2,444 stories from chicagoreader.com
Right after the curtain call at First Floor Theater's world premiere of Pro-Am, a colleague sitting behind me leaned over and asked, "Have you ever seen Stage Door?" Despite the fact that Br…
Joshua Allen's third installment in his Chicago-set "Grand Boulevard Trilogy" (after The Last Pair of Earlies, which alternated between 1921 and 1938, and October Storm, set in 1960) takes p…
Based on the life experiences of Sonny Mills's great-aunt, Agnete Ottosen, in Denmark before, during, and after the Nazi occupation, The Danish Play tries to pack way too much into its nearl…
Everything about Jay Stull's The Singularity Play, now in a world premiere at Jackalope Theatre (directed by Georgette Verdin) should feel timely and tense. It's about the effects of AI on a…
The galvanic power of language to create and destroy is easy to take for granted. Language defines how we think, how others perceive us, and how we engage with the world. So what happens whe…
Swiss playwright Friedrich Dürrenmatt's The Visit has found many reimaginings since it was first produced in 1956. The story of a wealthy woman returning to the town that once scorned her a…
Rarely has a mediocre musical received as sparkling a revival as Blank Theatre Company's current rendition of On the Twentieth Century, the Adolph Green-Betty Comden-Cy Coleman adaptation of…
First coproduced in 2014 by Court Theatre and American Blues Theater, Nambi E. Kelley's adaptation of Richard Wright's 1940 novel Native Son is now in a stirring revival at Lifeline under IL…
Lavender Men"in its midwest premiere with About Face Theatre"is giving opportunity; opportunity to see the story from another angle, perhaps. It's a chance to trip lightly through a fantasia…
With stories of migrants and climate change in the news every day, Chicago playwright Dolores DÃaz's Black Sunday couldn't be more timely"even if it is set in 1935. TimeLine Theatre's wor…
Sixteen years after the premiere of the original Tony Award"winning musical Next to Normal (book and lyrics by Brian Yorkey and music by Tom Kitt), Pop Up! Productions presents a South Asian…
What was in the water in Hollywood in the late 80s and early 90s to instigate so many films (Fatal Attraction, She-Devil, Soapdish) about obsessed and vengeful women? Was it just part of the…
If you've been looking for the 21st century's answer to Samuel Beckett's Endgame, your wait is over. Levi Holloway's Turret, now in a world premiere (also directed by the playwright) with A …
What started as a birthday party celebration for the Gift has since become an annual tradition, featuring ten ten-minute plays by a variety of playwrights. Adding to the numerical energy, ea…
At one point in Hell in a Handbag's new opus, Poor People! The Parody Musical, the central protagonist, L'il Orphan Arnie (Dakota Hughes), complains, "Nothing makes sense when I try to make …
T.S. Eliot conceived of his verse play Murder in the Cathedral in 1935. It was performed at Canterbury Cathedral and in the very room where the murder that provides the inciting incident of …
Young People's Theatre of Chicago brings this musical adaptation of the children's book classic Last Stop on Market Street back to Chicago in a vibrant production that packs soul, substance,…
It's been too long since actor/director/writer/singer/dancer/Obama media strategist Paul Oakley Stovall dedicated his prolific talents to Chicago's theater community. A regular on stages her…
When it comes to portrayals, on the big screen or the stage, of the Latino migrant experience, most stories focus on the journey, on the actual border experience and the abuses many migrants…
Cult Show is a play about the human need to socialize and the cult of the Neo-Futurists. In it, ensemble members Alex Hovi, DeVaughn Loman, Joanna Jamerson, and Lara Johnson and writers/dire…
My only memory of a Thanksgiving play from my school days stretches back to first grade, when I was asked to play a young Pilgrim boy instead of a girl"because there were more girls than boy…
Editor's Note: Since all the plays presented in Hamburgers & Disappointment are for two people, we thought it made some sense to have two critics writing about the festival. Capacity and…
In the first scene of Mothering the Movement, seven members of Free Street Theater's youth ensemble riff on what mothers mean to them. On opening night, it was clear that some had their own …
It's amazing that this play about old souls moves along at such a brisk pace. Theatre Above the Law's new production of Craig Lucas's romantic comedy/drama Prelude to a Kiss is intention…
"Jerry, just remember, it's not a lie, if you believe it." Jason Alexander doesn't repeat this famous George Costanza line from Seinfeld in Rob Ulin's morality comedy, Judgment Day, now in a…
