ANÂ IMAGINARY IMAGINARY Back in March, Roundabout Theatre announced their plans for 2017. After collaborating with Fiasco Theater on their acclaimed paired-down production of Into the Wood…
FAITH IN FANTASY One of the best and certainly funniest shows of this century has returned. Beginning its latest national tour at the Hollywood Pantages last night, The Book of Mormon rem…
SHINE ON, ETERNAL LIGHT In just twenty years of existence, Morten Lauridsen's gorgeous choral masterwork Lux Aeterna has become one of the most performed works worldwide. Under direction …
SNOB HIT Well, that was boring. Of all the people on the planet who should understand the difference between theater and an underwhelming fringe entry (low cost and well-meaning with no s…
DOES GROUNDHOG DAY BEAR REPEATING? The Masterworks Broadway and Broadway Records CD of the musical adaptation of Groundhog Day may be a bit tough for some to hear over and over and over and …
AÂ LIMPÂ STIFF Before composer Stephen Flaherty and lyricist Lynn Ahrens were, well, the Flaherty and Ahrens who created Once on This Island, Ragtime, Suessical, et al., they were a youn…
SIX KINDS OF WONDERFUL I've loved Obba Babatundé since I first saw him thirty-five years ago in Dreamgirls. Even amidst the legendary star turns of his female co-stars, he made a remarkable…
A CLASSIC GOES GLOBAL It's a marriage made in theater heaven: With a newly great Great Expectations, two very different Chicago theaters find common ground. The result is a cross-cultural ve…
SWEETHEART DEAL IS A MISSED ROMANCE There's been scant theater documenting the plight of the Latino farm workers and their fight for economic and racial equality, especially in California. A…
JERSEY CASH COW Jersey Boys, the terrific 2004 jukebox musical inspired by the story of pop sensation Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons, is one of the greatest triumphs in Broadway histor…
NO TRIP TO BOUNTIFUL A broken, cash-challenged clan go on a road trip to California that somehow heals their hurt. It's not the Joads, colorful Okies in a Ford pick-up, fleeing the dust stor…
GERUNDING Multiple monitors flash images of choreographer and performer Jeanine Durning's face as she filters through emotions of delight, amusement and pensiveness in the small, private Aut…
C'EST SI BON! She was infamous for her 1927 "costume" in Un Vent de Folie"a girdle of bananas. In 1934 she became the first African American woman to have a major role in a film. Acquiring f…
FALLING WHILE RUNNING RISKS Domesticity and danger, it seems, don't mix. The private and the public, small-scale versus big-issue matters, mingle uneasily in Time Stands Still, now in a p…
CD GETS NEITHERÂ BRONX CHEER NOR FUGGEDABOUDIT It began as a 1989 solo play written by and starring Chazz Palminteri. Robert DeNiro saw this coming-of-age saga and became the powerhouse be…
A GREAT STATE FAIR Corny? Completely! Simple and sentimental? Sure! Did I love it? You betcha! Rarely performed since its Broadway outing in 1996, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s frolicking …
LOOKING BEFORE THEY LEAP It's a night of dance discoveries. Four Chicago-based choreographers create a splendid showcase in danc(e)volve, two world premieres and two nearly new offerings at …
OLD MAN, OLD MOON, OLD GLOBE Having seen PigPen Theatre Co.'s The Old Man and the Old Moon in Chicago, I can guarantee that gem of a theater experience will gently pluck at your hearts…
CHOOSING BETWEEN FAMILY AND FUTURE In xenophobic times wracked by exclusionary panics, any immigrant's odyssey speaks for millions of refugees, within as much as outside the U.S.. Truth-base…
PURE CONFIDENCE BY A NOSE Featuring a bright, pretty Tom Buderwitz set, Lower Depth Theatre Ensemble’s Pure Confidence is a chance to see something increasingly rare under Equity rules…
PRINCE ON FIRE Chronicling the lurid and lamentable swashbuckles of a permanent ingenue, Pericles is a Book of Job for the Age of Reason. If the play were self-aware enough to be cynical, wi…
BLOOD ON THE NOTES Jazz doesn't just soothe"it can bleed. Both acts happen throughout these 150 minutes, never more so than at the end. Paradise Blue brings the lyricism of Tennessee William…
LACERATING LA-LA LAND It's a crash course in one man's life-long damage control: Up close, personal, and, therapeutically playful, Dylan Brody's Driving Hollywood is a liberal-minded Califor…
LITTLE SHOP OF HAPPINESS Who can't love She Loves Me? This utterly unpretentious, easily adored chamber musical delivers the first word in entertainment and the last word in love. Completely…
REQUIEM FOR WHITNEY Even if you've never seen the 1992 film that gave birth to the musical in 2012 in London's West End, the story is familiar: A pop superstar falls in love with her bodygua…