By Eric Shoemaker Sean Graney was not content with "Seven Sicknesses." It seems that his successful and now traveling adaptation of every Sophocles tragedy merely opened a can of worms"extre…
RECOMMENDED Kicking off their twenty-eighth season, American Theater Company embarks on a spiritual journey in the aptly titled repertory-style production of “Doubt” and “A…
By Eric Shoemaker "Our young people are telling the stories of their lives on their bodies," Dr. Doriane Miller says from the unassuming podium on eta Creative Arts Foundation's stage. Backg…
By Jenny Yoon It's a breezy, idyllic summer night in Roscoe Village. The sleepy, family-oriented neighborhood that houses pretty moms in yoga pants has fallen silent by 8pm on a Monday. It's…
Nothing gets old people clapping in unison quite like a contemporary rock musical. Drury Lane’s revival of “Xanadu” certainly doesn’t lack any of the plucky charm of …
By Dennis Polkow It is a late August day, and Brian Dickie is nursing an iced coffee at a North Side café while reflecting on his thirteen-year tenure as general director of Chicago Opera T…
Seemingly ripped from the headlines, “After” at Profiles Theatre tells the tale of a falsely accused man after he’s exonerated and released from prison. “After”…
For a show whose star is dead before the curtain rises, “A Class Act” is a lively tribute to one of Broadway’s greatest composers. Porchlight Music Theatre kicks off its ei…
The Chicago Now panel discussion and snapshot performances, hosted by the Museum of Contemporary Art on August 24, rounded out the contemplative artist side of the Chicago Dancing Festival t…
RECOMMENDED The second in a series of four plays, Richard Nelson's “Sweet and Sad” takes as its immediate subject a simple gathering of the Apple family for dinner"on the tenth a…
RECOMMENDED An unassuming barroom engagement between an aging, criminally minded drunk and a teenage runaway shortly becomes an intense philosophical western of tremendous ambition and execu…
RECOMMENDED It is said that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, but unfortunately that isn’t always true. This unsettling subject matter is at the center of Circle Theatre’…
By Eric Shoemaker House Theatre artistic director Nathan Allen and Chris Mathews have partnered to create the epic trilogy "The Iron Stag King,” which Allen describes as the tale of "A…
RECOMMENDED "Surely, a man had never before so terribly altered, in so brief a period, as had Roderick Usher!" says the all-too-curious narrator as his eyes befall a boon friend, Roder…
By Sharon Hoyer The biggest dance event of the year takes place next week at major venues in and around the Loop. This year's Dancing Festival expands to six days of performances, films, les…
RECOMMENDED Summertime has been christened Chicago's favorite season, not only for muddy music festivals and boozy street fairs, but also for those elusive one-person shows. In putting…
RECOMMENDED Kick off your shoes, tease up your hairdo and cross on over to this side of the tracks, otherwise known as Armadillo Acres Trailer Park. Relatively new theater company Kokandy Pr…
An ambitious work that attempts to not only tell a compelling human story but also ignite newfound amazement for a science normally thought of only in terms of esoteric equations, “Sym…
Chicago Shakespeare Theater approached acclaimed local director Rachel Rockwell more than a year ago to propose a stunning new project: a "Shakespeare in the Parks" tour of Chicago for he…
By Alli Carlisle For Susan O'Halloran, professional storyteller and Chicago native, storytelling and racial justice have always been intertwined. O'Halloran grew up on the South Side in a ti…
Like the shaky father-and-son relationships this new play unevenly depicts, David Alex’s "Adrift," being performed at Greenhouse Theater Center by Polarity Ensemble Theatre in…