MEMPHIS PROVIDES RHYTHM BUT ULTIMATELY GIVES YOU THE BLUES Kicking off its national tour, Memphis blew into Chicago trying to sell itself as a romping, stomping celebration of rhythm and blu…
THE JACKIE TAYLOR STORY TAKES PRECEDENCE OVER THE JACKIE WILSON STORY Jackie Taylor is a happy lady these days, and everyone with a fondness to Chicagoland theater should rejoice with her. T…
HO HO HUM Alan Ayckbourn's Season's Greetings is an anti-holiday-cheer comedy which should be appropriate for audiences ready for an excursion into the dark side of the Christmas season. The…
A HOMER RUN One-actor shows are by their nature demanding, but Timothy Edward Kane's volcanic storytelling in An Iliad is a stunning marvel. This retelling of the famous epic The Iliad " att…
BLACK AND WHITE MEMORIES IN LIVING COLOR Whether you had viewed the original airings of I Love Lucy®: Live On Stage or discovered the show during the thousands of reruns, it is undeniable…
A TENNESSEE WILLIAMS CARICATURE A number of theatres in Los Angeles have marked the 100th anniversary of Tennessee Williams’ birth by staging productions of his plays. Following upon t…
THE BLIND LEADING THE HALF BLIND “It’s The Devils meets Marat/Sade.” someone said to me. “Yes,” I responded. “As performed by the Marx Brothers!” We…
STILL WAITING TO SEE IF THIS DOUGH WILL EVER RISE The Baker's Wife never made it to Broadway. The musical folded in Washington. D.C. in 1976 before reaching New York City but has since gaine…
UPSTAIRS/DOWNSTAIRS AT THE FLEA The Flea Theater is currently providing New York theater audiences an interesting illustration of the cultural gap between Asian-Americans and Asians from Asi…
TAKING CARE TO CREATE EXCELLENT THEATER The plot of Harold Pinters' The Caretaker is uncomplicated on the surface and densely complex in its subtexts; it is a melding of realism and theatre-…
CORNED BEEF TRASH The Great American Trailer Park Musical has a misleading superlative. The show mirrors A Tuna Christmas and Sordid Lives, in that it takes a humorous look at the goings-on …
SHORT TAKES ON CURRENT LOS ANGELES THEATER AS IT WAS: As Is, written by William M. Hoffman in 1984, when so many of our contemporaries were dying of the AIDS epidemic, still maintains its po…
BURNING BRADSHAW Post-modern theater has yet to live up to the hype. Whether deconstructing established forms or employing historical eclecticism, American playwrights writing within a p…
THE FEEL GAY HIT OF THE SEASON If you're pro gay marriage, come see this show. If you're ambivalent on the topic, come see this show. And if you're against gay marriage, come see thi…
HORSEDREAMS AND NIGHTMARES A few years ago, Dael Orlandersmith made a splash with Beauty's Daughter and Yellowman, winning an Obie Award and being a Pulitzer Finalist. Her work was large…
WOJTUNIK IS FAR FROM DONE You're in Times Square for a night of theater. You turn down 47th Street and pass the Ethel Barrymore Theatre where An Evening With Patti LuPone and Mandy Patin…
WAR, BUT NO PEACE John Andert so captivates the audience in Sinan Ãœnel's play A Mad Person's Chronicle of a Miserable Marriage that you don't want the play to end. Whether he is the d…
THE LONG TERM RELATIONSHIPS OF SINAN ÃœNEL AND LEO TOLSTOY Cheryl King's intimate Stage Left Studio on Manhattan's West 30th Street specializes in showcasing one-to-two-person plays. T…
A FOOL-IPINO FOR LOVE Just as the "problem" of immigration continues to be debated by our politicians, so does it continue to be presented in our theaters. Earlier this year, in the springti…
AN ERROR IN COMEDY One of Shakespeare's earliest plays, The Comedy of Errors, is also his shortest and most farcical. In fact, while scholars argue over the classification of other Bard work…
PREPPY IS THE NEW SUBVERSIVE When the development of Bring It On: The Musical was announced, I rolled my eyes. The commercial viability of yet another mediocre movie-to-musical had lured Ton…
THEATER IN NEW YORK: THE ACTING’S THE THING (BROADWAY) You may go to see Relatively Speaking in the hope of seeing three bright comedies by some of our funniest comic writers – E…
QUEEN OF THE GYPSIES It's a relief that Chita Rivera, one of the last great holdovers from the Golden Age of Broadway still performing today, told the audience in Costa Mesa that she doesn't…
PROFILES OF A DREARY EXISTENCE The Profiles Theatre has carved out an essential niche for itself on the local Chicagoland theater scene with sexy, violent, and edgy modern dramas. Recently, …
BERNSTEIN IN SOME OF HIS GLORY Older spectators will remember Leonard Bernstein not just as a conductor, composer, and pianist, but as one of the most vivid personalities and astonishingly e…