Review: At The Wake Of A Dead Drag Queen Reflects on Family, Blackness, and Queer Identity
The audience is given a fan as the entry pass to Story Theatre’s At the Wake of a Dead Drag Queen, written by Terry Guest. There is no doubt that […]
Review: Red Theater’s Kairos Probes Questions of Eternal Love—and Life
Kairos pits a newly formed couple against a sci-fi trope—technological revolution. When a new and selective procedure called Prometheus offers the couple synthetic immortality, they struggle, in a very human […]
Review: Impostor Theatre’s Helena & Hermia in the Enamored Odyssey Parodies Love’s Whimsies
A musical version of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Helena & Hermia in the Enamored Odyssey whirls and bumbles us through love’s entanglements. What sets this production by the Impostors […]
Review: Stage Left Theatre’s The Distrikt of Lake Michigun Plays With the History of Streeterville and Its Rogue Namesake at Water Tower Place
Stage Left Theatre, a Chicago company with 40 years of history, is redefining storefront theater with its new production, The Distrikt of Lake Michigun, in an empty retail space on the […]
Review: Strawdog Theatre Stages Shakespeare in a Pub—It’s Much Ado About Nothing: The Ides Reunion Episode
The Strawdog Theatre Company is staging a new take on Shakespeare with a satire of ’90s reality shows. Much Ado About Nothing: The Ides Reunion is a spoof of the […]
Review: The Drowning Girls by Three Crows Theatre Tells a True Crime Story With Dramatic Style
The three drowning girls are young women in their 20s and 30s, desperate to marry and avoid spinsterhood. The time is the early 20th century, and Bessie Mundy, Alice Burnham […]
Review: At Jackalope Theatre, Dummy in Diaspora Portrays Post-Millennial and First-Generational Angst
A lot of new work is showing up in the theater world, and mastery of tech allows more productions on stage and streaming. The post-Millennials are possibly the most connected […]
Review: Titus Andronicus Up Close and Intense at Redtwist Theatre
The last time I saw Titus Andronicus, it was promenade-style, staged in the attic of an old Gilded Age mansion in Morgan Park. The audience walked through the play as […]
Review: At the Artistic Home, Hedda Gabler Tells the Story of a Flamboyant 19th Century Proto-Feminist
Was the heroine of Hedda Gabler an early feminist or just a spoiled brat? In the new production of Henrik Ibsen’s 1890 play, Brookelyn Hebert plays her as a bit of both. […]
Review: Gwydion Theatre Revisits Ibsen’s Ghosts With an Uneven Production
One of the great things about plays from past centuries is that they can be restaged or updated in different eras, with different genders and colorblind casting. Shakespeare’s work lends […]
Review: In Trap Door’s The Mannequins’ Ball, Mannequins Are the Movers in a Story That Combines Politics and Partying
The new production of The Mannequins’ Ball at Trap Door Theatre is a whole lot of 1930s agitprop choreographed with music, singing and dancing. Nicole Weisner and Miguel Long direct 90 minutes […]
Review: City Lit’s Glassheart Reimagines Beauty and the Beast Set in a Chicago Apartment
Glassheart is a show bursting with quirky charm, memorable performances and perhaps one too many ideas. This reimagining of Beauty and the Beast set in modern-day Chicago—helmed by newly minted […]