4,000 stories from Newcity Stage
RECOMMENDED Theater as a whole is starting to come around on sci-fi and fantasy. And while that might put it about twenty years behind the cultural zeitgeist (can’t wait for that three…
RECOMMENDED Don't get too comfortable in the plush space of the new Windy City Playhouse. With the smooth jazz filling the air and comfy leather chairs that hug your body like a lover after …
Science fiction, fantasy, and comic books are lousy with circuses. From the Flying Graysons to the Circus of Crime to whatever creepy clown Stephen King last wrote about, nerds seem to love …
By Dennis Polkow Gloria Estefan has made an international career out of singing and dancing, the very essence of what happens in a Broadway musical. As such, it might seem she would be a nat…
Polish critic Jan Kott likened Hamlet to the surly, punky James Dean, flaunting his alienation like a fashion accessory. Director Dennis McLernon pushes the action a decade later, setting it…
For "Les Liaisons Dangereuses" to work properly, you need to credibly believe two things: the danger, and the liaisons. AstonRep Theatre Company's revival, directed by Charlie Marie McGrath,…
By Aaron Hunt In May 2012, Julieanne Ehre and Katy Collins co-produced what they coined a "Fable Festival" in Edgewater. Cafes, empty storefronts and restaurants hosted such delectable, mult…
That title is a little misleading. Or it's not so much misleading as it is entirely metaphorical. Michael Golamco's "Cowboy Versus Samurai," being given its Chicago premiere here by A-Square…
Why is it that conspiracy theories – like, say, the one about the US government hiring director Stanley Kubrick to fake the moon landing – continue to endure? Is the belief in a …
There's a problem sometimes at music festivals where you're too far away from the band to hear them. Sometimes it's because you didn't get there early enough to get a good spot. Sometimes it…
"The Wild Duck" is an incomparable masterpiece. 120 years ago, George Bernard Shaw wrote, "Where shall I find an epithet magnificent enough for 'The Wild Duck!'" At the Halcyon Theatre Frida…
RECOMMENDED It all began with a stag party skit, which explains the madcap, innuendo-filled, my-uncle's-got-a-barn quality that blessedly remains, despite Broadway spit-and-polish. Bob Marti…
Currently playing at Angel Island, Mary-Arrchie Theatre Company's production of Colleen Murphy's "The December Man (L'homme de Decembre)" tells the story of a family dealing with the afterma…
RECOMMENDED Those who say punk rock is dead have been spending too much time at the Wicker Park Urban Outfitters and not enough time right down the street at the Flatiron Arts Building, wher…
By Mary Kroeck Emjoy Gavino, Michael Patrick Thornton and Chay Yew are familiar names in the Chicago theater circuit. Gavino is a teaching artist with Barrel of Monkeys, ensemble member of R…
Radium has a half-life of about 1,600 years, losing half its radioactive potency over that period. If evil and infamy have a half-life, then the tale of the "radium girls" will still be red …
With "Our New Girl," a show that's ostensibly about a nanny that shows up unexpectedly on an overwhelmed (and very pregnant) mother's doorstep and then insinuates herself a little too far in…
RECOMMENDED Initially, Trap Door Theatre's "The Woman Before" feels like a sitcom. Wife and husband, Claudia and Frank (played by Loretta Rezos and Kirk Anderson, respectively), are packing …
RECOMMENDED Midway through Michele Lowe's "Inana," an Iraqi museum curator (Demetrios Troy) argues that the value of art cannot be properly assessed without historical context. His interlope…
RECOMMENDED The Baby Boomers grew up in one of the longest periods of affluence in American history, lulled by a soundtrack of Elvis, Johnny Cash, ABBA and Frankie Valli. The Great Recession…
RECOMMENDED There is nothing little about Lillian Hellman’s 1939 potboiler “The Little Foxes.” The characters, the drama, the incestuous pairing of family and greed, it is …
RECOMMENDED "You are all complicit in our little adventure," intones the smarmy MC of the hit game show "False," where "perception is reality." Indeed, viewers become part of the act in Brit…
RECOMMENDED Beth Henley's modern classic "Crimes of the Heart" won a Pulitzer Prize and is a perennial favorite at theaters across the country. So, the final show of Step Up Production's sea…
RECOMMENDED Donny Hathaway is one of the many popular musical geniuses who died too young. His voice was smooth and soulful, and his career was headed upward when he took his own life in 197…
RECOMMENDED If you saw the pre-Broadway, Chicago run of "Big Fish" and thought it needed scissors and paste, or read the tepid New York reviews, mourning a loss of opportunity when comparing…
