704 stories by "Zach Freeman"
RECOMMENDED Sitting in the cramped, cold, charmingly tatty Angel Island theater space, it is not hard to enter into the nineteenth-century world of Raskolnikov, protagonist of Dostoevsky's m…
RECOMMENDED It's late on a blustery winter night in Wrigleyville and aside from a few mounds of icy snow the streets are mostly empty. But inside the iO Theater there's a line that bunches a…
By Robert Eric Shoemaker A relatively new phenomenon, Chicago Theatre Week is the opportunity for both the diehard fan and the average Joe to explore and enjoy the variety of theater that Ch…
RECOMMENDED A visit to Theatre Momentum's website describes their current production as "an improvised one-act play set in a single location." As promised, the show consists of one continuou…
RECOMMENDED The Court Theatre has again chosen a production suitable to its environment. "Seven Guitars," by August Wilson, is set in 1948 in the Hill District of Pittsburgh (where all but o…
RECOMMENDED Written by German playwright Ewald Palmetshofer (and translated beautifully by Neil Blackadder for this English-language world premiere) "hamlet is dead. no gravity" is a dar…
RECOMMENDED Surprise! Director William Osetek has re-imagined Mel Brooks’ "Young Frankenstein”"a musical based on the 1974 film starring the unconquerable Gene Wilder that was pa…
Tiny desks are scattered across the elementary school classroom at the center of "Gidion's Knot." And while scenic designer Katie-Bell Springmann has adorned the room with brightly colored s…
RECOMMENDED The best twists in a story are not those that reveal some new and unexpected turn of events but those that reveal something new and unexpected about a character. Something that m…
Poor Tom Jones: over-sexed and in love. Tom has been that way since first being introduced to the public by Henry Fielding in 1749. Since then "Tom Jones," perhaps the world's first …
RECOMMENDED A production that aims to be gripping and unsettling from the start, Victory Gardens' staging of "The Golden Dragon" grows more successful with every scene. However that's not to…
RECOMMENDED Legendary director Elia Kazan once said of Tennessee Williams "Everything in his life is in his plays, and everything in his plays is in his life."Â This insight proves presci…
Hollywood awards season is in full swing, and any theatergoer looking for a little extra Tinsel Town fix will find some old school glamour in MadKap Productions' "Mr. Shaw Goes to Hollywood.…
RECOMMENDED I have a near-weakness for Mandrakes. I'm astonished the original four-color superhero was based on an actual magician named Mandrake; the first Linux distribution I ever tried t…
RECOMMENDED For all of its Goth and grandeur, Andrew Lloyd Webber's "The Phantom of the Opera" is at its heart a "Beauty and the Beast" love story unspooled in unabashedly Romantic fashion v…
RECOMMENDED After watching this smart and entertaining production of "Sweet Smell of Success," it was a surprise to learn that the Marvin Hamlisch-penned musical (adapted from the classic 19…
"No one saves anyone!" one character adamantly declares to another early on in playwright Zinnie Harris' parable-cum-family drama that takes place on the side of the tracks (or in this case,…
By Michael Mellini A single sinner navigating heaven's dating scene, video tributes to Janet Jackson's greatest hits, a fundraiser to crush Chicago's rising murder rate, a frazzled Mary Todd…
By Robert Eric Shoemaker The release reads, "First of its kind in the U.S., the 2014 Chicago Contemporary Circus Festival brings shows from around the world together January 6th through 12th…
As numerous denizens of a nearby municipality aver, the titular Innsmouth is indeed a "queer sort of town." As imagined by horror luminary H.P. Lovecraft, its secrets, when finally revealed,…
In a fractious family that consists of a boorish father (Francis Guinan, on a roll) and a sweet but shrill mother (an endearingly neurotic Molly Regan) who are both writers, a pretentious an…
RECOMMENDED There are few stories as universally beloved as Antoine de St. Exupéry's 1943 tale of a pilot who crash-lands in the Sahara Desert and meets a mysterious little prince from anot…
There is a grim and calculating excess at the heart of Barbara Gaines' version of "Merry Wives of Windsor," overwhelming the music of the playwright's words and leaving in its place somethin…
RECOMMENDED In Vienna, and all over the world, the New Year rings in with productions of Johann Strauss' "Die Fledermaus." How appropriate, then, that Lyric Opera is reviving this most popul…
RECOMMENDED Everybody has a favorite rap song. Currently, mine is "Holy Grail." I know it is a bit overplayed, but man can that Jay-Z rap. I also like Chicago Shakespeare Theater, which cons…
