Dance, Stages

Review: Hubbard Street Dance Chicago Puts Some Heat in Winter With Of Hope

The Hubbard Street mission is to awaken the human spirit through contemporary dance. That is a lofty mission in the contemporary world but I think that they have succeeded with […]

Kathy D. Hey /
Stages, Theater

Review: Goodman Theatre’s Matchbox Magic Flute Is a Tiny Enchantment

Great works of art come in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes, they are vast and sweeping, like the Sistine Chapel or Anna Karenina; and sometimes they are tiny, like a […]

Doug Mose /
Stages, Theater

Review: Invictus Theatre Delivers a Living History Lesson in Topdog/Underdog

The way we are taught American history is a scratch-the-surface deal that requires us to keep digging. Playwright Suzan Lori-Parks is a master excavator of history and reveals it in […]

Kathy D. Hey /
Children's theater, Stages, Theater

Review: Young People’s Theatre Tells Compelling New Version of The Diary of Anne Frank

The story of Anne Frank is a familiar one. The expressive teenager, who was sequestered with her family in WWII Amsterdam to protect them from Nazi capture, has been famous […]

Nancy S Bishop /
Stages, Theater

Writers Theatre’s The Band’s Visit to a Small Israeli Town Features Intimate and Emotional Storytelling

Adam Qutaishat, Dana Saleh Omar, and Dave Honigman in THE BAND'S VISIT. Photo Credit: Michael Brosilow

Dina (Sophie Madorsky) enters at the top of the show. The space is empty as she calmly stares down at the audience and whispers the opening lines of the play: […]

Lauren Katz /
Stages, Theater

Review: Saint Sebastian Players’ An Enemy of the People Depicts a Prophet Submerged in Politics

Review by Anthony Neri. A new staging of Henrik Ibsen’s classic play An Enemy of the People has come to Chicago, directed by Jim Masini. It dramatizes a public health crisis in […]

Guest Author /
Stages, Theater

Review: Court Theatre’s Antigone Asks the Old Questions for New Times

Every time an old play is revived, it inhabits two dimensions—the time of its writing and the time of its revival. You can’t exactly call a restaging of a 2,400+ […]

Doug Mose /
Broadway, Stages, Theater

Review: Midnight’s Broken Toll …. Girl from the North Country

Girl from the North Country, a musical adaptation of Bob Dylan’s songs by the Irish playwright Conor McPherson, has already appeared in London’s West End, Off-Broadway at the Public Theater, […]

June Sawyers /
Dance, Stages

Review: In Studies in Blue, Joffrey Ballet Performs a Visual and Sensual Feast of Movement

Blue is a metaphor for emotions, music, sensuality, and an emotionally wrought period in the life of Pablo Picasso. Like Joni Mitchell’s “Blue,” the Joffrey Ballet’s Studies in Blue held […]

Kathy D. Hey /
Review, Stages, Theater

Review: Bottled Spiders and Blood Splatter in Chicago Shakespeare’s Richard III 

Now is the unseasonably warm winter of our discontent, and Chicago Shakespeare Theater’s new artistic director Edward Hall helms his first production on Navy Pier. Tony Award-nominated track and field […]

Karin McKie /
Dance, Stages

Review: Compañía Nacional de Danza Starts Tepid, Ends With Dazzle at the Auditorium Theatre

Spain has a complicated history with dance. Like most European countries, Spain’s cultural leaders would rather have a reputation for the finer arts like ballet but came to accept flamenco, […]

Kathy D. Hey /
Review, Stages, Theater

Review: Otherworld Theatre’s Twihard! A Twilight Musical Parody Is a Comic Treat for Diehard Fans and Others

Review by Anthony Neri.  A zany and eclectic soundtrack by Tiffany Keane Schaefer and Brian Rasmussen meets a zany and eclectic cast in this hilarious generation-specific parody. The three background […]

Guest Author /