2,260 stories from Chicago Theater Beat
The Clean House is the kind of quirky show that can turn from theatre to sitcom on the strength of its execution in the finer points. New-to-the-scene Bluebird Arts has taken this crowd plea…
This is the first time these venerable Chicago cultural treasures have co-created an entire show, and they blend together beautifully. The six Second City actors bring the comedy through ske…
With dramatic lighting, an ominous sound design and a disquieting set, Lifeline's Jane Eyre captures the wondrously Gothic atmosphere of Charlotte Brontë's 1847 thriller-romance. Directed…
At Home at the Zoo offers, all in less than two hours, a chance to view both the earliest and a much later sample of Edward Albee's writing - and the two plays blend together perfectly. By p…
It was a big and bold Porchlight Music Theatre triumph nine years ago, and it's just as painfully powerful in the fall of 2014 (just in time for Halloween). Seldom has a more unstoppable sto…
With flawless direction and performances, Goodman Theatre's Smokefall is a haunting play that will remain with you for days after seeing it. Highly Recommended. (read John Olson's review, an…
Often dark and frequently dissonant, Kurt Weill's music is as treacherous as it is haunting. Theo Ubique puts a very young cast through the German composer's paces. The result is not great, …
Amanda Peet's first foray into playwrighting was inspired by seeing Ruth Madoff, the wife of convicted Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff, on 60 Minutes. It was a good inspiration " to explore the…
There is certainly passion behind Another Bone - it is all an extremely admirable effort, yet the show has a fatal flaw - the story is entirely nonsensical. Written by Chicago playwright Cat…
There's really nothing not to like about this production. Rest provides both a cathartic theatrical experience as well as much to think about and discuss afterwards. You'll love the story, c…
Season on the Line is not typical House Theatre fare. However, the show possesses the clear direction, cohesive storytelling, robustly talented cast and gorgeous production values that have …
What happens to the Michael Milligan's character in Mercy Strain is appalling - and relaying this story is critically important. The telling of it? That needs some fine-tuning. (read Catey …
Death, dying, aging and health care are dramatic topics that Anna Deavere aptly explores here, but no matter how enthralling each individual monologue culled from her many interviews is, the…
South African theater company Isango Ensemble offers an interpretation of the Mozart classic opera that is unlike any other. Music arrangers Pauline Malefane and Mandisi Dyantyis orchestrate…
An import from our neighbor to the north, Evil Dead: The Musical is a blood-splattering, silly-ass confection based on the gag-inducing 80s film franchise. A huge hit for over a decade in T…
Often thought of as a slow-burn type of piece, director Michael Menendian wastes no time in getting the early tremors of the eruption vibrating amongst his electrifying cast. And when you're…
Very little goes wrong on the Strawdog stage, which is no small feat considering the considerable technical and thespian interconnectedness of the detailed set and complex scenes. It all cul…
From an opening pablum to an utterly unsatisfying denouement that includes an incredibly tedious science panel, Mnemonic is an unfocused mess with potentially interesting ideas scattered abo…
The Coward Written by Nick Jones Directed by Vance Smith at Theater Wit, 1229 W. Belmont (map) thr…
True to its choose-your-own-adventure roots, this play becomes a different beast than it was at the beginning. The Plagiarists managed to surprise me alongside making me nostalgic for childh…
Playwright Chuck O'Connor has a good ear for dialogue, and Aaron Stephenson's sound design incorporating provides a sense of period authenticity. There's something appealing about a play tha…
Joe Forbrich's The Whaleship Essex ably straddles genres. It is at once a first-rate adventure story, a survivalist thriller and a meditation on depravity spawned by abject terror and the ab…
John Arthur Lewis' staging, which relies on Bill Gordon's dogged narrative to supply the missing scenes, gives full focus to the center-stage protagonists, whether they deserve them or not. …
As far as anyone knows, no one's ever mounted Thomas Middleton's Women Beware Women in Chicago before. For anyone a little tired of Shakespeare and in need of some fresh Jacobean tragedy, th…
Richard III represents a tremendous undertaking for a fledgling theatre company, so their efforts deserve some applause. But even though Richard Traub's engaging portrayal of the main charac…
