REVEALING THE SOURCE There’s so much buzz about The Source, which opens at REDCAT next week, that an extra performance has been added (the show runs Oct.19-23, 2016). The most fasci…
DUDAMEL AND BELL MORE THAN WELL Drop your plans this weekend and get to Disney Hall to witness conductor Gustavo Dudamel leading the Los Angeles Philharmonic in an astoundingly satisfy…
THE MONARCH OF MAKE BELIEVE The Truman Show or The Matrix have nothing on Luigi Pirandello's puzzle play Henry IV, a double-edged blast from the past (both 1921, its inception, and the 11th …
GUMSHOE GLORY It's not as original a burlesque of film noir as City of Angels, but in less than 90 minutes Wicked City, a musical parody by bookwriter/lyricist Chad Beauelin and com…
EAU DE MANCHESTER Kim Rubinstein’s new Odyssey production treats Shelagh Delaney’s 1958 A Taste of Honey not as a Chippendale museum piece but, smartly, as a serviceable old Sear…
THE PARTY IS NOT OVER Whether the words flowed from the terrific team of Betty Comden and Adolph Green, the prolific and dynamic Sammy Cahn, or a very young Stephen Sondheim, Jule Styne was …
WHAT A WORLD 1969. The final year in what was one of the most turbulent decades in American history. The battle between counterculture dissidents and the corporate establishment could melt l…
DAISEY’S TRUMPETRY The virtues of monologist Mike Daisey are many. He’s gifted at societal critique; he creates awesome mental pictures; and he’s a wiz at diagnosing and di…
THE PAUSES THAT DON'T REFRESH Presaging more darkness to follow, The Room, the first play by the late Harold Pinter, is an hour-long psychological thriller from 1957. Full of dour portent, i…
THREE CATHERINES, YOU'RE OUT If you were one of his sextet of spouses, outlasting Henry VIII wasn't just a feat of survival"it became a political statement. The last and possibly least known…
FRIENDLY FOOLING Is stuff magical only because it can't be explained? Perhaps it's more than just the absence of logic, probability, or reason. There's a presence too: Magic evokes a child-l…
LIEBESTOD WAS NEVER DARKER For three performances only, a beloved Chicago movie palace becomes an opera house. Acoustically accurate but with sight lines that worsen toward the back, the …
T&T&T&T&T&T… There's a reason why Tony n' Tina's Wedding, newly revived by the original New York producers, was a 16-year Chicago hit. Throughout the last century t…
BLACKOUT LOVE Winsome and warm-hearted, Fly by Night is an affecting chamber musical which premiered in 2014 at Playwrights Horizon. The two-act labor of love by Will Connolly, Michael Mitni…
KILLER ROSES AND A HUNCHBACK HORROR As disease follows famine, the 100 Years War succumbed to the War of the Roses. It makes sense that the titles of the two parts of Barbara Gaines' massive…
LETTING GO, NOT GIVING UP This is a long and leisurely play that generically examines the leaving of life–as in how, when, why and where to say goodbye. Steppenwolf Theatre Company's w…
FIVE FINGERS, ONE JOKE Unholy rolling, Hand To God is a one-joke coming-of-age comedy, a Twilight Zone episode on steroids. Robert Askins' two-act 2011 travesty treats demonic possession as …
WHEN YOU WISH UPON A THEME PARK You just know that the title The Happiest Place on Earth is ironic–or, like Ringling Brothers' "greatest show on earth," bombastic. How could it not be,…
FELLED Brimmer St. Theatre Co. only puts up a play when it thinks it’s got one worth doing, and always one that it has developed in-house. Some years it doesn’t produce anything …
GOODMAN GIVES GOTHAM GLORY Wonderful indeed. Wonderful Town, Leonard Bernstein's 1952 tribute to the ever juicy Big Apple, has been wrongly overshadowed by the other N.Y.C. musicals he wrote…
LIGHTS OFF BUT LIVING LARGE In The Heights, a two-time Tony-winning 2008 musical, celebrates a place that doesn't quite reward the torrid devotion of its likable characters. They both deligh…
DEATH BY COMMENTARY Glib, pat, and smug, Aaron Posner's Stupid Fucking Bird disrupted and deconstructed Anton Chekhov's The Seagull. Audiences loved it for its bratty, "in-your-face" 21st ce…
MAKE ROME GREAT AGAIN Julius Caesar:Â It's a strong choice for an election year, a timely reminder of why we prefer peaceful changes of power to assassinations and their inevitable knee-je…
HELL IS THIS MUSICAL An achingly forgettable world premiere, Helldrivers of Daytona is a nasty piece of art. Flagrantly referencing those dreadful Elvis movie musicals (thus lowering the bar…
MOSTÂ OF THE WAY Sick of politics? Miss the days when strongarm politicians got things done with blackmail, threats, and tit-for-tat backroom deals? Well, politics are exciting and inspiri…