2,444 stories from chicagoreader.com
Chicago Danztheatre Ensemble and CIRCA-Pintig's collaborative piece, Panther in the Sky, written by Lani T. Montreal and directed by Mignon McPherson Stewart, tackles difficult subject matte…
MPAACT resident writer Shepsu Aakhu does something remarkable in this gentle, metaphysical play. He creates a world that successfully blends ritual and realism without succumbing to the weak…
Could you call Chris Dritsas's and Zach Hacker's musical comedy a parody? They probably wouldn't fight you on it, but I might"the gags, send-ups, and compositions here (music by John Love) a…
A tormented young man is visited by the ghost of his recently slain father, who asks the son to avenge his death at the hands of his own brother"who, to add insult to injury, has taken his j…
Self-indulgent. A blunt word, yet little else feels appropriate for a show that ran three hours and eight minutes"from late start to the end of curtain call"when it is said to be two hours a…
In an embarrassment of riches, two impeccable renditions of August Wilson's plays share space in the Chicago theater community this spring: How I Learned What I Learned, produced by Congo Sq…
In the opening scene of Meredith Willson's The Music Man at Marriott Theatre, a train car full of traveling salesmen showcase their talent and precision as they fast-talk and sing their way …
There have been several intriguing plays about siblings dealing with loss onstage this year, including Leah Nanako Winkler's The Brightest Thing in the World at About Face Theatre and the cu…
A one-person take on Hamlet starring a famous comedian sounds like a recipe for self-indulgence. (Or the opening premise for a deliberately off-kilter affair, as in the ridiculous and sublim…
Some shows age well, some don't. You'd think a silly 74-year-old musical comedy like Guys and Dolls, with its cartoonish characters and sitcom plotlines (like, gambler makes a bet he can't g…
Brooklyn Laundry is a deceptive show: It begins with a meet-cute and briefly lulls you into the sense that it will unspool as something of a rom-com. But playwright John Patrick Shanley isn'…
It's tempting to say that Neil Simon's 1963 romantic comedy Barefoot in the Park hasn't aged well. But even when it premiered on Broadway with Robert Redford and Elizabeth Ashley as newlywed…
Under the best of circumstances, it would be hard to make this 1983 musical soar. The story by playwright Sybille Pearson about three prosperous white, middle-class couples coping with pregn…
Chicago Children's Theatre's (CCT) first production, back in 2006, was the Tony Award-nominated A Year With Frog and Toad, created by brothers Robert (music) and Willie Reale (book and lyric…
One of Chicagoland's best-kept circus secrets is the Triton Troupers Circus, a motley cast of 80-plus circus performers who put on a traditional show every spring in Triton College's gymnasi…
My first visit to Trap Door Theatre did not disappoint, from the hidden alley entrance to the immediate sense of time travel and disorientation upon entry. For the last show of its 30th anni…
What is better than a time travel play? Not much. A rare species in itself, it can only be improved upon by something equally awesome"like centering women, impeccable stage combat, and a roc…
Hershey Felder first played Frédéric Chopin at the now-closed Royal George Theatre in 2005"one of several solo shows about great composers that Felder has created over the years (he's also…
It's tempting to start a review of Beyond the Garden Gate with a comment like, "The fairy tales I grew up with were never like this." But let's face it: The fairy tales we grew up with at le…
Forgetting a hookup's name? Bad. Forgetting your spouse's name? So bad it requires Old Testament intervention.  Hetchman (Scott Danielson) is on a mission to find his lost partner (Da…
Written and directed by Grant Batdorff, this satire of spy thrillers for Two Chairs Theatre at the Annoyance begins with a bang: a wry, spot-on parody of those bombastic title sequences popu…
Just like families, the places we call home can be chosen. Athletes feel at home on the field and plenty of entertainers of all types declare they feel most comfortable onstage, which al…
Tom Stoppard's debut 1966 play could be called Waiting for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern: it matches Samuel Beckett's meditation on the meaninglessness of existence with Shakespeare's portrai…
The play Cock, by Mike Bartlett, is ostensibly a show about turning the "all you need is to find a good woman" narrative for gay men on its head. Set in one apartment, the characters, John, …
Jenny Magnus, as a theater cofounder, surely has a lot on her plate: working at Curious Theatre Branch for 35 years, producing the amazing Rhino Fest, being a human in 2024. Perhaps that exp…
