DIAL M FOR MURDEROUS LAUGHTER Chicago is the city of improv, but excellent improv can still be hard to come by. Yet the magnificent company Hitch*Cocktails always delivers, and they do it wh…
REVENUE AND RESPECTABILITY George Bernard Shaw (1856"1950) knew about cancel culture long before the term came into vogue. The first New York production (1905) of Mrs. Warren's Profession wa…
HA-LLELUJAH! HELP IS JUST A "HA" AWAY Julia Masli makes a slow, focused entrance onto the stage of the Anspacher Theater at The Public. Despite the surrounding moody blues, her face is lit b…
TITANIC SINKS AGAIN Mallie McCown's madcap reimagining of Titanic, James Cameron's $220 million epic, is ambitious beyond words, which is the source for most of the problems that plague this…
NINETY YEARS IN NINETY MINUTES Playwright Noah Haidel compresses 90 years of story into his 90-minute one-act comedy-drama Birthday Candles at North Coast Rep. However, that's sufficient tim…
SMALL LIVES, BIG TRUTHS What's a nice girl to do? Upstairs at The Matrix, Rogue Machine Theatre is putting on another winner of a show, Nice Girl by Melissa Ross. It's a small dram…
Synthwave Romance: The Wedding Singer Grooves on Camp, Chemistry, and Crimped Hair If you still belt out "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?" in your car or secretly miss the days when big hair …
St. Clair's Swan Song: Pacific Symphony's Volcanic Verdi's Requiem Last night, the walls of the Segerstrom Concert Hall didn't merely vibrate. They braced. Verdi's Requiem opened not with re…
A PRESCRIPTION FOR GREAT THEATER Ray of Light Theatre has once again delivered a production that hits hard and sings even harder. With 25 years of tackling socially relevant musicals"whether…
Sick of It All"and Loving Every Minute: Molière's Hypochondriac Gets a Hilarious Check-Up Molière's final theatrical work, The Imaginary Invalid, is a scalpel-sharp satire of medicine and …
TIGERS, TRAUMA, AND THEATRICAL MAGIC: LIFE OF PI ROARS TO THE STAGE Piscine Molitor "Pi" Patel's story has found enormous commercial success " first in Yann Martel's Booker Prize"winning nov…
MUSICAL SATIRE SUPREME Napa's Lucky Penny Productions closes out its 2024-25 season with a screamingly funny spoof of an inexplicably popular TV franchise, in which five rich boozy women can…
A NIGHT OF MUSIC, MEMORY, AND MADNESS: PARADISE FOUND The Studio Theatre's Victor Shargai stage has been strikingly transformed into a 1949 jazz club for Paradise Blue, Dominique Morisseau's…
UNNECESSARY, PERHAPS, BUT DELICIOUS! Wikipedia defines farce as "a comedy that seeks to entertain an audience through situations that are highly exaggerated, extravagant, ridiculous, absurd,…
COLORISM, CRUISE SHIPS, AND COSMIC RECKONING Black myth meets modern identity in Aishah Rahman's last work. The glossary page of Britain's National Gallery website describes the concept chia…
BUZZARDS, BOOTY, AND BECOMING NSangou Njikam's A Freeky Introduction soars with swagger, satire, and sacred disruption. "An eagle was born in a nest of buzzards," proclaimed playwright and p…
THE RUMOR THAT RUMORS IS A SCREAM IS NO RUMOR The late playwright/screenwriter Neil Simon remains one of America's most beloved creators of comedy. His plays often hinge on ludicrous setups,…
KING JAMES SCORES BIG AT ROUND HOUSE THEATRE Rajiv Joseph's King James"which opened last night at Round House Theatre"isn't a revival of the 1611 Bible translation, but a contemporary comedy…
MUSICAL ABOUT FASHION ICON COCO CHANEL STILL IN FASHION The scores of older Broadway musicals that don't get revivals include those that many theatre fans never got to experience beyond list…
THIS LUNAR ECLIPSE SHINES WITH QUIET GRACE The seven stages of a lunar eclipse unfold on the Irene Diamond Stage at The Pershing Square Signature Center, produced by Second Stage. This New Y…
A WORLDPRIDE CELEBRATION OF QUEER IDENTITY, DISCO, AND SHAKESPEAREAN DELIGHT Folger Theatre's 2025 production of Twelfth Night, directed by Mei Ann Teo, is a visually sumptuous, sonically…
Whether you live in New York City or you're visiting, one of the best places to be this summer is Bryant Park. Among the park's many activities, one of the most outstanding is Bryant Park Pi…
A PEG OF PIRATES, A NUTTY NURSE, AND A BRIG OF BOBBIES ALL IN A PITCH-PERFECT PARODY This beloved operetta by the legendary British duo W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan first launched in 187…
THEATRE ISN'T DEAD: HOLLYWOOD FRINGE 2025, JUNE 5-29 For those under the impression that creativity begins and ends in LA on the multi-screens of the AMC and IMAX theatres in every mall scat…
IT'S JAZZ. IT'S JOY. IT'S JUDY On the very rainy night May 14th, performing at that place called Pangea, the attractive venue on Second Avenue in Greenwich Village, vocalist Judy Wexler is t…