An unreliable narrator clad in Ermenegildo Zegna, Patrick Bateman (Exeter, Harvard) emerged from the pages of Bret Easton Ellis' 1991 shocker "American Psycho" as hot, pure, crystallized exc…
Some of Broadway's flops are riddled with bullets from birth. The premature deaths of others are more of a surprise. I'd put "Bullets Over Broadway," the 2014 Broadway musical version of the…
At an event last week in front of its supporters, the venerable Light Opera Works of Evanston announced it will be ditching its longtime moniker and renaming itself Music Theater Works. I'd …
An existential crisis for an arts-graduate hipster can arrive at 7:45 of a Chicago morning, just as the nocturnal grasping at all kinds of complex intimacies gives way to the cold realities …
When "Hamilton" begins performances in Chicago on Sept. 27, it will do so as the winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for drama. The coronation of the hit Broadway musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda…
Feeling creative today? Ready to pen something really smart and witty on Facebook? A poem based on your evening? A political essay or a literary rant? A saucy gossip column? A little play? …
Feeling creative today? Ready to pen something really smart and witty on Facebook? A poem based on your evening? A political essay or a literary rant? A saucy gossip column? A little play? "…
When news came last week that the Steppenwolf Theatre Company had decided not to use real babies in its production of "Mary Page Marlowe," some headlines danced in my head. "A crying shame:…
When news came last week that the Steppenwolf Theatre Company had decided not to use real babies in its production of "Mary Page Marlowe," some headlines danced in my head. "A crying shame: …
The role of Effie Melody White " she who tells you she's not going " already transformed the life of one woman from Chicago. It's hard to imagine the Porchlight Music Theatre production of "…
The titular, 11-year-old hero of "Jabari Dreams of Freedom," the frank and compassionate new children's play from Nambi E. Kelley, goes to school in Chicago. Like too many of the real-life k…
The titular, 11-year-old hero of "Jabari Dreams of Freedom," the frank and compassionate new children's play from Nambi E. Kelley, goes to school in Chicago. Like too many of the real-life k…
To many who hold to liberal orthodoxies, Clarence Thomas, Herman Cain, J.C. Watts, Alan Keyes and Condoleezza Rice are all examples of a paradoxical absurdity: the African-American Republica…
Somewhere, deep in your political memory " now trumped by another contest, I know " you may recall the Democratic primaries of 2008 when a woman named Hillary fought a young man named Barack…
Christopher Wheeldon's all new production of "The Nutcracker" for the Joffrey Ballet of Chicago is shaping up to be quite a Broadway-style extravaganza. Plans include a new narrative by the …
Christopher Wheeldon's all new production of "The Nutcracker" for the Joffrey Ballet of Chicago is shaping up to be quite a Broadway-style extravaganza. Plans include a new narrative by the …
What is the measure of a great piece of dramatic writing? I've found, over the years, that one decent yardstick is the presence of a swelling feeling of anxiety over the work before you comi…
What is the measure of a great piece of dramatic writing? I've found, over the years, that one decent yardstick is the presence of a swelling feeling of anxiety over the work before you comi…
On Wednesday Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders showed some teeth, grabbed some headlines and declared his rival, Hillary Clinton, "not qualified" for the office of president o…
On Wednesday Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders showed some teeth, grabbed some headlines and declared his rival, Hillary Clinton, "not qualified" for the office of president o…
"Everybody ought to have a maid," wrote Stephen Sondheim in 1962, pondering the indisputable convenience of a consistently congenial menial. That brilliant titular lyric within "A Funny Thin…
Here at the World's Greatest Newspaper, we're making a valiant and expanded effort to cover stand-up comedy " an ascendant phenomenon that, in its upper reaches, has moved out of the archety…
In 2007 in Evanston, the late, lamented Next Theatre Company staged the premiere of a musical adaptation of "The Adding Machine," the 1923 expressionistic masterpiece by Elmer Rice all about…
In 2010, a proposal to build a mosque and community center just a couple of blocks from ground zero in New York touched off a furor. Proponents said that the development, originally dubbed C…
At one point in "Kill Floor," the melancholy and moving new play by Abe Koogler at American Theater Company, the central character of Andy, played with rich empathy by Audrey Francis, confro…