1,031 stories by "Johnny Oleksinski"
TUTA has transformed its Studio Theatre into a bohemian tent draped with patterned fabrics and littered with crates and seemingly discarded light fixtures. Is there any better landscape for …
In a classic sketch from the inexhaustible British comic duo French & Saunders, the comediennes dressed as English schoolgirls pester an invisible teacher from the back of the classro…
"Part epic tale/ Part fire sale/ But all sincere/ And standing here." And all true, I might add, of the new musical "Big Fish," which opened last night at the Oriental Theatre ahead of a Bro…
RECOMMENDED Seated behind me on Monday night at Victory Gardens Theater was a woman laughing uncontrollably while a six-hundred-pound man choked on a sandwich. My jaw dropped to the floor. T…
“Don’t wanna be an American idiot!” I can commiserate. Since seeing the concert-like show"playing a brief and generally enjoyable touring engagement at the Cadillac Palace …
Playwright Samuel D. Hunter is enduring an impressive national swell in popularity. His "The Whale," now being given a Chicago premiere by Victory Gardens Theater, has been making the region…
Second City's Dalmatian-free one hundred first revue, "Let Them Eat Chaos," hits the hyperactivity of its titular chaos squarely on the head, but, for all its unneeded projections, “Ba…
Lionel Bart’s “Oliver” is always, first and foremost, about the kids. And when it comes to singing, dancing, mischief-making rapscallions, director Rachel Rockwell’s …
By Johnny Oleksinski "I'm a sock guy. I love socks," says Tarell Alvin McCraney, glancing down at my feet. I'm wearing striped socks with an alternating spectrum of pinks divided by thin lin…
By Johnny Oleksinski The 37th Humana Festival of New American Plays at the Actors Theatre of Louisville has come and gone. It was the first Festival of Les Waters’ artistic directorshi…
RECOMMENDED “Maria/Stuart” begins as a dark comedy. Screaming “Hep! Hep! Hep!,” a small red-vest-clad woman traveling in steel-straight lines and muttering menacingly…
Plays that center around a person's death are frequently written. What better way is there to showcase a contrast in characters' points of view than by giving them a mutual target to each ha…
Court Theatre in Hyde Park has announced its 2013-2014 season (also its fifty-ninth), which notably features the Chicago premiere of 2012 Pulitzer Prize winner “Water By The Spoonful&#…
RECOMMENDED The Building Stage has done something unavoidably moving for its swan song. After eight years of producing in its West Loop venue, its final show, "Dawn, Quixote," addresses what…
The sixties is a decade rife with fictional opportunity. The example du jour on television is "Mad Men" with its cigarette-smoke clouds and ream upon ream of red velour, but the powder-keg d…
Much in the same way the cinema is using spectacular 3D films and the enormity of IMAX to rip potential patrons from the warm embrace of their plasma screen, legitimate theater is looking to…
RECOMMENDED Wedging a rap into William Shakespeare’s plays is well-tread territory. Every so often, a hoodied Hamlet will hyperactively soliloquize the usual six speeches verbatim with…
“Stones In His Pockets,” which opened last night at Northlight Theatre in Skokie, wants to fight against a prevailing American perception of Ireland as one big happy, pastoral fa…
By Johnny Oleksinski On January 28, @RobertFalls201Â tweets, "Day before rehearsal begin & completely panicked; haven't prepared enough, have no idea how to START & shouldn't someo…
Recall, if you will, the factors that distinguish Clark Kent from his alter-ego Superman. Yes, Clark gruffly rips open his button-down to reveal that iconic spandex “S,” but t…
Adding to its previously announced production of Larry Kramer's "The Normal Heart" starring David Cromer and directed by Nick Bowling, TimeLine Theatre Company has added two more producti…
Writers' Theatre in Glencoe has announced their 2013-2014 season, including a classic play, two Midwest premieres, an American premiere and a world premiere. From September 3 to November 10,…
RECOMMENDED "I was born for a storm and a calm does not suit me," said war-hero-turned-president Andrew Jackson, a man whose personal and political lives were both defined by tumult. His …
By Johnny Oleksinski Just over a year has passed since "Hit The Wall" began an acclaimed and popular world premiere in the Steppenwolf Garage Rep. On opening night last February, after a sev…
Prolific Norwegian playwright Jon Fosse’s body of work, while performed with great frequency in Europe, is rarely seen on American stages. I wouldn’t interpret that as qualitativ…
