100 stories by "Jack Helbig"
Puppets are cool, but they are also creepy. Very creepy. Even the cute ones, like Kermit the Frog or Ollie the Dragon. There is just something deeply unnerving about how puppets seem like au…
John Michalski, onetime Chicago improv teacher and performer, never found great fame. But he embodied the art form at its purest.
John Michalski died May 24. In …
The rapper-dancer-performance poet rolls with the pandemic punches.
2020 started off so well. January and February were great months for 27-year-old rapper, danc…
Remembering the comedy theater's humble beginnings and reflecting on its dramatic end
How did you find out about iO closing?…
A critic reflects on UCB's early history in Chicago.
Last week the folks at the Upright Citizens Brigade (UCB) sent out a letter announcing they were permanently…
A starry cast can't inject a lot of life into Dan Clancy's middlebrow story.
Dan Clancy's four-person play about two couples living a middling life in a middle-c…
The 1987 Michael J. Fox film gets a toothless musical treatment.
This musical version of the 1987 Michael J. Fox vehicle, receiving its world premiere at the Par…
Mercury Theater Chicago's revival of this murder mystery party game can't overcome the dated material.
Adapted by Marilyn Abrams and Bruce Jordan from the origin…
It's Gershwin for the win in Drury Lane's production.
You don't have to know the classic 1951 movie musical to be disappointed by this 2015 stage version, but it…
Audrey Cefaly's story of a photographer and an agoraphobe goes far beyond Madison County.
Audrey Cefaly's new play, receiving its world premiere at 16th Street T…
Roger Bean's jukebox musical has pleasant songs, but no point to its journey.
There is no story in Roger Bean's jukebox musical, nor are there any characters, on…
Steven Dietz's family drama doesn't give us enough reasons to care.
Steven Dietz's family drama lacks high stakes.
Nothing is as it seems to be in How a Boy Fall…
Scott Weinstein's staging is far more knock-out than knockoff.
It is hard not to have low expectations for yet another revival of Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey's 1…
Her new monthly showcase at Duke of Perth creates a community for newbies and vets alike.
Gina DeLuca is a 32-year-old Chicago-based writer and live lit performe…
Bulgarian playwright Zachary Karabashliev's ddrama shows promise, but falters.
Bulgarian playwright Zachary Karabashliev's 2008 play, about two entwined dysfunct…
The Guatemalan immigrant shares his own perspectives on failure and finding his voice.
Nestor Gomez, "creator, producer, curator, and host" of the immigrant-focu…
Some familiar cast-offs get a chance to show off their reality-competition chops in this new musical.
America's Best Outcast Toy, by Larry Todd Cousineau (book a…
Maya Malan-Gonzalez's contemporary Latinx take on A Christmas Carol shows promise despite production difficulties.
In retelling Charles Dickens's perennial holid…
A young girl must save Christmas in this new family musical.
This original Christmas show (story by Larry Little, music by Dylan MarcAurele, book and lyrics by J…
The Dickensian melodrama-turned-musical features an outstanding ensemble.
Lionel Bart's musical adaptation of Charles Dickens's 1839 novel Oliver Twist first pre…
New American Folk Theatre's world premiere needs stronger characters and a more compelling story to match the music.
The story Anthony Whitaker tells in his 90-m…
Ronnie Marmo's one-man show isn't hilarious, but it's arrestingly honest.
In the painfully honest spirit of Lenny Bruce, let's begin with a couple of blunt obser…
He never got the big breaks, but the 1990s improv and solo stalwart has figured some things out.
Jimmy Carrane first made a name for himself 28 years ago when he…
Oak Park Festival Theatre's production promenades through the Cheney Mansion.
Staged in various rooms throughout Oak Park's Cheney Mansion, David Rice's clever a…
A real-life Jewish "catcher" for the Gestapo never takes compelling shape in this Agency Theater Collective production.
Nicknamed "blond poison" by the Nazis (he…
