704 stories by "Zach Freeman"
"Hello, Dolly!" is a show that more often than not, does not work. To be sure, that title song that Louis Armstrong made a huge hit before the cast album even came out is wonderful. Conceive…
RECOMMENDED Trying to understand the Holocaust is like staring into the sun, and to dramatize it is to minimize it. Playwright Ron Hirsen's "Elegy" " now running in a taut, eloquent producti…
RECOMMENDED Here's the basic plot: not long after word of their breakup hits the interwebs, ex-mall cop (and current lonely loser) Bill (Rob Grabowski) kidnaps celebrity (ex)couple Kate Thom…
RECOMMENDED What is it about Chicago and Oz? Is it because L. Frank Baum wrote "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" while he was living in Chicago? The Midwest ethos of the characters? In any case, …
By Robert Eric Shoemaker "White Rabbit, Red Rabbit" is a solo piece with no rehearsals, no set and almost no readily available information about it. For its short run of performances at the …
RECOMMENDED Kudos to newborn Linchpin Theatre for making its debut with Shakespeare's "King John," a play that is about as popular these days as its protagonist. The Victorians loved the wor…
Co-creators Marc Lewallen and Brad Younts (who also share writing and directing duty) have somehow tapped into the collective desire for all things zombie with this slapdash musical comedy s…
RECOMMENDED Appearing in 1954 as the debut novel of British author William Golding, "Lord of the Flies" struck a deep chord in the post-World War II era with its chilling Cold War reality ch…
RECOMMENDED Let's start with this: I'm not one to make sweeping statements, but "Audience Annihilated Part Two: Gold Star Sticker," in all its brief but intense fifteen-minute glory, is easi…
RECOMMENDED The Neo-Futurists are at it again with their cunning “The Sovereign Statement”"a play wrapped within a spoof tucked within a mimicry of a democratic procedural proces…
After more than thirty years, Lyric Opera is finally presenting a new production of "Madama Butterfly." Well, new to Chicago, anyway: a production that current Lyric general director Anthony…
RECOMMENDED The Chicago Mammal’s "ALL GIRL FRANKENSTEIN" is more akin to sculpture, film, dance, performance art or poetry than strictly narrative-based theater. But, as a Rorschac…
RECOMMENDED The question before us is compulsion, or to put it another way, obsession. Everyone knows that to accomplish something great, such as creating great art with its attendant elevat…
The revised version of Mitch Vermeersch's “Heist Play” (first staged in 2009) is an ambitious attempt to fold twenty-first-century hipster angst into the shadowy embrace of postw…
By Robert Eric Shoemaker Four interviews, side by side, began with similar sentiments about the state of theater in Chicago; four interviews with theater artists collaborating on the Mammals…
Can a man and woman be attracted to one another, have a life-transforming friendship that betters both of them without consummating their relationship? That is the question that "Once" asks,…
RECOMMENDED "No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy would have supposed her born to be an heroine," begins Jane Austen's mock-gothic novel, "Northanger Abbey." Catherine i…
First off, this play (in its world premiere production here) is extremely timely: a story about "coming out" that asks if an entire life is a lie if one can't embrace his or her sexuality or…
RECOMMENDED If you don't already know the storied history of Curtis Mayfield"known to some as "the black Bob Dylan" (or was Dylan the white Curtis Mayfield?)"you will by the end of this thor…
RECOMMENDED In a year that celebrates the 200th anniversaries of Wagner and Verdi, how fitting that Lyric Opera should open its season with a work that manages to pay tribute to both. There …
By Hugh Iglarsh Seen from below, from the viewpoint of the victimized and marginalized, the city takes on a permanent twilight glow, as bright promise meets dark, hard realities. This is the…
Everything about this world-premiere adaptation of French author Marguerite Duras' novel of the same name is surreal. Scenes fade in and out with dreamlike transitions and overlap. Daniel Os…
"How do we tell that story and, like, tell the truth?" one hip young ensemble member asks another in the unwieldy (and unwieldily titled) "Unwilling and Hostile Instruments: 100 Years of Ext…
RECOMMENDED Talk about high-concept. If you can't gather what this show is about based on the title… what kind of a dumb schmuck are you? Based on the popular website OldJewsTellingJok…
RECOMMENDED According to country singer Charlie Daniels, when the Devil went down to Georgia he was looking for a soul to steal. In Marco Ramirez' supernatural-themed rock-comedy, when the M…
