Review: The Shipment (Red Tape Theatre) by Duane Barnes

I saw Red Tape Theatre's The Shipment with two companions and we left the theater asking each other, What was the author saying?" This play, written by Young Jean Lee, a Korean-American play…

SOURCE: Chicago Theater Beat at 5:48pm on September 20, 2018☆⚑

Review: Sickle (Red Theater Chicago) by Duane Barnes

Abbey Fenbert's play Sickle at Red Theater is important as it brings to light another horror of a different kind of war, an unwanted assimilation of an entire country's population and produc…

SOURCE: Chicago Theater Beat at 6:04pm on July 15, 2018☆⚑

Review: Beautiful (Broadway in Chicago, 2017) by Duane Barnes

Throwback Thursday review - Lights! Action! Music! With that beginning, Carole King (played by local actress Sarah Bockel) takes us on a musical ride through her life, highs and lows, wins a…

SOURCE: Chicago Theater Beat at 6:06pm on December 11, 2017☆⚑

Review: Wedding Band (The Artistic Home) by Duane Barnes

Alice Childress's classic play Wedding Band, a tragic love story of interracial love set in 1918 South Carolina, is marvelously done, the cast doing a superb job of employing the dialect of …

SOURCE: Chicago Theater Beat at 3:12pm on December 2, 2017☆⚑

Review: The Heavens Are Hung in Black (Shattered Globe Theatre) by Duane Barnes

Heavens is a powerful play, wonderfully cast, brilliantly directed, beautifully played by an outstanding ensemble of talented actors. It centers around a pivotal period of the Civil War in 1…

SOURCE: Chicago Theater Beat at 6:18pm on October 14, 2017☆⚑

Review: "BLACK!" (Athenaeum Theatre) by Duane Barnes

Michael Washington Brown opens his evening with a question to the audience - Why am I now African-American when for so many years, I've been Black? From there, listening in rapt attention t…

SOURCE: Chicago Theater Beat at 6:33pm on July 24, 2017☆⚑

Review: Ragtime (Griffin Theatre) by Duane Barnes

Ragtime comprises an era, a jumble of hopes and dreams, energetic music, disasters, collisions , and a story of love, hope and tragedy. Its host, Griffin Theatre, is an ensemble of talented …

SOURCE: Chicago Theater Beat at 11:54pm on July 8, 2017☆⚑

Review: Water & Power (UrbanTheater Company) by Duane Barnes

Great gifts can come in small packages. Likewise, great plays can come in small theaters. UrbanTheater Company's Water & Power is one of those great gifts. A tale of two brothers, non-i…

SOURCE: Chicago Theater Beat at 4:06pm on June 28, 2017☆⚑

Review: Christmas at Christine's (Silk Road Rising) by Duane Barnes

The holidays can be a hectic time, but thankfully Silk Road Rising offers some respite in the diminutive and lively persona of Christine Bunuan, who guides you through her world-premiere one…

SOURCE: Chicago Theater Beat at 5:18pm on December 19, 2016☆⚑

Review: It's A Wonderful Life: Live in Chicago! (American Blues Theater, 2016) by Duane Barnes

For 15 years, American Blues Theater has treated Chicago audiences to a live 1940s radio broadcast of holiday favorite, It's a Wonderful Life. The show is always a timely and entertaining wa…

SOURCE: Chicago Theater Beat at 3:12pm on December 19, 2016☆⚑

Review: [Trans]formation (Nothing Without A Company) by Duane Barnes

The goal of world-premiere [Trans]formation, co-produced and co-developed by Nothing Without A Company and The Living Campus, was to celebrate the diversity of identity, to have the spectato…

SOURCE: Chicago Theater Beat at 2:42pm on November 22, 2016☆⚑

Review: Rutherford's Travels (Pegasus Theatre Chicago) by Duane Barnes

Filled with fights, shipwrecks, mutiny and requited love, Rutherford's Travels resembles an action movie. Based on the award-winning novel *Middle Passage* by Charles Johnson, the play was a…

SOURCE: Chicago Theater Beat at 10:24pm on November 17, 2016☆⚑