Matthew Nerber is our Guest Author on the Stages page. He is a performer and theater artist in Chicago, and a former literary contributor with the Generation, the University at Buffalo’s longest […]
Thornton Wilder’s The Skin of Our Teeth is the story of the universal family, beset by war and catastrophes but enduring despite all. In a way, The Skin of Our Teeth (written […]
A Red Orchid Theatre’s latest show An Evening at the Talkhouse is my kind of production. It’s a darkly funny one-act play running around 100 minutes. It’s funny in a […]
It’s all about the names. Early in The Crucible, set in colonial Salem, young girls caught dancing in the woods name other girls who were involved to save themselves from […]
We are the authors of our own lives, mostly figuratively, but exceedingly literally in Writers Theatre’s energetic production of Mónica Hoth and Claudio Valdés Kuri’s Quixote: On the Conquest of Self, translated […]
The invisible hand in Steep Theatre’s new play does not refer to terrorism or ghostly acts of murder. Steep gives us a clue by including a quotation from Adam Smith’s […]
This weekend in Lincolnshire, the Marriott Lincolnshire wraps up its nearly tw-month-long run of Honeymoon in Vegas. When the musical arrived on the scene in 2015, it was praised for its […]
Euripides’ The Trojan Women may be the greatest anti-war play ever written. And the timing is certainly right for an anti-war play. The new production of The Trojan Women by […]
October is a crazy month for arts and culture in Chicago. We have plenty of theater openings, and in addition there are festivals such as Chicago Ideas Week, Open House […]
Director Gary Griffin has been having a field day in Chicago. In the past two theater seasons alone, he has had the task of shepherding several high-profile Broadway productions from […]
How do you address the ever-problematic female groveling speeches in Shakespeare’s sexist play? Chicago Shakespeare Theatre throws a powerhouse, A-list, all-female cast at old Will’s The Taming of The Shrew, […]
The scene is Purgatory and it’s a big trial, presided over by a judge who was with Lee when he surrendered at Appomattox. Pontius Pilate takes the Fifth. A motley […]