DOG OF A MUSICAL The musical theatre canon is filled with bad ideas that made very good musicals. Stories of vengeful barbers, decadence in Nazi Germany, and even wife beaters have all g…
A SHOW WHICH PLANTS ITSELF IN YOUR MEMORY Back in 1985, Bill Pullinsi staged a satirical musical called Little Shop of Horrors at his Candlelight Dinner Playhouse in Summit that was one of t…
AIMLESSLY ADRIFT ON GOLDEN POND After seeing the stage version of On Golden Pond, now playing at The Glendale Centre Theatre, it’s impossible not to think how much more rewarding it wo…
HELL WITH NO INTERMISSION Hell: Paradise Found. Genesis: And so did Seth Panitch rummage through the intellectual compost heap and picketh he out from it clumps of sour clichés and bits of …
"BEAUTY IS A FORM OF GENIUS–IS HIGHER, INDEED, THAN GENIUS, AS IT NEEDS NO EXPLANATION.” Oscar Wilde Years ago, on a neighborhood stroll with my entourage of giggly young Girl Sc…
THE STEPS TO SUCCESS They say that timing is everything. Timing certainly is everything in The 39 Steps, the English spy spoof that occupies a delightful, often amazing, and even suspenseful…
STEADY AS IT GOES A Steady Rain, Chicago Dramatists' prodigal son, has finally come home, giving audiences a chance to sit down again with Denny and Joey, the two cops that disturbed the hel…
IF YOU LET IT, FERVENCY AND JOY COMPENSATE FOR TROUBLING SCRIPT A joyful noise is rising out of the Goodman Theatre this summer. With hearty vibrato and a religious fervor rivaled only by te…
THE MERCHANT OF VENICE: AS TRUE NOW AS THEN Setting Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice in the cutthroat world of contemporary finance a la Wall Street is an inspired notion and Custo…
NOTHING BEASTLY ABOUT IT The Chicago Shakespeare Theater is presenting the best musical production of the summer, but audiences will have to see it in the daytime. The production is Disney's…
THE GOOD THAT COULD HAVE BEEN BETTER Watching The Amoralists' production of Derek Ahonen's entertaining new play The Bad and The Better, an image comes to mind of a virtuoso juggling act, wi…
MUSICAL ERRANT Expectations should always be lowered a bit when seeing revivals of musicals written before Oklahoma!. In pre-war musicals, songs weren't intended to move plots forward or…
GOLD DISCOVERED IN THE PLAINS I rolled my eyes when I heard about the plot of Harmony, Kansas, a musical having its world premiere at Divisionary Theatre in San Diego. Heath is a gay Kansan …
COME FOR GEORGE HAMILTON, STAY FOR CHRISTOPHER SIEBER The national tour of La Cage aux Folles leaves its audience basking in the warm afterglow of a delightful musical comedy. As an enthused…
NO EVIL. NO GOOD. There are few who do not know the story. The devil possesses Regan, the innocent 12-year-old daughter of movie star Chris MacNeil, who is working on a film in Georgetown. A…
OEDIPUSÂ REX POTENTLY UPDATEDÂ TO THE BARRIO Oedipus El Rey is Luis Alfaro's vision of Sophocles' Oedipus Rex seen through the prism of modern Latino life, specifically gang culture as i…
I AM NOT MY COCK When a new Godzilla movie came out in 1998 the marketing pundits urged, "Size does matter." But when it comes to a woman’s sexual satisfaction with her partner’s…
TWO CRITICS; TWO STAGED READINGS; BASICALLY ONE OPINION From Jason Rohrer: Plays in the Park, Brian Conners’ collection of one-acts (only one of which is set in a park), intends to sho…
TRACY LETTS ADAPTS THREE SISTERS FOR STEPPENWOLF Tracy Letts calls his version of Anton Chekhov's Three Sisters an adaptation, but other than some changes in language it's still the great Ru…
WATKINS HAS US IN THE PALM OF HIS HANDS I had one reservation headed into The House Theatre of Chicago's The Magic Parlour: almost every magic show I had ever been to has been obnoxiously sh…
MAGIC ALL AROUND Death and Harry Houdini was the House Theatre's first production back in 2001 and it's been something of a meal ticket for the company over the years. The production played …
CREATIONISM VS. EVOLUTION; RELEVANCE VS. TIMELESSNESS Dubbed “The Trial of the Century” (with rhetorical apologies to O.J.), the actual 1925 trial that inspired Inherit the Wind …
HISS HISS BANG BANG Four writers stand onstage and in unison announce their thesis, "We thought that making a show strictly about our poverty and history of abuse would make us severely unpo…
ALL THE WORLD'S A GLOBE After previewing in the month of June, The Old Globe officially opens the 2012 Shakespeare Festival this week. Adrian Noble returns for his third season as the intern…
I WILL SURVIVE In the opening act of Mr. Burns, A Post-Electric Play, a group of campers sits by the warm glow of a trashcan fire and tries to retell a favorite episode of The Simpsons. Matt…