At one point in "Father Comes Home from the Wars (Parts 1, 2 & 3)" " Suzan-Lori Parks' brilliant and riveting Civil War triptych in the Homeric vein " a slave named Hero, fighting alongside …
"The Cher Show" rolled quietly into Chicago on Tuesday " minus Cher, who didn't even show up as a hologram. But if the name on the marquee " and the reason to buy a ticket " was not present …
Say Nemo and most kids now think of the Disney clown fish with the neurotic dad. Mention Nautilus and you're into a fitness brand. But in 1870, the great Jules Verne imagined Captain Nemo as…
At one crucial point in "Mies Julie," Yaël Farber's explosive and adept South African adaptation of August Strindberg's throbbing naturalistic classic from 1888, now firing up the Victory…
In 1977, the Mount Holyoke College alumna Wendy Wasserstein wrote "Uncommon Women," a sparkling, groundbreaking and deeply moving play about brilliant women at an elite college, all probing …
In September 1989, the cover of TV Guide featured the stars of the two highest rated shows of the era. One was "The Cosby Show." The other was "Roseanne." Each regularly attracted some 30 mi…
When the courageous playwright Mart Crowley wrote "The Boys in the Band," half a century ago and several galaxies away, he was more concerned about making his play funny and true than worryi…
A signed Hirschfeld drawing of the cast of "Frasier." A Dale Chihuly vase " once a fixture on the set of the NBC sitcom " signed by the renowned artist. Autographed scripts for "Frasier," in…
As far as I remember, I first saw Rachel Rockwell perform in 1999. The show was director Marc Robin's production of "A Chorus Line" and the venue was the now-defunct Drury Lane in Evergreen …
Bennett Fisher's new play "Damascus" is set mostly on Interstate 94. The rolling location is an airport shuttle van that normally plies its trade at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport. But on …
Rachel Rockwell, one of Chicago's leading directors and choreographers of stage musicals over the past two decades " and also a rising star on the brink of a major national career in the Ame…
During my preshow detour in the interests of personal comfort, an announcement of a pending curtain came across the Chicago Shakespeare Theater loudspeaker, which reaches everywhere. Beginni…
A quarter-century ago, the lavish new Rosemont Theatre caused severe indigestion among the nervous honchos of Chicago. The occasion was the 1993 groundbreaking for a 4,200-seat theater " as …
Robert Redford is headed June 1 to the Brushwood Center at Ryerson Woods in north suburban Riverwoods, where he and his wife, German-born environmental activist and multimedia artist Sibylle…
"Pretty Woman: The Musical" will be changing leading men for Broadway. The producers announced Wednesday that Steve Kazee, who played the lead role of Edward Lewis during the show's pre-Bro…
When did you last see a baby at a show? And when did you last see a baby in a show? If you attended one of the early previews of Tracy Letts' "Mary Page Marlowe" at the Steppenwolf Theatre i…
Since Antonin Scalia, the late and famously flamboyant associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, once taught " very happily, by his own account " at the University of Chic…
New parents are notoriously difficult to attract to the theater and the reasons are obvious: Sitters add greatly to the cost and hassle of an evening and, in my experience anyway, a fun and …
Which has the greater importance to Chicago: The Chicago Blues Festival or the Chicago Jazz Festival? If you love our city's musical heritage, you'd rightly answer "both." But what about the…
As bookends go for any first act, you could do a whole lot worse than killer renditions of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" and "Lady Marmalade," replete with its aspirational sing-along chorus,…
Sam Shepard's "Buried Child" now feels like it was unearthed from another era. Three acts, close to three hours in duration and as relentless in post-modern formative experiment as it is in …
"The Light Fantastic," now in its world premiere at the Jackalope Theatre, is a fascinating departure for gifted Chicago playwright Ike Holter. Standing apart from Holter's terrific ongoing …
Niala Boodhoo, the charming host of the Illinois Public Media radio show "The 21st," had a question for me Tuesday. What can people coming to Chicago this summer plan to see at the theater? …
Much has changed since I first heard the inimitable Delany sisters have their say from stages in New York and Chicago. Conversational references to Dan Quayle and David Duke " touchstones of…
Like a barking mashup of Gordon Ramsay and Anthony Bourdain, the demon-filled chef at the heart of Will Snider's very lively new play "How to Use a Knife," now at Theater Wit from Shattered …