4,000 stories from Newcity Stage
RECOMMENDED If all theater is a lie, as repeatedly asserted by co-creators Dan Kerr-Hobert and Phil Ridarelli, then "Trust Us/ Screw You" is a masterpiece of manipulation. It is also an insi…
RECOMMENDED To create a concert celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of Hedwig Dances, founder and artistic director Jan Bartoszek turned to her earliest works. "I think I've grown as a cho…
Chicago, as you may be aware, is the center of the universe when it comes to improvised sketch comedy. Stages are filled nightly by young comedians who are trying really hard to break into t…
The Chicago Human Rhythm Project is a cultural magnet; the organization pulls percussive and folkloric dancers"along with a good number of drummers"from around the world to collaborate, teac…
With its raft of good intentions, talented cast and relevant theme, this is a play that one very much wishes to like. But PJ Paparelli's and Joshua Jaeger's interview-based documentary take …
RECOMMENDED It takes a certain kind of integrity"or perhaps better still, gall"to stage a production of John Patrick Shanley's "Doubt: A Parable" in an actual church. And while Glencoe Union…
RECOMMENDED I spent some time after I left Irish Theatre of Chicago's "The White Road" thinking about how I would have fared. The play chronicles the famous 1914 Shackleton expedition"an att…
RECOMMENDED “Bad Jews” is kind of a cheap title, but it's also a smart one. It reminds you of cable softcore porn or direct-to-video prank anthologies. It’s attention-getti…
RECOMMENDED The music of Johnny Cash has a unique sound that elevates it past the rest of the country genre. Even those of us who aren't terribly familiar with other country songs will know …
RECOMMENDED If one had to select the work of a single twentieth-century playwright for translation from spoken language to dance, Tennessee Williams would likely top the list. Brooding, s…
RECOMMENDED Oh the joys of being a teenager. Making reckless decisions without contemplating an ounce of repercussion. Thinking you know everything but in actuality knowing nothing. Discover…
RECOMMENDED If Neil Simon had written "Laughter on the 23rd Floor" about musicians, rather than television writers, the likely result would have resembled Warren Leight's "Side Man." The str…
RECOMMENDED The brilliance of writer/composer/lyricist and Tony nominee Paul Gordon, the tremulous set design of Kevin Depinet, and Donald Holder's mystic lighting, guided by director Barbar…
By Dennis Polkow Composer Ricky Ian Gordon has written instrumental music over the years, but "there's no getting around it," he admits, "I'm most excited by the voice. My mother was a singe…
By Hugh Iglarsh The area premiere of Sarah Ruhl's "Melancholy Play: A Chamber Musical" at Evanston's Piven Theatre Workshop is a big event in a small venue, and therein lies a tale. The Wilm…
What would drive a man to venture out alone in the dark reaches of the galaxy? Your typical 1950s serial might have you believe that it is his impeccable sense of adventure, his desire to ac…
RECOMMENDED Independent choreographer Peter Carpenter teams with Margi Cole and her company The Dance COLEctive to write the fourteenth chapter in his ongoing dance serial that puts a critic…
RECOMMENDED Richard Kalinoski's play "Beast on the Moon" has won awards all over the world, and in Raven Theatre's current production directed by Michael Menendian, one can easily see why. T…
The publicity materials and preview articles written about Polarity Ensemble Theatre's world-premiere production of "Anna in the Afterlife" admit that the play is a therapy exercise for the …
RECOMMENDED The mythical line between opera and musical theater further fades with Chicago Opera Theater's mounting of "A Coffin in Egypt." Is it really an opera, as advertised? The composer…
RECOMMENDED If "All's Well That Ends Well" is, as some critics insist, a "problem comedy," then director Drew Martin, by setting the play in the Mafia-land of television's popular series, "T…
RECOMMENDED Oscar Wilde is generally acknowledged as one of the most skillful wits to have written in the English language. His plays are filled with wicked jibes at the expense of British s…
RECOMMENDED In college, the old adage goes: sleep, work, social life; choose two. For Anton Chekhov, a similarly triangular logic exists: happiness, knowledge, safety; choose two and constan…
RECOMMENDED “The Paranoid Style in American Politics,” a new play by Emmett Rensin now premiering with First Floor Theater, takes its name from a famous 1964 essay by Richard Hof…
RECOMMENDED Playwright Kristine Thatcher has written an important play, and it has landed in the hands of exactly the right theater company for its world premiere. Commissioned and pr…
