JOHNNY BE BAD: A CHUCK ROAST Once more it's homage time on Clark Street. The latest musical reclamation from Black Ensemble Theater, L. Maceo Ferris's Hail, Hail Chuck: A Tribute to Chuck…
THREE GREAT MINDS MAKE FOR INTRIGUING THEATER There’s a game where you get to pick three famous people and go to dinner with all of them. In Mark St. Germaine’s Camping with …
MESSING UP MURDER The cops may be blue, the victims black, but in Six Corners the predominant color is gray. Marinating in moral relativism, this independent installment in Chicago pla…
A PRODUCTION TO COSÃŒ UP TO A Lyric Opera season would not be complete without Mozart, so it was with great anticipation that I attended the opening night performance of Così Fan Tutte.…
A BEAUTIFUL DOLL It's amazing. Were this masterpiece from Broadway's golden age an actual guy or doll, he or she would be scoring Social Security. But make no mistake, this 1950 hoofer is no…
SHORES ‘NUFF Texas-born playwright Del Shores, best known for his romp Sordid Lives (the hilarious play and movie that also introduced us to Leslie Jordan) is coming to the Celeb…
HIS AND HERS HISTORY Looking for some inspiration? From Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner and lauded author Sarah Vowell comes a powerful examination of one of American history'…
AN EVERGREEN PARABLE OF RESISTANCE It's a two-act tonic, this Madwoman of Chaillot. Life, Jean Giraudoux knew, is never safe from our constant "fever of destruction." When decency gets be…
MY KINDA CABARET ACT It was the decade that changed our nation forever. What began as nothing but promise — victors of a World War and a young forward-thinking President — sudden…
IN CYBER SPACE NO ONE CAN HEAR YOU SCREAM On the Internet or just IRL, there's joy in striking back — turning the tables and trolling the bullies. But what's rotten one way is no bette…
THE PHANTOM NEVER DIED, BUT SHOULD HAVE Gaston Leroux knew: The original author of The Phantom of the Opera concluded his horror romance with his disfigured serial-killer as dead as Lo…
A MAGNIFICENT MARIACHI OPERA COMES TO THE SORAYA It was by sheer luck that I was in Chicago and happened upon the world's first mariachi opera, Cruzar la Cara de la Luna (To Cross the Face o…
A PENNY DREADFUL FOR YOUR THOUGHTS Murder will out, whether in police gazettes or chamber opera. If he hadn't existed, the still unknown Jack the Ripper could have been invented by penny dre…
THE JOY OF SURVIVAL Marin Ireland is mesmerizing and deeply moving in Ironbound. She plays Daria, a Polish immigrant. To my ear, her accent is impeccable " and most importantly, entirely con…
IN TASTING YOUR MORTALITY, YOU GET A LOT OLDER WATCHING THIS In the bleak midwinter " appropriately " comes this dour drama. A Chicago premiere from Steppenwolf Theatre Company, this 2014 Ob…
MOVEMENTS WITHOUT DEMANDS Modern masters indeed. A splendid showcase for steps and leaps, Joffrey Ballet's annual winter engagement always brings fresh glory to the state of their art. Mo…
MARVIN’S GARDEN One of composer Marvin Hamlisch's first gigs was that of rehearsal pianist and assistant vocal arranger for the original production of Funny Girl on Broadway in 1964, a…
SAVED BY YOUR SERVANT Like manna from the heavens, it comes when we've never needed to laugh more: The invaluable comic master P.G. Wodehouse returns from the Roaring Twenties to the rescue …
THE DIS-ASSEMBLY LINE Some stories can't stand on their own and for very good reason: They tell so many others. Much as The Wire dealt with Baltimore's failing institutions and August …
THE GIRL OF MY DREAMS "No one will ever love you as much as I do — so shut up and stop looking for more." A harsher hope-killing "reassurance" should not be imagined. That's the curse/…
REHABILITATING REAGAN Putting us backstage as history happens, Goodman Theatre's world premiere Blind Date generously or doggedly tells audiences more than they knew (or perhaps want t…
THE LAST WIFE GETS IT RIGHT Historical fiction can be a dicey game, let alone a modernization of historical figures. When the results are as captivating as Kate Hennig’s The Last Wife,…
A TRAGI-COMEDY OF VIOLENCE Harold Pinter's The Hothouse is exactly the kind of play I hope to see at the Antaeus Theatre Company. It is a classic to some but not to others, and there's a lot…
AMERICA'S COARSE 'CORRECTION' A huge reason that theater counts is that it can carry a club (or, as the situation warrants, a stiletto). Both an agitprop assault on the 46th President's b…
THE FULL MONTY IS WORTH BARING IN MIND When the main factory in town shuts down and only menial work, far below previous pay grade, can be found, what’s a man supposed to do? For the t…