THE WORLD ON A SWING The year is 1948 and a hack reporter (the entertaining Evan Pappas), ordered by his editor to do a hatchet job on Barney Josephson and his revolutionary Greenwich Villag…
IT DOESN’T GET ANY MERRIER THAN THIS This radiant revival is Light Opera Works' fourth coming of Franz Lehár's masterpiece from an earlier turn of the century. Rudy Hogenmiller's st…
AN EXTRA CHANCE TO CHECK-IN With ticket sales hotter than the Great Chicago Fire, the even greater Robey Theatre Company has just announced an extension of their wildly popular, sold-out The…
MY KINGDOM FOR SOME INSULIN Known by many as "the most wonderful time of the year," Christmas has richly earned its reputation for gooey sentimentality, decking the halls with mucho kitsch, …
YES, VIRGINIA, THERE IS A CHRISTMAS CIRCUS It's dazzle central and a welcome return to Chicago by the one-ring, 20-feat Cirque Dreams performers, but only through December 21. Their extravag…
YOU'RE GOING TO LOVE, NOËL Noël Coward would have loved that his name appears twice in Love, Noël: The Letters and Songs of Noël Coward, which, having completely sold out its ru…
A POOR MAN'S LANFORD WILSON Only in New Orleans could a dumpy parking lot flanking a decrepit motel on a highway leading only to the airport be transformed into a lagniappe-soaked, Mardi Gra…
BIRD THOU SURE AIN’T NOW Hail to thee, blithe Spirit! Bird thou never wert, That from Heaven, or near it, Pourest thy full heart In profuse strains of unpremeditated art. - P.B. Shelle…
A HOT CHRISTMAS Under boughs of holly and multi-media of silver and gold, stars and snowflakes will glitter as Upright Cabaret combines the Best of Broadway with the Carols of Christmas for …
THE HOTTEST SHOW IN TOWN One of the best-reviewed and most popular Christmastime shows, The Ruffians' Burning Bluebeard, returns beginning tonight for three weeks only through Jan. 4, 2015, …
DELIGHTFUL IN SPITE OF ITSELF Ordinarily, a musical with a book as superficial, obvious and corny as Daniel S. Wise's Soul Doctor would make me cringe. Add to this David Schechter's on-the-n…
JANE AND HER PUPPETS The works of Jane Austen are delightful " and so are puppets. So, when you hear that this adaptation of Austen's classic satire of gothic literature, Northanger Abbe…
HAWKING HAPPINESS Winner of two 2012 Tonys for best score and choreography, the rampaging romp called Newsies is a special delivery indeed. It comes from the Disney dreamers who fleshed out …
COEURAGE, I COULD EAT YOU UP It is rare when a theater company lives up to its mission statement. Normally, the vision is so hifalutin as to be obscure. Luckily, Los Angeles has Coeurage The…
CST STAGES A FRESH AND FANTASTICAL PERICLES William Shakespeare is a man of many faces. To most, he is quite simply a master of the English language and one of the greatest playwrights who e…
RADVANOVSKY IS REGAL IN ANNA BOLENA With so much filmed and written about the six wives of Henry VIII, the Tudor period is perhaps one of the most familiar eras in English history. Yet Gaeta…
SUGAR PLUMS AND COALS"ALL IN A VERY STUFFED STOCKING Goodman Theatre just got schizoid. On one end of its block-long Dearborn Street lobby is the Albert Theatre, where the sacred cash cow A …
NOT ONLY WILL YOU FLOAT OUT OF THE THEATER, YOU MAY EVEN FLY Have you ever wondered how the original "lost boy" became Peter Pan and what his life was like before flying out the Darling's nu…
FOREST ENTRY After her car breaks down during a storm, Josie (a sympathetic Rachael Hip-Flores), a young woman searching for her father years after he mysteriously vanished, happens upon a c…
HUMOR CAN BE HOLY When, earlier this year, I saw Bluebird Arts' revival of Sarah Ruhl's magically realistic domestic drama, I couldn't grasp the buzz behind her successful whimsy. Yes, it ha…
THIS SCHOONER SAILS IN ON YULETIDE EUPHORIA A joyous holiday tradition, The Christmas Schooner has been warming Chicagoan hearts for nearly two decades. Following a lengthy run at Bailiwick …
BEHALF AND HALF Personal works of art, in which the artist must invent a new language all her own to communicate her unique dreams, are, for me, the most valuable kinds. But one consistent c…
FLARE DONE WITH FLAIR Unlike Sherwood's Idiot’s Delight (1936), Terence Rattigan's Flare Path (1941) is not an anti-war play. Both take place in a hotel and have a rich variety of char…
HANDEL WITH CARE Talk about a 135-year labor of love! This all-volunteer choir"founded in 1872 after the Great Chicago Fire and performing at the opening of the Auditorium Theatre in 1899 an…
TELL US SOME MORE Turin, Italy's Teatro Regio Torino opened its first ever North American tour with a magnificent concert performance of Gioachino Rossini's William Tell at the Harris Theate…