Founded in 2014, the relatively new Refuge Theatre Project aspires to bring musical theater to creative spaces, accessible to broad audiences. It’s a commendable mission, and one the crowded Chicago […]
When I described the synopsis of Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People to my date, he groaned. Politics, environmental crisis, public figures and large companies taking advantage of the little guy… […]
Playwright Sheila Callaghan (writer/producer of Showtime’s Shameless) morphs memes into scenes in the delicious Chicago premiere of Women Laughing Alone with Salad. Guy (Japhet Balaban) is EveryGuy, a dope-smoking dilettante […]
Last year, when it turned 50, the Stanley Kramer film Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? was added to the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress, marking it for preservation […]
Writing teachers ask their fledgling essayists to answer the question: “So what? Why write this? What’s the point?” Theater artists also should have a similar rubric for plays. Walkabout’s music, […]
Neil Tobin is a warm, funny man. He’s welcoming and doesn’t have a hard time putting people at ease. It’s a good quality to have in general, but especially important […]
Plantation!, now receiving its world premiere in a production at Lookingglass Theatre directed by David Schwimmer, is a comedic take on race and reparations in the 21st century. Written by […]
Chicago Shakespeare Theater’s Mary Stuart aligns with the zeitgeist of today’s #TimesUp moment, where women seize the front and center, onstage and off, trying to harness and wield what power […]
RI was supposed to see Southern Gothic a week ago, but life got in the way and I didn’t make it then. Thankfully, the team at Windy City Playhouse (3014 W. […]
Keith Huff’s Six Corners, the world premiere now at American Blues Theater, is quintessentially Chicago. It’s the story of a pair of shady cops, not always on the up and […]
When I think of a fun night at the theater, I don’t typically think of the opera. Blame it on my generation, my relative poverty, my lack of sophistication. What […]
Theater review. Philip Dawkins’ new play, The Burn, blends today’s online world with Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. The real life “mean girls” in The Burn are distant cousins of the […]