4,886 stories by "Chris Jones"
Jaws clenched, limbs firing and hearts on the line: that's what the admirable cast of the gutsy "Paradise Square" is delivering at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on Broadway.
After 35 years at the Goodman Theatre, artistic director Robert Falls this week announced his final season as artistic director.
"Winnie the Pooh" is, really, a metaphor for the importance of friendship between diverse and different creatures.
"Love with a laugh only goes so far." Those eight words, which I heard sung Thursday night from the stage of the Lyric Opera of Chicago, have interfered with my sleep.
"I was just drawn to the fear, and the utter challenge, of playing someone who was so opposite from me," Hayes said on playing Levant.
Oscar Levant, who died in 1972, was a movie actor and songwriter. What a star they have found in Sean Hayes, best known for "Will & Grace."
Before she achieved international fame as Mrs. Patmore in the television series "Downton Abbey," Lesley Nicol was a widely admired British stage actress.
The Broadway musical with the music and moves of Michael Jackson will open its first national tour in the Loop.
"Welcome back to the theater" is a common curtain announcement these days. You can hear it at the biting comedy "White" from Definition Theatre and you can live it at "Stand Up If You're Her…
Before she found fame as the beloved cook Mrs. Patmore on "Downton Abbey," the British actress was a longtime stage performer.
The longstanding off-Loop company founded in 1985 finally has found itself a permanent new home on Chicago's North Side.
Words like eye-popping extravaganza surely are overused on Broadway but "Moulin Rouge" lived up to that billing.
A riff on "Death of a Salesman," this play wonders what would happen if Linda Loman met the woman with whom her husband had an affair.
After an association of some 40 years, Terry James, the executive producer of the Marriott Theatre in Lincolnshire, has announced his retirement this summer.
"King James" tells a moving story of two friends in Cleveland who bond and come unstuck over the rise, exit and return of LeBron James.
The opening night of Lyric Opera's "Tosca," the Giacomo Puccini opera set as the Neapolitans abandoned Rome, began with the Ukrainian national anthem.
"Passage" is an earnest thought experiment, not exactly in sync with the moment.
What if life on other planets does not resemble little green aliens so much as our consciousness?
The story of Henrik Ibsen's play involves a married woman, Ellida (Chaon Cross), who grew up near the sea but now lives in a dull place with her boring husband.
I'd say that "Hadestown," for all of its emphasis on delivering a New Orleans-style good time to its audience, is not so much thrilling now as chilling.
Rajiv Joseph's "King James" at Steppenwolf revolves around the legendary basketball player and Leon is certain the show is destined for New York.
By the time Gaines exits, likely at the end of 2022, almost all of the major Chicago-area theaters will have new artistic leadership.
ZinZanni's "Wishes and Dreams" will be an important attraction as visitors return to Chicago. What I admire the most, I think, is how big a show the relatively small cast always delivers.
Larry Neumann Jr., a gruff, gritty Chicago actor widely regarded as quintessential, died Feb. 23 at the age of 62.
It's hard to overestimate how powerfully a musical set in Gander, Canada, connected with a Chicago audience Wednesday night.
