by designer Melvyn Millar. But while the elephants are wonderful, Circus 1903 h…
At 90 minutes, Steppenwolf's Straight White Men, written and directed by Young Jean Lee, zips by at the pace of an expertly timed sitcom, but plumbs depths worthy of a dissertation. By expos…
Boho Theatre's budget may be small compared to the well-oiled musical theater machines found elsewhere in Chicago, but make no mistake, their production of Urinetown packs a mighty punch. Di…
Director Marti Maraden does as well as anyone could with Love's Labor's Lost, a production that looks gorgeous on stage, but the script itself is lacking. If nothing else, the production wi…
It's clear from Sweeney Todd's opening number that Director Jim Corti understands both the scope of the show, and how to make it work within the soaring spaces of the Paramount. Several bars…
For the national tour of John Cameron Mitchell's Hedway and the Angry Inch, the production has been gussied up and deeply commercialized. That it still works in terms of both potent storytel…
Devised by the London-based Theatre de Complicite and conceived by Simon McBurney, A Disappearing Number is at once a mathematical mystery thriller, a romance, and a tragedy rooted in histor…
In Kander and Ebb's "The Scottsboro Boys," powerfully presented by Porchlight Music Theatre, the juxtaposition of the antic shenanigans and the tragic story they're telling creates the sense…
There's an important, provocative and entertaining story buried within Marcus Gardley's A Wonder in My Soul. The world premiere drama is filled with joy, strength and fascinating characters.…
Teatro Vista's world premiere by Ike Holter's never comes out and identifies just who the real wolf is, and that is to the play'scredit. It could be any of us. And that's what helps make The…
The Illusionists is terrific escapist entertainment. Each of the magicians showcased have their own gimmick, look and shtick. Over the course of two hours or so, they provide a range of illu…
Director Karen Kessler has shaped a vividly realized world with Jennifer Haley's haunting, futuristic thriller The Nether. The production is at once an escape from the real, and a vivid comm…
Swarthy pirates, saucy wenches and ridiculously coiffed villains - all-in-all there's much to applaud in Captain Blood. David Rice's adaptation of Rafael Sabatini's 1922 adventure novel is a…
At times funny, at others disturbing and increasingly intriguing the deeper you get into the two-hour production, Windy City Playhouse's Bootycandy sneaks up on you, drawing you into the cha…
Pearle Cleage's Blues for an Alabama Sky offers pretty much everything you could want in a drama - thrilling story, unforgettable character and mesmerizing dialogue. The emotional spectrum i…
If you look hard enough, there are glimmers of potential buried in Meg Miroshnik's Depression-era drama of teenage girls trying to escape an oppressive world by teaming up to play basketball…
Priscilla, Queen of the Desert is an unapologetic campfest of fabulous drag-queen proportions, and an homage to 70's disco music. Though Honey West does a star turn in this produciton, Pris…
Winter is coming - we all reach the point where there is far more behind us than ahead. Rivendell Theatre's Winter, by Julie Jensen, exploring one woman's personal winter as she comes to gri…
