Review: Goodman Theatre Continues a Fine Holiday Tradition with A Christmas Carol
The Goodman Theatre’s 46th annual production of A Christmas Carol is the kickoff to the holiday season in Chicago. The last time I saw it was over 12 years ago […]
Review: Milwaukee Pays Tribute to Hometown Legend in Liberace!
While Chicago can lay claim to many headliners of the past, only Milwaukee had a major influence in the life of a piano prodigy who eventually became known as a […]
Review: The Conspirators Create Bizarre and Brilliant Magic in COMMEDIA DIVINA: It’s Worse Than That
Ask a few actors about their childhoods and you start to notice patterns. “My siblings and I made costumes and put on silly plays for our parents,” is a common […]
Review: Witch by Artistic Home Uses a 17th Century Story to Question Our Hope for the Future
“Where do we go from here? Can we imagine a better world? Or is it time to burn it all down and start over?” That’s part of the opening speech […]
Dialogs: The Fire This Time with Roxane Gay at the Chicago Humanities Festival
The Chicago Humanities Festival hosted writer Roxane Gay, in conversation with writer Lindsay Hunter, at the University of Chicago’s Lab School. Like recent CHF speaker and fellow Black female author […]
Review: Beetlejuice Exhausts More Than It Entertains, and Audiences Don’t Seem to Mind
Like movie theater blockbusters and best-selling fiction franchises, Broadway has its own version of the audience vs. critic debate, where the biggest commercial successes are often the ones least likely […]
Dialogs: Airports, Origin Stories and RuPaul Unite David Sedaris and Henry Rollins
Quirky, prolific memoirist David Sedaris lived for a time in Chicago, and frequently comes back to the Windy City to read his writing to appreciative audiences. He’s famous for spending […]
Review: At Timeline Theatre, The Lifespan of a Fact Dramatizes a Contentious Search for Accuracy
An eager young intern for a famous magazine agrees to take on a new, fast turnaround assignment: fact-checking an important essay by a famous writer. The essay is to be […]
Review: At Madison’s Forward Theater, the Cooks Are Still Serving Time at Clyde’s
At first glance, one may have trouble seeing the beauty in Clyde’s, penned by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Lynn Nottage. In the commercial kitchen of a truck stop diner, life seems […]
Review: Steppenwolf’s POTUS Follows a Manic Day in the Life of the Real White House VIPs—the Female Staff
This review and the final dialog are written by theater critics Nancy Bishop and Kim Campbell. POTUS is ostensibly a play about the President of the United States, in which […]
Dialogs: Considering Contagion with Maddow and Schama at Chicago Humanities Festival Events
This autumn’s Chicago Humanities Festival is chock-a-block with notable writers. That focus is normal for one of the Windy City’s most diverse and comprehensive cultural institutions, but especially true this […]
Review: Chicago Shakespeare Sparks Love and Joy With Twelfth Night
“If music be the food of love, play on.” (Duke Orsino, Act I, Twelfth Night) At its center, Twelfth Night is a story about love. Falling in love, out of love, and everything in […]