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.
Timeline Theatre’s new production of The Lehman Trilogy tells the story of the rise and fall of an iconic American business—starting as an Alabama dry goods merchant and becoming one […]
Two old friends, their bonds apparently fractured by despair at a collapsing world or something else entirely, meet again. One is artistic and the other is a practical man, a […]
Birthday Candles is a new play now on stage at Northlight Theatre. It’s a poignant comedy/drama that will cure your emotional ills for an evening with its story of love, life […]
Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge is a mid-century American story, a tale that’s rimmed with classic notions of honor and respect, as old as Greek tragedy and Sicilian immigrant lore. […]
CHIRP Radio is launching its first film festival this week. But it won’t feature the latest action flick or hot indie rom-coms. As you might expect, CHIRP’s festival will feature […]
Dijo el cuervo, “nunca más.” That famous line of 19th century American poetry, “Quoth the Raven, Nevermore,” is a thread that runs through North & Sur, the new play being staged by […]
Chicago author Kathleen Rooney writes in many genres—fiction, non-fiction, essays, poetry—even Poems While You Wait. She has written several historical fiction novels in her own distinctive style. Heavily researched, novelized, written in […]
Fremont is a quiet movie. Subtle direction by Babak Jalali (Land, Radio Dreams) uses music interludes, long silences and intervals between dialogue to dramatic effect. The film, shot in black and […]
The Writer, Steep Theatre’s new play by English playwright Ella Hickson, is an assault on theater and on the patriarchy. It’s a much-deserved feminist assault. Whether it’s good theater or […]
Steppenwolf Theatre’s production of Harold Pinter’s No Man’s Land is meticulously staged and performed by an excellent cast. Director Les Waters’ four actors do a masterful job with Pinter’s puzzling 1974 script. […]
Forty-five years ago, Jeffrey Sweet wrote a book—the story of Second City, which was then only about a decade old. But Chicago’s preeminent comedy theater had a much longer history, […]
The beauty of art and the tragedy of the climate crisis live side by side in a stunning new exhibit at the Design Museum of Chicago. Some 30 pieces ranging […]