704 stories by "Zach Freeman"
Asskicking Amazons attempts to be many things. Unfortunately it attempts them in generally heavy-handed fashion. Its combination of social commentary, exploitation-flick trappings and soap-o…
RECOMMENDED Joe Penhall is a British playwright and screenwriter, best known for his play "Blue/Orange." Exploring the dynamic of two doctors working with a schizophrenic patient, the play w…
RECOMMENDED Five or ten minutes into “Period Piece,” I had nearly resigned myself to a show with little but its heart in the right place. Then, quite noticeably and suddenly, eve…
Heartfelt and well-intentioned though it certainly seems, "This is Not a Cure for Cancer" is not an engaging or artful piece of theater. That is not to say it is without craft nor lacking in…
RECOMMENDED Watching Lifeline Theatre's "A Tale of Two Cities," I found myself wondering what Charles Dickens would make of this adaptation of his novel about the French Revolution. Dickens …
In the 1990s, television veered into new programming territory with the show "The New World," offering a form of entertainment for which there was little scripting or preparation, where the …
RECOMMENDED Coming at you with the beauty of a well-placed left-hand hook, the Griffin Theatre presents Clifford Odets' heavily metaphorical masterpiece "Golden Boy." A cautionary tale on th…
RECOMMENDED Billed as a psychological thriller, "Mishap!" is a mannered but engaging rumination on human relations, contrasting the genuinely dramatic tragedies and complexities of family li…
The Marriott Theatre kicks off its 2014 season with "Cabaret," the eight-time Tony Award-winning musical, under the direction of David H. Bell. The show centers on a young American writer, C…
RECOMMENDED Chicago winters teach a myriad of things: the fine art of layering, new terms like "polar vortex" and, among other things, how to be resilient. The House Theatre's production of …
RECOMMENDED "You don't have to be smart to laugh at farts," Louis C.K. sagely explained in one of his many oft-quoted interviews, "But you have to be stupid not to." The ensemble of "Cupid H…
RECOMMENDED To add to Chicago's celebration of Black History Month, Porchlight Music Theatre sends a jazz-jolt to Chicago's February theater scene with a musically rousing, historically reve…
By Hugh Iglarsh The paradox of theater is that it is the most ephemeral of arts, yet the most closely tied to history and memory. Born of the desire to honor the gods and heroes, theater con…
Like "Tribes," which recently closed at Steppenwolf, this production centers around a tight-knit family whose precariously balanced levels of love and annoyance with each other are thrown fo…
RECOMMENDED Insufferable people working unenviable positions for an inexcusable tyrant, the characters in “Assistance” are close cousins to put-upon office workers nationwide. In…
One of the earliest educational video games""The Oregon Trail""crosses paths with one the earliest forms of entertainment"nearly naked ladies shaking it"in Gorilla Tango Burlesque's latest c…
RECOMMENDED The circus has come to Evanston. Actually, it never left; The Actors Gymnasium has been teaching the circus arts in Evanston for almost twenty years. Their latest endeavor, "…
RECOMMENDED Walking through the cinderblock, cement and steel pipes of the parking structure and into the stark modern lobby of The Harris Theater at Millennium Park, I couldn't help but be …
RECOMMENDED This production of “Gypsy,” now at Chicago Shakespeare Theater, begins gorgeously before the first note, at the silent sight of the ornate gilded frame of a stage …
RECOMMENDED Billed as a play "told in a sitcom format" and split into four episodes/acts, "4PLAY sex in a series" thwarts formal expectations more than most sitcoms. The action, dialogue and…
RECOMMENDED I would never wish ill upon great women of history Joan of Arc, Amelia Earhart and America’s beloved Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Nonetheless, I am glad they all died so I c…
With a current Lyric Opera season so overstuffed with Italian warhorses, there is always the hope that when a company drags out the same works again and again, that something, anything, will…
RECOMMENDED It has been more than a century since J. M. Synge's dark comedy "Playboy of the Western World" first debuted in Dublin at the Abbey Theatre. To say that opening night did not go …
A casual setting and an enthusiastic pair of hosts don't quite add up to what “Option Up!” is striving for, but it's early going and there's much promise in this new monthly even…
RECOMMENDED Before this hour of booze-soaked sketch comedy even starts, the audience spends plenty of time drinking in the lobby. And again in their seats after the house opens. And don't wo…
