Stages, Theater

Review: Theo Ubique’s Baked! The Musical Cooks Up Something Funny and Tender

I have always said that there is no real American culture because we are a country of immigrants. The one thing that is a common denominator is the striving to […]

Kathy D. Hey /
Broadway, Stages, Theater

Review: Hamilton Returns to Remind Us That Today’s Politics Is History

Hamilton has landed in Chicago and I was not prepared for the mania that was opening night. The line wound down State Street from the Nederlander on Randolph for people […]

Kathy D. Hey /
Stages, Theater

Review: Birthday Candles at Northlight Theatre Will Light Up Your Evening

Birthday Candles is a new play now on stage at Northlight Theatre. It’s a poignant comedy/drama that will cure your emotional ills for an evening with its story of love, life […]

Nancy S Bishop /
Stages, Theater

Review: Shattered Globe’s A View from the Bridge Simmers with Raw Emotion and Physicality

Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge is a mid-century American story, a tale that’s rimmed with classic notions of honor and respect, as old as Greek tragedy and Sicilian immigrant lore. […]

Nancy S Bishop /
Stages, Theater

Review: Congo Square Theatre Illuminates an Uncomfortable Truth in Welcome to Matteson

Congo Square Theatre is celebrating its 25th anniversary of staging a full spectrum of the Black experience in America. A part of that celebration is the world premiere of Welcome […]

Kathy D. Hey /
Stages, Storefront, Theater

Review: In Water People Theater’s North & Sur, Two Poets Meet—and Magic Happens

Dijo el cuervo, “nunca más.” That famous line of 19th century American poetry, “Quoth the Raven, Nevermore,” is a thread that runs through North & Sur, the new play being staged by […]

Nancy S Bishop /
Stages, Storefront, Theater

Review: In Three Crows’ Beauty Queen of Leenane, McDonagh’s Dark Comedy Illuminates

Before last year’s The Banshees of Inisherin… before Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri… before In Bruges… before all the Oscars noms and Tony nods Irish playwright Martin McDonagh has racked […]

Doug Mose /
Review, Stages, Theater, Theater Festival

Dispatch: Midwest Premiere of Morisseau Play Highlights Milwaukee Black Theatre Festival

At a time when many regional theater companies are pulling back on their operations due to funding and other issues, Milwaukee’s Black Theatre Festival has expanded from one week to […]

Anne Siegel /
Comedy, Music, Stages, Theater

Review: Tech Glow-Up for Chicago’s Long-Running Blue Man Group

Blue Man Group started as outsider art, railing against the machine of corporate commodification and end-stage capitalism. Now it’s become a perfect performance entrée for kids and their families, which […]

Karin McKie /
Stages, Theater

Review: Hell in a Handbag Stages a Hilarious Parody with Murder Rewrote

Hell in a Handbag puts Joan Crawford, The Bad Seed, Jane Wyman, and Mad Magazine in the Wayback Machine and produces a delicious satire with Murder Rewrote. This show is […]

Kathy D. Hey /
Stages, Theater

Review: Steep Theatre’s The Writer Makes a Feminist Assault on Theater and Its Patriarchy

The Writer, Steep Theatre’s new play by English playwright Ella Hickson, is an assault on theater and on the patriarchy. It’s a much-deserved feminist assault. Whether it’s good theater or […]

Nancy S Bishop /
Stages, Theater

Review: Music Theater Works Presents Madcap Ribaldry and Great Music in The Producers

Mel Brooks is one of the great geniuses of comedy hands down and The Producers is one of his many masterpieces. Music Theater Works celebrates its 150th show under the […]

Kathy D. Hey /