The next time there are problems with phones or iPads in our house, I'm sending for E. Faye Butler. I made this resolution on Wednesday morning at Chicago Children's Theatre, alongside a cou…
On April 29, Tribune critic Blair Kamin lamented the sorry state of the pedestrian and bike path in Northerly Island Park. Instead of a bucolic circular bike ride or stroll around the lakesi…
Should police officers " or agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives " use mentally disabled people in their sting operations? The answer to that question, it seem…
Bessie and Sadie Delany, two pioneering sisters and daughters of a former slave, first had their say 20 years ago. But I speak only of matters theatrical. Annie Elizabeth "Bessie" Delany, a …
Here's a trivia question for you: What was the first jukebox musical? The answer isn't "Beautiful " The Carole King Musical," nor "Jersey Boys" or "Motown: The Musical." It wasn't "Million D…
"Hamilton," the phenomenally successful musical written and composed by Lin-Manuel Miranda, brought so much posthumous celebrity to Alexander Hamilton that America's first secretary of the t…
For the last 412 years, "Macbeth" has been a great bear of a play to produce. I don't mean because it's boring (it's not), or suffering of a deficiency poetical (hardly), or lacking great ch…
The stock market closed lower Wednesday but stock in Apple soared. The reason was not growth in iPhone sales " in fact, analysts reported, the level of demand for the costly new iPhone X see…
"Was I," said Julia Sweeney at Second City on Wednesday night, "the Al Jolson of androgyny?" The reason for the sincere self-questioning " which is an especially funny part of Sweeney's fabu…
Prior to the restoration of a democratically elected government in 1983 and the subsequent, Nuremberg-like "Trial of the Juntas," the military dictatorship that ruled Argentina from 1976 thr…
As I walked my dog near Wrigley Field the other night, the two of us stopped among the bars and the noise, and stood and stared outside 3408 N. Sheffield Ave. That address used to be the hom…
Tiffany Topol and Barry DeBois are not new to "Once." Both of the stars of director Jim Corti's beautiful and moving new Paramount Theatre production were understudies on the recent national…
"The Band's Visit," a wry and critically acclaimed musical based on an obscure Israeli movie about an Egyptian police band lost in a small Israeli town, has emerged the dominant new Broadway…
In 2015, the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis commissioned actor-writer Dael Orlandersmith " a warm-hearted and gregarious performer whose work I've been watching since her appearance here on …
Composed by a pimply but prodigiously talented 23-year-old, conceived as a concept album headlined by the lead singer of Deep Purple and episodically eclectic all the way to its glittery boo…
From Jimmy Buffett to the cast of "Frozen," all kinds of people have been warbling ditties from "Oklahoma!" these last few days. It's all been part of an ongoing celebration of this groundbr…
Back in 2012, the actor Denzel Washington infuriated the Air Line Pilots Association with the vivacious veracity of his portrayal of a charmingly alcoholic airline captain in the Robert Zeme…
I've been watching Daryl Brooks for years at Chicago's Black Ensemble Theatre, growing steadily as a director. He was more than ready for some Tony Award-winning material. At Porchlight Musi…
Venus now opens inside the Mercury on the hot Southport Corridor, adding a new theatrical venue to a block that already boasts the Music Box Theatre, surely the most beloved film citadel in …
So, Teller, what are you doing working on the Scottish play at Chicago Shakespeare Theater? "I can't think of anything more suspenseful than the murder of Duncan" says the famously taciturn …
"Who lives, who dies, who tells your story?" they sing in "Hamilton." Well, if you have control over the combination of your biography and all your hit songs, the answer is perfectly simple:…
Grant James Varjas' "33 to Nothing" is set, in real time, at that most depressing of moments for any ensemble of artists: When some in their number finally have had enough. Varjas' play with…
The Griffin Theatre Company's passionate production of "Ragtime" will go head-to-head with Theo Ubique's vocally adroit "Sweeney Todd" at the Non-Equity Jeff Awards, with these two musical p…
"Harry, there's never a perfect answer in this messy, emotional world," says the deceased Dumbledore, his portrait talking from the stage. "Perfection is beyond the reach of humankind, beyon…
If we all want retail to continue to be a part of our urban aesthetic landscape, we had better start buying things in shops. On Thursday, the Tribune reported that Carson's, a department sto…