2,260 stories from Chicago Theater Beat
Zürich's five vignettes are all set in hotel rooms on the fortieth floor. In one room, a man sings with his penis out. In another, two children left alone make a horrifying discovery in the…
Celebrated campmaster Charles Ludlam's final play, The Artificial Jungle, is chock full of brutality " death by piranha, daily rat deliveries, hair that is almost offensively big " and thank…
Hope - Playwright Paula Vogel's genius is contained in her ability to bring it to every story. The characters in Indecent persist, making the ultimate sacrifices to experience the tiny momen…
Director Dado is known throughout the city for her unconventional style. She's a perfect fit for Jen Silverman's postwar fable, where childhood impulses insert themselves into very adult iss…
This is one world-premiere that satisfyingly defies the odds. The powers that be behind this pre-Broadway tryout made a wise move in hiring bookwriter Robert Horn to adapt the hit Dustin Hof…
Lifeline Theatre's Frankenstein, a world premiere adapted by Robert Kauzlaric and directed by Paul S. Holmquist, boils down the war of human versus monster in a way that's deceptively simple…
Audiences may very well love Crime and Punishment. Shattered Globe's production of Chris Hannan's new adaptation boasts impeccable production values and fascinating movement design. However,…
I saw Red Tape Theatre's The Shipment with two companions and we left the theater asking each other, What was the author saying?" This play, written by Young Jean Lee, a Korean-American play…
With better direction and an improved script, Melanie Marnich's These Shining Lives could have been snappier and punchier in the beginning, slowly growing sadder and more poignant as injurie…
Bennett Fisher's new play Borealis has the type of premise " sci-fi adventure that's also a takedown of corporate culture " that will be either an epic success or an epic failure. Thankfully…
El Grande de Coca-Cola is 80 minutes of awkward, hilarious glory, with a cast as adept at physical comedy as they are at fast-paced banter, operatic vocal stylings and giving the audience th…
A Shayna Maidel is a story of the Holocaust, immigration and survival, but most of all it's a story of sisters. Rose (Bri Sudia) and Lusia (Emily Berman) have lived incredibly different live…
With Broadway in Chicago's presentation of Heartbreak Hotel, being dubbed as the pre-quel to Million Dollar Quartet, the audience is on their feet as the cast takes their bows, and the 20 mi…
The climactic moment of Tres Bandidos is tense and anxiety-inducing. A major secret has just been revealed. There's more than one gun. It's very, very likely that at least one of the three c…
The anarchists profiled in Underscore Theatre's smash hit Haymarket were hardworking immigrants, who just wanted a fair wage and time to call their own. As a folk-musical concept album or co…
Clearly, Avenue Q is making money for Mercury Theater, especially as it's now been extended by over 3 months. And of course a theater company must consider what will draw audiences. As a pro…
Pride Films and Plays' stellar production of Holding the Man by Tommy Murphy chronicles a forbidden teenage romance that became a life partnership cut short, calling back to a time when life…
If nothing else, Hurricane Damage is an alternative to the Dead Gay Narrative. It's a survivors' story - longtime partners Oscar and Dennis have been together for decades, and have seen coun…
With Flying Elephant Productions' Defacing Michael Jackson, playwright Aurin Squire has a terrific, multifaceted story on his hands - a group of kids in middle-of-nowhere 1980s Florida form …
Playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins thrives on keeping an audience on their toes. He pulled it off successfully in Goodman Theatre's Gloria, with a shocking plot twist at the end of the play's…
Hell in Handbag Production's The Golden Girls--The Lost Episodes, Volume 2 is an incredibly entertaining evening for fans of a different Fab Four - Rose, Blanche, Dorothy and Sophia. Three o…
Abbey Fenbert's play Sickle at Red Theater is important as it brings to light another horror of a different kind of war, an unwanted assimilation of an entire country's population and produc…
The topics covered in Goodman's Support Group for Men are exactly the conversations that we need right now, and in this marvelously comic work, playwright Ellen Fairey has hit the proverbial…
Tilikum, an allegory of slavery with the best of intentions. has a unique setting and an even more unique way of telling its story, incorporating dance, percussion and one heck of a projecti…
The View UpStairs, a musical about the last night of the UpStairs Lounge that, before an arsonist set the gay bar ablaze (killing 32 people in the process), premiered off-Broadway in Februar…
