In the music-driven folktale, "The Old Man and The Old Moon," the title character, whose life’s work is nothing short of filling up the moon with light, pursues his wife after she take…
Two sides of "Dickens in America" at American Players Theatre are very much at odds with one another. At one is an edutainment script fit for a literature-class trip. Although imparting unde…
"Sittin' in a room," goes the chorus of the opening song of "Rooms: a rock romance," receiving its Chicago premiere by Broken Nose Theatre. Awfully vague, don't you think? From Anton Chekhov…
By Johnny Oleksinski Play readings are pretty commonplace events. Theater companies put them up to try a dusty old script on for size or to aid in developing a resident playwright’s wo…
RECOMMENDED When does a wrongdoing become the past? More narrowly, how long does it take for a wrongdoing to transition into a mistake? Is the difference between a mistake and an accident an…
RECOMMENDED Last summer at Victory Gardens, the intense "Oedipus el Rey" uncovered parallels between King Oedipus' dark road to blind incest and Los Angeles' treacherous gang life. Not quite…
RECOMMENDED The glam-rock bio-concert, "Hedwig and The Angry Inch," boasts a fervent cult following, to say the least. But the show about a transgender East German expat rocker inspires a di…
RECOMMENDED In the summer, while just about every other theater company is busy celebrating William Shakespeare, Chicago Shakespeare Theater, the bard’s local namesake, packs its Court…
Theater is sharing its wardrobe with television these days. Some of our best playwrights have day jobs on TV shows such as "Mad Men" and the fallen "Smash." Additionally, those stage writers…
By Johnny Oleksinski A man stands alone at the end of a long runway, unable to move. On the other side are his three children and, in the middle, perch two threatening immigration officers. …
Despite its reputation as Shakespeare's longest play, you won't come across too many four-hour "Hamlet"'s anymore, unless Kenneth Branagh's 1996 unabridged film version pops up late on telev…
"A Steady Rain"-playwright Keith Huff's newest caper, "Big Lake Big City" at Lookingglass Theatre Company, is a total bust. A wannabe satire of already what’s probably the most satiriz…
RECOMMENDED Belleville means "beautiful town." It's a neighborhood in Paris that, through its naïve moniker, comes to represent the entire fairy-tale French city. Paris is, without questi…
A child stands alone in a dank, prim, suffocating Victorian parlor. His room is but a speck on the Goodman's looming proscenium. It isn't all sooty; some furniture is bathed in a particularl…
RECOMMENDED Black Ensemble Theater’s “Ain’t No Cryin’ The Blues: In Memory of Howlin Wolf,” is as much a memory play as it is a jukebox biography-musical. The s…
“Boeing Boeing,” a French technicolor sex farce written by Marc Camoletti in 1962, is the cuckold uncle in a long family line of French farce. Something about the sixties"and I&#…
By Johnny Oleksinski "Even if you think you don't know Buddy Holly's songs, you probably do," says actor Ryan G. Dunkin reassuringly. He knows them better than most people. Dunkin plays the …
"You make the world lousy," says Doc after a group of Jets rapes Anita, girlfriend of Bernardo, the leader of the Sharks. "That's the way we found it," shoots back Riff, a Jet, wiping the sw…
By Johnny Oleksinski Last year’s Sketchbook, Collaboraction’s annual festival of new work, was remarkably impressive. The unexpectedly profound and profoundly enjoyable “Ho…
A Hawaiian shirt and a cowboy hat! That's surely not what writer Alexandre Dumas had pictured in his mind's eye when he penned "The Three Musketeers" in 1844. When Porthos (Christopher M. Wa…
Although the writer Sherod Santos is known in literary circles for his body of poetry, his words are taking the stage in “Lives of the Pigeons,” receiving a world premiere at The…
With their popular and tuneful musicals, John Kander and the late Fred Ebb fashioned a storied career essentially from derivation. That's not to slight the duo's awesome achievements because…
There are a couple playwright-screenwriters that are of particular interest at the moment. One is Elizabeth Meriwether, scribe of the hilarious and twisted "Heddatron" and the far less funny…
By Johnny Oleksinski Another year, another Non-Equity Jeff Award Ceremony. Folks around these parts call it “Theater Prom” for a reason. The banter is awkward, the recipients are…
On the far wall of Rivendell Theatre is an illustrated moon cycle, starting from waxing crescent transitioning all the way to a big full moon and back again in the opposite direction. In the…