Drive down Howard Street " the border boulevard betwixt Chicago and Evanston " and you may be surprised to see the exterior of a modestly scaled but beautifully clad theater, the all-new qua…
Mortality was on the Broadway menu this year " most all of the best works of the calendar year shed light on the pain of the human condition, especially once we're past the first blush of yo…
Who is Isaac Gomez? If you live outside of the world of nonprofit theater, you may not know. As recently as 2013, Gomez was an undergraduate student at the University of Texas at Austin. He …
Gitta Jacobs, whom her son Clay Jacobs said died peacefully in her Gold Coast home Friday at the age of 85, probably served as a director of more small Chicago theaters than any other single…
During the peak holiday weeks, the Goodman Theatre likes to have an irreverent seasonal attraction on the smaller of its two stages " something to attract a young adult audience less interes…
"Algorithm Nation or, The Static Quo" is the first opening on the legendary mainstage of Second City since the fantastic "Dream Freaks Fall from Space" debuted on that legendary platform in …
Americans were mad as hell and not going to take it anymore in 1976. And " take a look outside your window " they're still mad as hell and not going to take it anymore in 2018. But the presc…
At the top of "The Play That Goes Wrong," the touring comedy from London and Broadway now making its debut in Chicago, an apology is issued from the stage. There has been a ticket mix-up, we…
The door to the Uptown Theatre swung open. Dan Rather laughed. And the faces of REO Speedwagon all lit up like Christmas trees. The juxtaposition of personalities " the famed anchorman was i…
Fans of Theo Ubique Theatre, the diminutive, distinguished Chicago theater that really started the now-buoyant trend of micro-musicals in Chicago, have been left nibbling cold turkey this fa…
Even jukebox musicals and celebrity bio-shows need clear reasons for theatrical being. In her one-woman show, Elaine Stritch memorably described herself as a "existential problem in tights."…
There is an excellent play buried inside Spenser Davis' "Plainclothes," an ambitious but overstuffed situation comedy from Chicago's burgeoning Broken Nose Theatre. Possibly an entire televi…
Twenty years ago, something strange called American Girl Place opened in Chicago. It was years ahead of its time. In fact, only now is it becoming clear just how far ahead the thinking behin…
The aptly named "Familiar," now at the Steppenwolf Theatre Company under the skilled direction of Danya Taymor, is a fine example of the kind of play that many well-educated children of immi…
Ricky Jay, who died last Saturday, was the most genial, smart and loquacious magician you ever could hope to meet. Looking back on all the magic shows I've reviewed over the years in Chicago…
On Thanksgiving Eve at the Oriental Theatre, several hundred of us took time to give thanks for an all-American freedom of expression " the precious right to make fun of our elders, spoof re…
Ready to plan your holiday theater-going? Let me see if I can help. Everything mentioned in this column has been reviewed in, and recommended by, the Tribune, either this year or not too lon…
The touchstone of the glorious Disney animation renaissance, "Beauty and the Beast" had eight masterful songs by Howard Ashman and Alan Menken when it was released as a movie: the likes of "…
How's your week going? Let's hope more smoothly than for the tinny hero of the gorgeous new show at Lookingglass Theatre who, in short order, is tormented by a big baby, propelled from a win…
Anyone who studied Jane Austen " or read her novels for pleasure " will tell you one thing above all else. She wrote juicy, deeply complex characters. This is why her six major novels have b…
The usual admonition to turn off your cell phones has a particular intensity at "The Woman in Black," now at the Royal George Theatre. "We use very low level levels of light in this producti…
Given the excitement occasioned by 29-year-old Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, now the youngest woman ever to be elected to the United States Congress, dollars to donuts that a lot of people in TV…
The Cirque du Soleil will return to Chicago in 2019. But its tent will be pitched not outside the United Center, as has been the case for years, but in the south parking lot of Soldier Field…
Some 26 years after its signature chopper first descended on the Auditorium Theatre, "Miss Saigon" is back in Chicago and still out-selling every other show in town. (Except one, which has a…
William Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night" takes its name from the coming of the Feast of the Epiphany " probably now best known as the day when you're supposed to take down your holiday decorati…