Review: Second City’s This Too Shall Slap Is a Knockout
For 66 years, Second City has set the standard for sketch comedy in Chicago and beyond. Its Mainstage shows are rooted in the theater’s long-perfected formula—a two-hour mix of political […]
Review: Avalanche Theatre’s Time Is a Color and the Color Is Blue Builds Dramatic Pressure Despite Its Flaws
This Avalanche Theatre world premiere, at the Bramble Arts Loft, might win the Adam Kaz Critic Award for Year’s Coolest Title. Time Is a Color and the Color Is Blue by […]
Review: Remy Bumppo Theatre Brings Art to Life and Life to Art with Yazmina Reza’s Comic Drama
Serge buys a painting. Marc hates it. Yvan is verklempt over his friends’ feud and his coming wedding. That’s the plotline of Yazmina Reza’s comic drama Art, now being staged by […]
Review: The Surreal Journey of South Chicago Dance Theatre’s Season Eight
South Chicago Dance Theatre’s season eight, featuring surreal themes that challenge the mind and the body, premiered at the Auditorium on May 3. Although I had seen another company attempt a […]
Review: Theatre of the Absurd Festival With Surreal Plays by Three Master Playwrights Launched by Gwydion Theatre and Chopin Theatre
Theater fans can get a new appreciation of theater of the absurd this month with eight short plays being staged by Gwydion Theatre over the next few weekends. We saw three of […]
Review: Frankenstein’s Creature, Played by Neurodivergent Performers, at Chicago Shakespeare Theater
The ensemble A.B.L.E., Artists Breaking Limits & Expectations, presented a 90-minute “re-wiring” of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein April 25-27 at Chicago Shakespeare Theater’s Upstairs Studio. Nine neurodivergent actors, including a team […]
Review: At The Wake Of A Dead Drag Queen Reflects on Family, Blackness, and Queer Identity
The audience is given a fan as the entry pass to Story Theatre’s At the Wake of a Dead Drag Queen, written by Terry Guest. There is no doubt that […]
Review: Court Theatre Stages a Masterful Adaptation of Jason Lutes’ Berlin
Jason Lutes took some 20 years to complete his graphic novel, Berlin. Condensing Lutes’ 550-page magnum opus into theatrical language is no easy feat but Court Theatre has brought it […]
Review: Red Theater’s Kairos Probes Questions of Eternal Love—and Life
Kairos pits a newly formed couple against a sci-fi trope—technological revolution. When a new and selective procedure called Prometheus offers the couple synthetic immortality, they struggle, in a very human […]
Review: Citadel Theatre’s A Jukebox for the Algonquin Offers Broad Laughs and a Big Heart
Paul Stroili’s A Jukebox for the Algonquin, currently onstage at Citadel Theatre, does not take place anywhere near the famous literary watering hole. Instead, everything happens in a recreation room […]
Review: Northlight and Theater Wit Join Hands for a Powerful Prayer for the French Republic
“For not only one enemy has risen up against us to destroy us, but in every generation they rise up to destroy us….” That stark bit of liturgy—the V’hi She’amdah—is […]
Review: Parsons Dance Returns with a Funhouse of Dance, Smoke, and Mirrors
Parsons Dance rolled into town last weekend after being away for 30 years. The company was founded in 1985 by artistic director and choreographer David Parsons. The advertising promised an […]