SOME THINGS, BUT NOT EVERYTHING, IS ILLUMINATED "With writing, we have second chances," declares Jonathan Safran Foer in Everything Is Illuminated, his well-received and dauntingly complex f…
It all began in October 2012, as 123 college teams from across North America competed in 12 different regionals over the next five months–all for the chance to claim a regional title a…
Sid is coming to Chicago! The star of the popular animated television show, "Sid the Science Kid," will meet and greet guests on the red carpet at a special premiere of Jim Henson's "Sid the…
 Sideshow Theatre Company continues its 2012/13 season with the Chicago premiere of MARIA/STUART by Jason Grote, directed by Marti Lyons, playing March 30 " May 5, 2013 at Theate…
Red Theater presents the Chicago premiere of Red Hamlet by Aaron Sawyer and the Red Theater Collective at Stage 773, 1225 W. Belmont Ave, March 15 " April 21. Sawyer, Red Theater's art…
The August Wilson Monologue Competition, sponsored by The League of Chicago Theatres, Goodman Theatre, and the University of Illinois at Chicago, and organized in Chicago by D…
Picking the upcoming opening nights. Picking the upcoming opening nights.
What: Tired of Bert and Ernie? Chicago's Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events has started Juicebox, a Friday morning music and performance series geared to pre-kindergarten youn…
WINTER FLUFF "We're all in the gutter/But some of us have our ear to the ground." If you find this limp lyric endlessly repeated in this silly-ass, pun-crazed musical instantly amusing, read…
THE HORROR OF SELF-DENIAL FUELS INVENTIVE STAGING Chicago Opera Theater has teamed up with Long Beach Opera in California to produce a delightfully disturbing presentation of Philip Glass' a…
MUSIC'S MANY BRIDGES It's a proven power at the Black Ensemble Theater: No disease is so deadly, no crisis so catastrophic that a song can't cure it within twenty bars. Add 20 more songs tha…
RECOMMENDED The Andreas Mitisek era has begun at Chicago Opera Theater. Walking across the stage on crutches with a leg cast at Saturday night's season opening, Mitisek noted that his fall o…
Die-hard Philip Glass fans will enjoy this no doubt. *Usher* is Edgar Allan Poe's crowning achievement of his totality style, with every piece in the short work fitting together to push a la…
STORIES IN A SPIN CYCLE If ever the cliché "the plot thickens" justifies itself, it's in this relentlessly inventive 1996 work by Australian playwright Andrew Bovell; anacondas after their …
This truncated version of Romeo and Juliet is not just for kids. For those wishing to try Shakespeare but who are intimidated by a commitment to a full-length production, this show is an exc…
25 SAINTS A 75-minute exercise in dead-end disaster tautly directed by Susan E. Bowen, this new work by Pine Box Theater ensemble member Joshua Rollins tightly fits the theater company's act…
If people do not feel safe, the cultural jewels of the city are in jeopardy A decade or so ago, executive and philanthropist John H. Bryan Jr., the former CEO of Sara Lee Corp., raised a br…
The World’s Stage series at Chicago Shakespeare Theater, among the best and boldest importers of international work in the city, has provided a season of struggle, iron wills and trium…
Spotlight on Town Hall, a free concert event featuring performances from Chicago, The Phantom of the Opera, Avenue Q and more, will be held March 28 at New York City's The Town Hall.
THEATER FOR SOCIAL CHANGE With fifty-two murders to date in 2013 as I write this review " over a murder a day " the death toll in Chicago seems as ubiquitous as it is tragic. Collaboraction …
The Phantom will haunt Town Hall this spring! The Broadway casts of The Phantom of the Opera and Chicago, as well as the off-Broadway hit Avenue Q, will perform as part of a concert cel…
Picking the upcoming opening nights Picking the upcoming opening nights.
To commemorate the Department of the Interior's recent designation of The Town Hall as a National Historic Landmark Site and to celebrate its newly elected President and CEO Michael Presser,…
RECOMMENDED Three plays currently playing in Chicago urgently grab hold of prescient national issues both imperative and sickening: “Teddy Ferrara” at the Goodman Theatre, “…
Massage Envy, the nations' pioneer and largest massage therapy provider, is pleased to announce today the opening of a new concept, Massage Envy Spa located in Chicago's West Loop neighborho…