4,000 stories from Newcity Stage
The first show of American Theater Company's thirty-first season is a rapid-fire tale of one man's spiraling descent toward largely self-inflicted ruin. Thomas Bradshaw's "Fulfillment" jumps…
As part of the Chicago Cultural Center’s dance laboratory program, Shannahan and collaborator Jeff Hancock performed this dance, in development since 2012, drawing inspiration from the…
Inconsistency is an inherent part of historical analysis. Not only can the same event be interpreted differently by various parties but much of history goes unrecorded. It is left up to us t…
RECOMMENDED As part of Chicago Artists Month, Hedwig Dances reprises company member Victor Alexander’s “Line of Sighs,” a luscious meditation on human connection conceiv…
The strategy most theatres employ during this festive time of year usually follows one of two paths. Either they produce a sentimental, nostalgic, light piece of holiday fare that gets peopl…
RECOMMENDED Hershey Felder is one of the last of the old-time actor-managers, specializing in staging one-man musical biographies that combine intimate storytelling with melody. As Irving Be…
RECOMMENDED Few artists or dancers engage their subjects with anything near the capable, distinct voracity of Bradford’s punctually conceptualist, stratospherically aspirational choreo…
RECOMMENDED Writer-director Byron Hatfield offers a different perspective on the Star Wars saga in "Stormtrooper Stories," a comedy about two inept troopers (Matt Lamson and Mark Rosenthal) …
RECOMMENDED There are a few principles of stage drama that every audience member, regardless of age or experience, implicitly understands. Among them is the importance of intentions. More th…
RECOMMENDED There is nothing controversial in observing that women’s rights have changed significantly in the United States since the 1970s:  after the passage of the 1974 Equal …
RECOMMENDED Several years ago I saw a play written by Brett Neveu called "The Earl." In it a group of siblings beat each other up in a warehouse while citing a set of intricate rules for the…
RECOMMENDED Going into a show entitled "The Thanksgiving Circumcision" gives one a certain set of expectations. Most of those are that the show will be comprised primarily of cheap, one-line…
Theatre Momentum has launched a troika of forty-five-minute productions which all stem from their goal of creating improvised theatrical events that are more like plays than games. While all…
RECOMMENDED There's this misconception of mosh pits that they are dangerous places where sadomasochistic pagans and other godless folk maliciously take out their deep-seated aggression on ea…
RECOMMENDED A film-to-stage musical enjoying regional success, "White Christmas" is based on the 1954 movie of the same name. Starring Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Elle…
RECOMMENDED Alternative histories are a fun subset of speculative fiction made up of asking the question "What if…?" Bill Daniel's play "Holmes vs. Holmes" is one of those literary and his…
RECOMMENDED Do you ever find yourself reading about a particular religious event in the distant past whose repercussions have been not inconsequentially amplified through time and think "how…
RECOMMENDED The new work by the young Bessie-winning choreographer and TED fellow Camille A. Brown just finished a highly acclaimed world premiere at the Joyce Theater in New York and now tr…
By Danielle Levsky Maren Rosenberg has a puzzle for you. But she's also got one of her own. Rosenberg, Master of Mayhem/Principal Producer, has been working with a team of creative professio…
Stuart Bousel's vampire hunting opus "Gone Dark" is appropriate fare for staging within the walls of a gothic church. Director Tiffany Keane takes this play about an annual reunion of vampir…
RECOMMENDED Lyric Opera of Chicago launched its season with two confections"cakes appeared on stage in both"and now moves on to meat. If "Le Nozze di Figaro" and "Cenerentola" focused on the…
RECOMMENDED For the last three years I've been the organizer of a short film festival dedicated exclusively to the work of high school students from around the world. The films submitted are…
RECOMMENDED Neil Simon writes plays that are very thinly veiled retellings of the events of his own life. "Chapter Two" is his rendition of the events that led to his second marriage. Th…
RECOMMENDED The Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events hosts a series of free downtown dance performances through the month of November. It begins this weekend at th…
RECOMMENDED When I first read the description of Meridith Friedman's "The Firestorm," I thought I could categorize this play with all the others. I had been down this road countless times wi…
