We sit through 60 minutes of ambiguity and tension—about what? When hang finally reveals (almost reveals) its essential point in the final 25 minutes, we are caught up in the […]
When I described the synopsis of Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People to my date, he groaned. Politics, environmental crisis, public figures and large companies taking advantage of the little guy… […]
Playwright Sheila Callaghan (writer/producer of Showtime’s Shameless) morphs memes into scenes in the delicious Chicago premiere of Women Laughing Alone with Salad. Guy (Japhet Balaban) is EveryGuy, a dope-smoking dilettante […]
Last year, when it turned 50, the Stanley Kramer film Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? was added to the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress, marking it for preservation […]
Writing teachers ask their fledgling essayists to answer the question: “So what? Why write this? What’s the point?” Theater artists also should have a similar rubric for plays. Walkabout’s music, […]
Through the Elevated Line at Silk Road Rising is a play about a stranger in a new land. We meet Razi Gol (Salar Ardebili) as he arrives from Iran. We […]
Cyrano, the new adaptation of Edmund Rostand’s poetic Cyrano de Bergerac, by Michael Hollinger and Aaron Posner, is lean and hilarious. The man with the famously large nose is played […]
The Picture of Dorian Gray, the only novel by the brilliant Irish playwright and poet, Oscar Wilde, is loaded with Wildean bon mots. It is one of the most quotable […]
Plantation!, now receiving its world premiere in a production at Lookingglass Theatre directed by David Schwimmer, is a comedic take on race and reparations in the 21st century. Written by […]
You for Me for You is a play that can tear at your heart and also remind you of current politics. (From which there is no escape.) Coincidentally, the president’s […]
You’ll be uncomfortable. The things you’re hearing when you see The Condition of Femme by Circle Theatre will be incredibly unpleasant. If you have had the experiences, you’ll relate, and it might be painful. If you […]
In late 2016, all the skeletons in the Neo-Futurists’ closet were dragged out into the open, as a schism between the company and its founder resulted in the end of […]