4,886 stories by "Chris Jones"
Will "Carousel," which opens Saturday night, be the first of the Lyric Opera of Chicago spring musicals to transfer to Broadway? Revivals being high-risk endeavors, it would have to be a rea…
Back when Chez Paree was chic and the Empire Room at the Palmer House Hotel was in its regal cabaret splendor, the vocalist Keely Smith was once a regular visitor to Chicago.
NEW YORK " Ever since there have been ventriloquists with their arms up dummies, there has been truth-telling by puppet. Fred Russell had Coster Joe. Edgar Burton had Charlie McCarthy. And o…
In January 2002, the Chicago-based theatrical producer Stuart Oken found himself at a party. The ill-fated Broadway musical "Sweet Smell of Success" had opened its Chicago tryout, and the Go…
NEW YORK " In January 2002, the Chicago-based theatrical producer Stuart Oken found himself at a party. The ill-fated Broadway musical "Sweet Smell of Success" had opened its Chicago tryout,…
"The Upstairs Concierge," the bewilderingly meandering, endlessly indulgent and thoroughly disappointing new show at the Goodman Theatre from the gifted writer Kristoffer Diaz, sets itself u…
"I am not trying to write weird, prickly little plays and I am not trying to write boffo box office," the playwright Will Eno observed over lunch recently, "but if you keep it lean then ther…
The Bible, it is rigorously and rightly observed in "The Good Book," flows through American culture like blood. No question. If you wanted to simplify the nation's most persistent schism, yo…
"We all come from blood and saltwater and a screaming mother begging us to leave." Given what we know about the origins of the species, and the rarity of even the most enthusiastic birthi…
"We all come from blood and saltwater and an earnest mother begging us to leave."
NEW YORK " Old-school bars are now a rarity around Times Square, squeezed out by chain hotels and video boards. But Jimmy's Corner, a boxing-themed dive bar on West 44th Street, has somehow …
In the Chicago theater, a paucity of financial resources is often a point of pride, even part of the town's aesthetic. But it's also a reason to complain. In the minds of some theater artist…
NEW YORK " You can't get from New York to Chicago by train in 16 hours anymore. And you could argue that musical theater has been similarly immune from progress since the 1930s, when the pla…
Champagne corks popped Monday night at the Windy City Playhouse, the plush new venue for live performance at 3014 W. Irving Park Road, in an area of Chicago with many arts workers and arts l…
A drunk " maybe also a stoner, maybe not " was wandering down Milwaukee Avenue on Sunday night in the environs of the Den Theatre. Another amped-up dude could be found staggering in the line…
Since the musical "Les Miserables" has been in the public consciousness for 30 years, it is hard to imagine that you don't know something about this epic Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Scho…
Since the musical "Les Miserables" has been in the public consciousness for 30 years, it is hard to imagine that you don't know something about this epic Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Scho…
"Outside Mullingar," a recent play by John Patrick Shanley ("Doubt") and the newest attraction from the Northlight Theatre in Skokie, starts out in a manner familiar to anyone with affection…
The "Genius" that makes up the one-word title of the potentially provocative play by Kate Walbert, now at the Profiles Theatre, does not refer to God-given talents but to a designation by a …
NEW YORK - Last June, a man named Roy Cockrum walked into a Kroger supermarket to buy a Powerball ticket. He won the largest lottery jackpot in the history of Tennessee: $259 million, which …
NEW YORK - Last June, a man named Roy Cockrum walked into a Kroger supermarket to buy a Powerball ticket. He won the largest lottery jackpot in the history of Tennessee: $259 million, which …
NEW YORK " Baby boomer Heidi Holland, the angst-ridden, art historian heroine of the justly beloved Wendy Wasserstein play from 1988 that bears her name, would now be about 66 years old if t…
NEW YORK " Baby boomer Heidi Holland, the angst-ridden, art historian heroine of the justly beloved Wendy Wasserstein play from 1988 that bears her name, would now be about 66 years old if t…
Next week, a new theater that will surprise a lot of people will open in Chicago: the Windy City Playhouse, at 3014 W. Irving Park Road, at the western reaches of Chicago's North Center neig…
The flourishing Belmont Theater District is to get a new venue, located just east of Stage 773 and Theater Wit. Dubbed Chicago Theater Works, the new space at 1113 W. Belmont Ave. (former…
