1,031 stories by "Johnny Oleksinski"
By Johnny Oleksinski The past few months have been mighty eventful for Theatre Seven of Chicago, to say the least. The six-year-old storefront company became this year’s recipient of B…
By Johnny Oleksinski Werther who? Don’t be ashamed if that is what you’re thinking. Jules Massenet’s 1892 French opera based on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s “Di…
RECOMMENDED Little boxes made of ticky tacky, meet mid-sized yurt made of treated wool. In Jane Anderson's relatively new play, "The Quality of Life," receiving an intensely moving and reson…
RECOMMENDED “This is not the story of Frankenstein!” dejectedly screams the Storyteller of 500 Clown’s “500 Clown Frankenstein,” which opened in an exhilarating…
RECOMMENDED Occasionally I am reminded that closely (or loosely) held beliefs are essential to criticizing a work of art. Sure, that “Ah-ha!” lightbulb might come across as gener…
By Johnny Oleksinski Ike Holter is the Monarch of social butterflies. We met up on a Monday night at Beauty Bar, a sugary confection of a pub, where the playwright was to perform onstage …
Restoration Comedy is a gleeful, frivolous genre blending a unique crude low-country attitude with the lightness of step and speech that would later come to define Comedy of Manners. And it&…
RECOMMENDED Ask anyone who their favorite teacher was, and they will always offer an insanely vivid recollection. Usually a cocky but warm blend of personality, intelligence and academic reb…
Whenever a couple’s quarrel unexpectedly crashes its way onto my television screen, I fast-forward. Perhaps I do it because watching lovers fight is awkward. Or perhaps I do it because…
By Johnny Oleksinski In an bold move to engage with a broader constituency than the usual operagoing public, Lyric Opera will present the Midwest premiere of José “Pepe” Mart…
RECOMMENDED Unlike so many klutzy plays that offer a “For Dummies” guide to the basics of unartistic disciplines"math, science, football"”The Opponent,” an unapologet…
RECOMMENDED He’s back! Honeybuns, that gap-toothed, canary-yellow bouffon with a demented sense of humor and an insidious libido has triumphantly returned to his rightful place on t…
RECOMMENDED The fall 2012 selection for One Book, One Chicago, “The Book Thief,” is a terribly challenging story to adapt for the stage, and yet an unusually logical choice for a…
“Kinky Boots,” the new musical that opened on Wednesday night at the Bank of America Theatre, is a tryout in every sense of the word. While solidified plans have been made to tra…
If a play’s quality was determined solely by the purity of its creative team’s intent, few pieces of theater would soar to the heights of “Night Over Erzinga.” But, o…
Stephen Sondheim’s musical “Assassins” walks a mighty fine line between parody and serious drama. That’s where it gets its edge. The tension of that invisible circus …
RECOMMENDED Fear is always lurking in the absurdist comedies of 1950s Europe. With a populace facing a daunting reconstruction in the shadow of two World Wars, how could it not be? Dramatist…
Playwright Elizabeth Meriwether loves pushing the limits of plausibility"a gleeful hobby she pursues in some of her plays more successfully than in others. The playwright’s best-known …
RECOMMENDED An unexpectedly satisfying pleasure of The Neo-Futurists’ “44 Plays for 44 Presidents,” which opened on Saturday night at the Neo-Futurarium, is the piece’…
I’ve little patience for dramas that paint scientists, mathematicians, and the like as cold, unfeeling androids. Such an empty storytelling approach is too uninspired and dishonest to …
By Johnny Oleksinski The Broadway-bound “Kinky Boots” strutted its first public steps here in Chicago this morning. The musical, based on the quietly released 2005 British film o…
With Collective Theatre’s inaugural production of Katori Hall's “HooDoo Love,” the new company has brought the extraordinary playwright, at last, to Chicago. Well, it’…
 RECOMMENDED The unprecedented rise of E.L. James’ “Fifty Shades of Grey” series could not have happened five years ago. The trilogy, which is essentially an overdrawn r…
RECOMMENDED The provocatively titled new pornography play “Dirty,” at The Gift Theatre, is not really about porn. Onscreen smut may be the shiny outer shell of rising star Andrew…
An epistolary novel, a story told in letters"or “snail mail” for my millennials"is an especially gnarly beast to dramatize because of the unique romantic confidence a letter carr…
