A musical based on War and Peace sounds like a ludicrous proposition. And of course it is"which is why Dave Malloy's Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812 only focuses on a 70-page i…
Avoidant and in denial. Most of us have been there. But when college girl Davy, played by Emma Samuelson in Never Better, leans into these strategies, it causes problems. Still mourning the …
In Chicago Shakespeare's violent, bloody, overstuffed freight train of a production, the traditionally heroic King Henry V is a symbol of unchecked nationalism. Henry VThrough 10/6: Tue 7 PM…
Northlight Theatre's The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk, written by Daniel Jamieson, featuring music by Ian Ross, and directed by Elizabeth Margolius, is a delightful journey of love and artistry.…
What do we owe our community? Ourselves? Spicy and explosive, the must-see East Texas Hot Links lives up to its name. The latest offering from director Ron OJ Parson at the Court Theatre is …
Reading the statistics on femicides in the adjacent exhibit set up for Water People Theater's The Delicate Tears of the Waning Moon triggered my emotions and an alarming memory of my visit t…
You think the Titanic had a disastrous maiden voyage? Consider the Vasa, a Swedish warship constructed by King Gustavus Adolphus (sometimes called "the father of modern warfare") between 162…
The tense family dinner has long been a trope for American realism. Just off the top of my head, plays that have such a device as a central dramatic event include Tracy Letts's August: Osage…
Here's the thing about icons: they're not known for their flexibility. Take Pablo Picasso's towering, untitled 1967 Core-Ten steel sculpture outside Daley Plaza. It's been featured on so man…
As my first experience with this Kenneth Lonergan 1996 contemporary classic, seeing it in a small black box, directed by and starring twentysomethings, was a visceral thrill. Under Andrew Sh…
Within a Shadow, now in its world premiere from Lex the Movie in association with Red Theater, is an ambitious two-act dramedy that digs into the complexities of estrangement, cultural ident…
What a difference nine years makes. When Paul Slade Smith's witty, political farce, then called A Real Lulu, premiered in the summer of 2015 at the Peninsula Players in Door Country, Wiscons…
In the program for Pulse Theatre Chicago's world premiere production of Beneath the Willow Tree, playwright Isis Elizabeth tells us a little about the origins of her play. Begun during the p…
Janet Ulrich Brooks is my kind of theatrical royalty: a no-nonsense performer who can play everything from firebrand playwright Lillian Hellman to diva Maria Callas with riveting conviction.…
In Jonathan Demme's 1986 anti-screwball comedy, Something Wild, Jeff Daniels's straight-arrow yuppie gets his life turned upside down in a scary way by Melanie Griffith's wild child, Lulu. T…
With The Full Monty, Paramount Theatre completes the trifecta of musicals derived from movies about British deindustrialization, on the heels of 2021's Kinky Boots and Billy Elliot earlier t…
When legend becomes fact, musicalize the legend (to paraphrase John Ford). Sherman Edwards and Peter Stone follow this strategy again and again over the course of their rousing 1969 musical …
At long last, true believers, the third installment of Mark Pracht's "Four-Color Trilogy""The House of Ideas"is here, opening the 2024"'25 season at City Lit Theater. Following Pracht's firs…
In a couple of weeks, the national tour of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child lands at the James M. Nederlander Theatre. The show, written by Jack Thorne from an original story by Harry Potte…
There's self-aware"and then there's [title of show]. Billed as being "about two guys writing a musical about two guys writing a musical," PrideArts launches its 2024-25 season with the Broad…
On July 27, 1982, as editor of Chicago GayLife newspaper, I attended a meeting in Washington, D.C., between government health officials and a group of LGBTQ+ activists and leaders of organiz…
Steppenwolf has been mixing it up in recent (post-COVID shutdown) years with solo comedy outings from national names like Mike Birbiglia (The Old Man and the Pool) and Alex Edelman (Just for…
I'd never heard of Neal Adelman before seeing brand-new Dodge Box Theatre's evening of one-acts, presented under the somewhat confounding omnibus title of Legato Limbo Loud or GoFastWait, at…
Adapting stage to screen poses many problems. There's usually something leaden and, uh, stagey about making a movie of a play; witness how few watchable Shakespeare films there are. They're …
Existing IP doesn't always translate from screen to musical theater stage. In many ways, Back to the Future: the Musical is one of those shows. Some of the songs are mediocre at best and its…