Lyric’s Cosi fan tutte Makes Mozart, Opera Fun Again
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 […]
Steppenwolf’s The Burn Remixes Mean Girls With Young Witches of Salem
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 […]
Breach at Victory Gardens: Love and Relationships, Sitcom Style
Breach: a manifesto on race in america through the eyes of a black girl recovering from self-hate is a world premiere at Victory Gardens Theater. The play’s long title might […]
Haven Theatre’s Fear and Misery in the Third Reich: Brecht’s Ghost Warns Us About Fascist Dictatorship
Fear and Misery in the Third Reich can be described as Bertolt Brecht’s ghost arriving to warn us about the United States of Donald Trump turning into a fascist dictatorship. […]
Steppenwolf’sYou Got Older Succeeds as a Quietly Realized Family Story
After seeing Steppenwolf’s Chicago premiere of Clare Barron’s poignant play, You Got Older, I felt the need to text my sister. Much like Barron’s protagonist, Mae (Caroline Neff), my sister, […]
Ragtime at Marriott Theatre a Powerhouse, Wake-Up Call
It’s not for nothing that director Nick Bowling selected Ragtime for the 2018 season at the Marriott Theatre in Lincolnshire. When he read the book for the 1996 play, which was based on […]
Rhinofest Continues for the 29th Year: We Review and Comment
Chicago’s longest-running fringe festival, the annual Rhinoceros Theater Festival, now in its 29th year, is presenting shows six nights a week through February 25. Rhinofest is produced by Prop Thtr […]
Bobbing and Weaving in Red Tape’s Catastrophic I Saw Myself
Red Tape Theatre inaugurates its new “The Ready” space with Howard Barker’s scenery-chewing angst-fest I Saw Myself. The 13th century widow Sleev (Carolyn Hoerdemann), vulnerable in a black slip, is weaving […]
Humboldt Pie is a Slice of Comedic Comfort Food at Slate Arts
Humboldt Park might not be the first place you’d think of when you’re talking about seeing comedy in Chicago, but recently, the ever-changing nature of Humboldt Park has become home […]
Doug Varone and Dancers Return to Chicago
Thirty years into choreographing for his company Doug Varone and Dancers, Doug Varone believes he has become somewhat of a pointillist. He said looking back, his early choreography resembled the […]
Nice Girl at Raven Theatre: Sweet, Heartfelt Story of Four People Whose Lives Aren’t What They Hoped
Josephine is the nice girl. She’s so nice that she remains living at home with her mother, working in a dead-end job, when she really wants to do what she […]
Strawdog Theatre’s Pillars of the Community Questions the Self-Interest of Leaders
Pillars of the Community, adapted by Samuel Adamson from Henrik Ibsen’s 1877 work, The Pillars of Society, is one of Ibsen’s lesser performed works. According to scholars, Ibsen struggled to […]