6,591 stories from Stage and Cinema
LOVE AND “COMPASSIONATE SILENCE” We are living through an era that seems to value greed, hypocrisy, narcissism and blatant dishonesty over truth and meaning. This makes the journ…
THESE THINGS MUST BE DONE DELICATELY If you lose your way trying to navigate the enigmatic journey Anna Ziegler wants to take us in her well-written but thematically dense A Delicate Ship…
RARELY PRODUCED BERLIN SCORE COMES TO LIFE No doubt when folks hear “Louisiana Purchase,” they think of Thomas Jefferson’s gargantuan land acquisition from France in 1803, …
A RODGERS & HAMMERSTEIN STYLED MUSICAL THAT ASKS AND TELLS Call it the new nostalgia. In most ways, Yank! A WWII Love Story is an unashamedly conventional book musical, as predicta…
THE LOST–AND FOUND–BOY What resonates in each of the 90 minutes of TimeLine Theatre Company's Boy is the play's total absence of rage or recrimination. As compassionately t…
AN OPERATIC CIRCUS ODYSSEY The uber-innovative Australian performance troupe, Circa, returns to the States with its newest production, Il Ritorno, a unique production that melds circus arts …
MY LITTLE (PARANOID) PONY If you believe The Antelope Party, a Theater Wit two-act world premiere, fascism could soon be coming to a neighborhood near you. The "party" reference is politi…
YOU GOTTA HAVE HEART Here's the thing: This solo show written and performed by John Lithgow, the endlessly talented star of more movies, TV shows, and plays than there are stars in the heave…
YOU LEAVE SEEKING PEACE AND A PLOT When a play comes along that is entirely different from any play that has preceded it, especially in our era of over-informative white noise and copycattin…
YOU STILL CAN'T GO HOME AGAIN Plays about what doesn't happen feel a lot trickier than the action models: Exhibit A (through Z) is Rachel Bonds' Five Mile Lake, a group portra…
GET THE LEAD OUT "The majority is always wrong." Norwegian disrupter Henrik Ibsen practically carved that credo into his 1882 potboiler An Enemy of the People. In his still-seminal protes…
NOT JUST HORSING AROUND After watching Paul Calderon's quite gripping tale of thugs and scammers trying to grift a deal whatever way they can, you'll start to wonder, "Um, wouldn't it be eas…
A BROADWAY AMUSEMENT PARK THAT FLIES LIKE A CARPET "Open sesame" indeed. It’s "Abracadabra" times ten as the arrival of Aladdin in Hollywood feels as triumphant as Prince Ali's magnifi…
GOOFBALL GAMBLERS IN SIN CITY A troupe from Fayetteville, Arkansas has come to Chicago's Theater Wit to showcase a new play about Las Vegas. That's the download on Flamingo & Decatur,…
TERROR IN TRUTH In For the Loyal headlines become humans. A short but stirring piece of theatrical speculation, this new work by topical playwright Lee (A Walk in the Woods) Blessing c…
THANKFULLY, NOT SO SILENT Based on her three previous theater outings alone, it's fitting that writer/director Marja-Lewis Ryan has recently been tapped to be showrunner and executive produc…
MEMORIES OF MEXICO, LUZIAÂ UNLEASHES A RAIN OF JOY The Cirque du Soleil just made a run for the border " and not the Canadian one — as the Montreal-based human circus lavishes its un…
A PRINCH ASSAULT For 22 years, the Troubadour Theater Company (aka The Troubies) has amalgamated freely altered classics with music of a particular artist, creating riotous sketch/improv/ent…
YOU CAN’T TOP PIGS WITH PIGS After The Three Little Pigs‘ runaway success in 1933, Walt Disney attempted a few more shorts starring the little porkers, but they weren’t …
BLKSÂ — IT'S ABOUT WHTS TOO Nowadays it takes very little "disruption" to make a play a provocation. As Steppenwolf Theatre's press release tersely puts it, "F**ked up sh*t happens."…
WHAT KIND OF STAR AM I? Mr. Wonderful, the Rat Packer, Mr. Bojangles, the Candy Man — there was nothing "junior" about Sammy Davis. The latest retro reclamation by Black Ensemble Theat…
COME FOR GYLLENHAAL; STAY FOR SONDHEIM Although a hit, the 2017 revival of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's 1984 Pulitzer Prize-winning musical Sunday in the Park with George had a str…
I SAWÂ TREEÂ SHIPS! Anchors aweigh! Twenty-two years after its advent, this show has become as essential to Chicago's Christmas as the LEDs on the Magnificent Mile, the parade on State S…
BURNT BY THE TRAIL HE BLAZED What in theater is ever off limits? And, above all, who? Besides the probability of the part, are there bounds to the roles an actor can play? Believing that mer…
MAKING YOUR MUSIC MATTER If notes make joy, these 150 minutes are the elixir of happiness. Spanning only 13 years of its creator's career (1958-1971), Beautiful: The Carole King Musical b…
