REEFER MADNESS IS SUCH A HIGH THAT YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE STONED TO ENJOY IT In 1936, a church group sponsored a motion picture aimed at warning young people about the dangers of marijuana. Th…
A SHOW WHICH PLANTS ITSELF IN YOUR MEMORY Back in 1985, Bill Pullinsi staged a satirical musical called Little Shop of Horrors at his Candlelight Dinner Playhouse in Summit that was one of t…
THE STEPS TO SUCCESS They say that timing is everything. Timing certainly is everything in The 39 Steps, the English spy spoof that occupies a delightful, often amazing, and even suspenseful…
NOTHING BEASTLY ABOUT IT The Chicago Shakespeare Theater is presenting the best musical production of the summer, but audiences will have to see it in the daytime. The production is Disney's…
OEDIPUSÂ REX POTENTLY UPDATEDÂ TO THE BARRIO Oedipus El Rey is Luis Alfaro's vision of Sophocles' Oedipus Rex seen through the prism of modern Latino life, specifically gang culture as i…
TRACY LETTS ADAPTS THREE SISTERS FOR STEPPENWOLF Tracy Letts calls his version of Anton Chekhov's Three Sisters an adaptation, but other than some changes in language it's still the great Ru…
MAGIC ALL AROUND Death and Harry Houdini was the House Theatre's first production back in 2001 and it's been something of a meal ticket for the company over the years. The production played …
FRESH NEW REVUE AT SECOND CITY Four of the six performers in the new Second City e.t.c. revue We're All in This Room Together never appeared on a Second City mainstage before. And this is on…
HERO NEEDS TO ZERO IN ON THE BOOK Hero, a brand new musical at the Marriott Theatre, has enough warmth and humor to provide a pleasant evening of light summer entertainment, but the work of …
YOU REALLY GOT A HOLD ON ME The baby boomers were out in force at the Oriental Theatre Tuesday night, reveling in a Beatles nostalgia fest called Rain: A Tribute to the Beatles. The show is …
TO SEASONED VIEWERS, THE FACE OFÂ CIRQUE DU SOLEIL COULD USE A LIFT The Cirque du Soleil production of Dralion should be the most fun for audiences unfamiliar with the Cirque's unique blen…
LITTLE-KNOWN CHICAGO DISASTER BECOMES TOWERING MUSICAL Eastland: A New Musical is the Lookingglass Theatre's stunning meditation on one of the most terrible disasters in Chicago history: On …
ABBA-DABBA-DO Delivered by an exuberant and attractive cast of young singers and dancers, Dancing Queen is an all-singing-all-dancing, high-energy nostalgia show that tries to churn its audi…
THESE MUPPETS ARE NOT FOR PUBLIC TELEVISION There is something disconcerting about watching an R-rated Muppets show. After all, for decades the Muppets television shows and movies have been …
THEÂ LIBRETTO NEVER REALLY WORKS, BUT THIS PRODUCTION SURE DOES Camelot is a good musical that should be better. After all, it was composed by the team of Lerner and Loewe, of My Fair Lady…
GO FOR THE PERFORMANCE, NOT THE SCRIPT Like most one-actor plays, the new show at the Writers' Theatre is more satisfying as a performing showcase than as a drama. The play carries the tanta…
BAD COP GOOD COP The cynical title My Kind of Town acknowledges the pop song that celebrates Chicago but also a likely culture of police brutality. This is the work of investigative journali…
WHAT’S GOING ON WITH THE STORY? The tortured elements in the life of the great rhythm and blues artist Marvin Gaye would be fascinating fodder for a powerfully tragic stage pl…
AN INCREDIBLY BRIGHT LIGHT The Light in the Piazza opened on March 12 at Theo Ubique and has now been extended into midsummer, and counting. It's gathered a sheaf of rave reviews and the tin…
A SMALL LITTLE CREATES HUGE RESULTS For its scintillating revival of A Little Night Music, the Writers' Theatre has condensed the Stephen Sondheim classic into a chamber musical. The action …
THE ICEMAN HATH ARRIVED Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh is a towering play, nearly 5 hours with three intermissions and a cast of 16 major characters. Yet its theme can be summarize…
RENT GETS A NEW LEASE ON LIFE, EVEN AS THE INTRINSIC PROBLEMS REMAIN As soon as David Cromer was announced as the director, the revival of Rent became one of the buzz productions of the seas…
MAKE A FELINE FOR THEATER WIT At the beginning of Tigers Be Still at Theater Wit, 24-year old Sherry takes a microphone and announces to the audience, karaoke style, "This is the story of ho…
A PRODUCTION TO TAKE PRIDE IN All of Jane Austen's novels are built on the same premise. A woman meets and marries an eligible man after a series of usually comic difficulties. But Austen ex…
THE ACTING IS DARK AND DEEP BUT THE SCRIPT GETS LOST IN THE FOREST In a Forest, Dark and Deep may not be top drawer Neil LaBute, but it does provide a showcase for two of the area's best per…