132 stories by "Dennis Polkow"
"Blue" is a powerful and moving new work deeply rooted in the continuum of operatic tradition.
Unlike typical jukebox musicals, "A Beautiful Noise" is not an extroverted epic extravaganza, but an introverted intimate introspection.
It is a rare and wonderful occurrence when you can hear two operas where two different composers have set the same libretto side-by-side.
What distinguishes "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child" is not the story that is told but the way in which the story is told.
A triumph all around that is not to be missed.
Freud has been the general director of Lyric Opera since 2011"the titles of president and CEO were added in 2015"the first person recruited from outside of the company to run it in its seven…
Lyric Opera's free pre-season preview concert in Millennium Park has gone from a September extravaganza to a more modest August concert called "Sunday in the Park with Lyric."Â
"Back to the Future: The Musical" attempts to flesh out the film's representation of both the 1950s and the 1980s with a post-millennial overlay.
Every voice is sterling in terms of technique and diction but especially in terms of dynamics, expression and blend, revealing just how gifted Waller is as a songwriter.
Composer and lyricist Jason Robert Brown is sitting in a room with a piano at the Goodman Theatre. A rehearsal of his much-anticipated musical of "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" is…
It is obvious that the elements and talent are in place and that the potential is there for this to become a really killer show. Maybe by Broadway.
City Lit is advertising its season-closing production of "Murder in the Cathedral""which is director and outgoing producer and artistic director Terry McCabe's last"as "the first full produc…
Chris Herzberger has been working on the launch of the pre-Broadway world premiere of the musical of "Death Becomes Her," currently underway in previews at the Cadillac Palace with a May 19 …
It has been a fourteen-year dream of director Stearns for "Jersey Boys""such a popular show in its original Broadway in Chicago run that a separate multi-year Chicago company was created"to …
The best element of this production is the dancing, wonderfully choreographed by Dan Knechtges.
The juxtaposition of brutal historical awareness with comedy makes "The Thanksgiving Play," which will be presented at Steppenwolf Theatre, such a unique experience.
It was an inspiring bit of casting to reunite soprano Michelle Bradley and tenor Russell Thomas as the doomed lovers Aida and Radamès.
Back in the early years of the non-Equity storefront theater company known as Theo"which began as Theo Ubique Cabaret Theatre"it was pretty much founder and artistic director Fred Anzevino's…
The best thing about "Mrs. Doubtfire: A New Musical Comedy" is that it restores the heartfelt message of the original book"that divorce doesn't have to be an end for a family, but can simply…
When new Goodman artistic director Susan V. Booth asked Mary Zimmerman what she might want to do this season, a small-scale rethinking of "The Magic Flute" was the response. That means th…
The action takes place in Duluth, Minnesota, but playwright Conor McPherson's Irish melancholy weighs heavily throughout, with nods to O'Neill and Wilder.
Eclectic is an overused word. But in the case of trumpeter, pianist and composer Terence Blanchard who rose to the top of the jazz world, has composed scores for more than fifty films and mo…
In its initial Broadway run in 2006, the show broke box-office records. It has been a seasonal phenomenon ever since.
The Broadway-bound fiftieth-anniversary revival of "The Wiz" gets to the heart of what made "The Wiz" so special: song and dance.
The setting of "Christmas with C. S. Lewis" is a group of American historians visiting England at Christmastime. "Because Lewis was a professor of medieval and Renaissance literature, they'v…
