288 stories by "Catey Sullivan"
Nilo Cruz's 2003 Pulitzer Prize-winning Anna in the Tropics is a lit-fuse kind of drama, beginning with a slow but unmistakable simmer that ultimately detonates with scorching, devastating i…
First, some mathematical context: I've seen A Chorus Line at least 18 times since 1976, the year the first national tour rolled into Chicago. Prior to last week, I was certain the brilliant …
The hardest working queen in showbiz? That'd be Ginger Minj (fight me). After three stints on RuPaul's Drag Race (season seven, All Stars 2, and All Stars 6), the breakout star and two-time …
Nearly 69 years since its birth as a smash movie, the seasonally ubiquitous White Christmas remains a good, old-fashioned holiday chestnut. It also remains an objectively odious, old holiday…
The ghost story of Christmas was originally a way to bring attention to the problem of poverty.
At 25 years old, The Lion King has been seen by more than 110 million people and played every continent but Antarctica. Between global warming and ticket demand, it's probably […]
The post…
No matter your views on Christmas and the bulging Santa's sack of psycho/socio/political/familial drama wrapped up in the sparkle-plenty holiday, this much I know is true: If you aren't move…
As the single most-produced contemporary playwright in the Goodman Theater's history, Rebecca Gilman has provided audiences with some truly perceptive, unflinching depictions of life's varie…
If you're a fan of The Notebook"either the romantically waterlogged, sugary-sentimental 2004 movie or the Nicholas Sparks novel that prompted it"you'll probably be swept away by the musical,…
Any thoughtful or true exploration of mental illness and how it manifests is cast aside in favor of the increasingly gory encounters that torment Rose.
The post Smile appeared first on Chica…
The sound design hits you first in Alma, Benjamin Benne's 70-minute two-hander that uses a mother-daughter relationship to depict precisely how inextricable the political is from the persona…
I've seen bloodier stagings of Sweeney Todd than the current incarnation from Kokandy Productions at the Chopin Theatre's downstairs space, directed and choreographed by Derek Van Barham. I'…
It's a fool's exercise, listing the Chicago theaters that have come and gone over the past quarter century. I tried but gave up when I hit 24 at 17 years […]
The post Northlight plans its …
There's a reason you rarely see Zorro: The Musical, the 2008 show inspired by a masked Spanish hero (conceived of by Johnston McCulley in 1919 and since the subject of numerous […]
The …
It's a story about a storyteller who is creating a story about how mythology (stories) are created. It is also an acute reminder of how easy it can be to hide secrets in plain sight.
The pos…
The cliché has it that life is what happens when one is making other plans, but that's clearly preposterous. In the main, it's death that happens when we're making other plans. Even in hosp…
If you're going to title your movie The Sea Beast, you need to commit to a beast that earns its billing.
The post The Sea Beast appeared first on Chicago Reader.
When Luis Carreon takes the stage at the Chicago Magic Lounge, he's pure old-school vaudeville, an elegant throwback in silver-toed boots and a tuxedo subtly imprinted with crushed velvet ro…
When it took the Tony triumvirate of best musical, original score, and original book in 2004, Avenue Q (music and lyrics by Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx, book by Jeff Whitty, and based on an o…
In Pearl's Rollin' With the Blues, Felicia P. Fields gets a showcase for her indomitable vocals. The Tony nominee (for The Color Purple) is a bona fide star in the land of musical theater, h…
Watching the 80s through the lenses of its superstars is its own glossy and compelling reward, but Freedom also depicts the carnage of the decade.
The post Freedom Uncut appeared first on Ch…
Hustle spins a familiar plot into a story that'll keep you invested even if you don't know a hoop dream from an embroidery hoop.
The post Hustle appeared first on Chicago Reader.
Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale, "The Little Mermaid," is a load of hooey. Consider: The titular mermaid throws herself on a dagger in the end, because she can't bear to go on after som…
Here's the TL;DR version of what to expect from Ain't Too Proud, the new jukebox musical about soul/blues/disco/rock hitmakers The Temptations, whose catalog of songs spans the 1960s and the…
An immersive art exhibition in DuPage County brings the Sistine Chapel to the former site of the Sears store at Oakbrook Center.
It had been almost exactly 30 y…
