4,886 stories by "Chris Jones"
It might engender a few eye rolls, but the notion of Billy Corgan writing a musical makes excellent sense. He has always been an artist of ambition, his lyrics long suffused with the emotion…
Superior amusement at The Second City usually arrives riding on the back of panic. The crisis can be as picayune as riding Greyhound: "If think I'm on this bus any longer," Daniel Strauss' a…
Welfare officers arrive at an ordinary British house " they seem to suspect ill-treatment of one of the occupants. They're emotionally overwhelmed by the task " we see one of them shaking an…
In the world of classical theater in Canada " a small world, for sure, but one with fervent Chicago-based fans " Ben Carlson is a big star.
For all its simplicity and folksy familiarity, the word "storyteller" is a much-overused term in the arts. It's claimed by those less than committed to the art of the raconteur, the craft of…
Director Rachel Rockwell's new production of Disney's "Mary Poppins" is, without question, the biggest show at the Paramount Theatre in Aurora since the start of the remarkable initiative at…
In the Alejandro Gonzalez movie "Birdman," a formidably expansive, admirably unstinting yet deeply affectionate portrait of the many layers of neuroses and insecurities common to the artist,…
This weekend is the beginning of peak theatergoing season in Chicago. So let me try and walk you through some decent options for you and yours.
This weekend is the beginning of peak theatergoing season in Chicago. So let me try and walk you through some decent options for you and yours.
Tank tops, shorts and sweaty sexual desire are the main currency of the aptly titled "Hot Georgia Sunday," the engaging little sleeper of a show from the rising Haven Theatre Company, staged…
This is just the second year for "A Q Brothers' Christmas Carol," the seasonal attraction at Chicago Shakespeare Theater, featuring Chicago's Q Brothers, whose core brand involves taking cla…
Anyone who just played King Lear is ready for a little fun. So that might explain why the hard-working Larry Yando, once again starring in "A Christmas Carol" at the Goodman Theatre, seems e…
A celebration of the life of Sheldon Patinkin, the influential teacher and Chicago comedy pioneer, has been set for Monday, Jan. 26, it was announced Monday. The event will take place in the…
A celebration of the life of Sheldon Patinkin, the influential teacher and Chicago comedy pioneer, has been set for Jan. 23, it was announced Monday. The event will take place in the main th…
Some of us must have been "dreaming as the days go by," but the "Lookingglass Alice" is now, well, older than Alice herself.
As most theaters trot out their Scrooge, Schooner or George Bailey, the Victory Gardens Theater opens a difficult, sparse, austere, intense and most assuredly haunting piece that " given the…
As most theaters trot out their Scrooge, Schooner or George Bailey, the Victory Gardens Theater opens a difficult, sparse, austere, intense and most assuredly haunting piece that " given the…
Cindy Lou Who'd believe it? The Grinch got his union card! I don't mean that Shuler Hensley, who plays the verdant old meanie on the road, is the newest member of Actors' Equity Association.…
NEW YORK " "But in the end how do you get hold of hollowness," was the rhetorical question asked by the perplexed critic Walter Kerr, when Edward Albee's "A Delicate Balance" first opened on…
In 1955, Fred Wranovics, a bartender at the Woodlawn Tap on 55th Street in Hyde Park, bought a Hyde Park joint called the Hi-Hat Lounge. Wranovics decided he might as well add in the empty s…
Chicagoans being nice folks for the most part, it's not unusual to sit in a theater here and feel an audience will a show to succeed. Especially in the so-called season of goodwill. Especial…
Chicagoans being nice folks for the most part, it's not unusual to sit in a theater here and feel an audience will a show to succeed. Especially in the so-called season of goodwill. Especial…
Monday night at the American Theater Company was one of those Chicago evenings that make putting up with snow and ice in November " not to mention buses catching fire on Lake Shore Drive " w…
So it's Thanksgiving week " and family and "Annie" are in town. Whaddya wanna know? I'd venture it's whether the latest bus-and-truck "Annie" delivers the full "Annie" experience.
For all its associations with tradition and fulfillment of our need for constancy, Thanksgiving dinner often turns out to be a reminder of how much things have changed.
