Review: Magical Wolf Play at Gift Theatre Will Make You Think and Break Your Heart
It sounds like a sad story. A couple adopts a child from another country, then decides “it’s not a good fit” and decides to un-adopt him. But if I tell […]
Nancy S. Bishop is publisher and Stages editor of Third Coast Review. She’s a member of the American Theatre Critics Association and a 2014 Fellow of the National Critics Institute at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center. You can read her personal writing on pop culture at nancybishopsjournal.com, and follow her on Twitter @nsbishop. She also writes about film, books, art, architecture and design.
Review: Roast, It’s the Comrades’ Idea for Your Funeral Planning
Roast is a world premiere and a credible first play by Northwestern alum Harry Wood, produced by the Comrades. It’s often funny and occasionally poignant, even though the structure of […]
Review: Pomona at Steep Theatre Tells a Sci-Fi Horror Story
Zeppo (Peter Moore) is driving around the ring road in Manchester, eating Chicken McNuggets (he buys ’em by the hundred) and reeling off the entire plot of Raiders of the […]
Viewpoint: Art and Politics Tangle Around the Irish Troubles … in Books, on Stage and Screen
The Irish are known for their devotion to language and their love of talking. In his one-man show, On Beckett, multitalented artist Bill Irwin pays homage to the Irish playwright […]
Review: Ensemble-Made Chicago Lets Us Peek Into Some of Chicago’s Most Inventive Theaters
Chicago is home to 200 to 250 theater companies, depending on who’s counting. Most of them are what we might call traditional theaters that stage scripted productions, both new works […]
Review: Ada and the Engine at the Artistic Home Weaves a Love Story of Poetry, Music and Technology
Ada and the Engine at the Artistic Home is a magical play about poetry and technology, tinged with tragedy. Ada Byron Lovelace was the daughter of the famous poet, a man […]
Review: If I Forget at Victory Gardens Tells a Rich Story of Family Angst
If I Forget is very much about religion, specifically about Judaism—and yet it isn’t. It’s a complex human story in which you’ll find something relevant and moving, no matter whether you […]
Review: Jez Butterworth’s The River Casts a Mood of Mystery at Boho Theatre
Basketball is loud and fast. Soccer is sheer perfect action. Football is hard-hitting, even brutal. But there’s a different kind of intensity in another sport: Fly fishing. Fly fishermen say […]
Review: Ms. Blakk for President Is a Raucous Campaign Rally and Reminder of the AIDS Crisis
Chicago had a candidate in the ring during the 1992 presidential election. Ms. Joan Jett Blakk ran for the Democratic nomination that year. What? You don’t remember her? She won […]
Preview: Write Your Own Story at the American Writers Museum’s Tools of the Trade Exhibit
Typewriters, inkwells, Braille writers and more of the tools that writers use will be featured in the Tools of the Trade exhibit opening at the American Writers Museum on Saturday, June […]
Review: Artemisia’s Sweet Texas Reckoning Resolves a Culture Clash a Bit Too Slickly
Sweet Texas Reckoning is a family story set up as a kitchen culture clash. It’s the story of a biracial, same-sex couple from New York vs. religious, bigoted Texans. The script […]
Review: At Red Tape Theatre, We Can All Be Pussy Riot–and If We’re Not, Why Aren’t We?
They say all you need to become a punk rock band are three chords and the truth. Punk songs are short, loud and not musically sophisticated. But they usually have […]