Gift Theatre’s Grapes of Wrath Weaves Powerful Human Story of Depression Eras
The Gift Theatre’s eloquent new production of The Grapes of Wrath is a story of Dust Bowl migrants during the Great Depression of the 1930s, but it bears witness […]
Griffin’s Bat Boy A Bold, Bizarre Blast
The winner of the 2001 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Musical has, at long last, come to Chicago. Bat Boy: The Musical, in a triumphant Chicago premiere by Griffin Theatre […]
Company Transcends Its Era at Writers Theatre
It wasn’t immediately clear what to expect from Wednesday’s press opening of the 1970 Stephen Sondheim musical Company. On its first run, this musical was a smash hit, nominated for […]
The SpongeBob Musical Makes Joyous Chicago Splash
Some seem incredulous based on the piece of intellectual property that spawned this production; however, unlike a certain New York fiasco with a “friendly neighborhood Spider-Man,” The SpongeBob Musical […]
The Unfortunates: A Woman’s Story of Poverty & Prostitution in Victorian London
The Unfortunates, staged by the new SoloChicago Theatre Company, is an excellent second outing from the company that produced the hit one-man show, Churchill, starring Ronald Keaton, in 2015. […]
Tiananmen Square’s “Tank Man” Sought in TimeLine’s Chimerica
Chris Rickett as Mel Stanwyck and Coburn Goss as Joe Schofield. Photo by Lara Goetsch Lucy Kirkwood’s 2014 Best New Play Olivier Award winner Chimerica, running at the MacArthur-Award-winning TimeLine Theatre, […]
Fight Quest–You Choose the Champion of the Quest @CSZ Chicago
Would you like to be master of the universe? Or maybe just director of a play? If so, the interactive play Fight Quest is a good place to start. It […]
ATC takes you back to the ’80s with Xanadu
Xanadu–(n.) the title of a horrendous ’80s film and a theatrical production parodying said horrendous film now showing at the American Theatre Company. If you hail from the land of […]
Lookingglass’ Unbalanced Thaddeus and Slocum Ultimately Unsatisfying
Lookingglass Theatre’s world premiere of Thaddeus and Slocum: A Vaudeville Adventure chronicles the (vaudevillian) adventures of best friends and partners Thaddeus (Travis Turner) and Slocum (Samuel Taylor) as they […]
Tapped Tap Dances a Satire on Surveillance Society, Sluggishly
Tapped, a Treasonous Musical Comedy, is a frothy approach to political satire, featuring tap dancing spies and snitches, a six-piece live band, and songs with refrains like “Everybody loves a […]
City Lit’s Hauptmann Tells Tense Story of Another “Trial of the Century”
Bruno Richard Hauptmann, the “baby killer,” the man tried, convicted and executed for the 1932 kidnapping of the Charles Lindbergh baby, is vividly personified by George Seegebrecht in City […]
Tim Crouch Exacts Hilarious Revenge in Meta I, Malvolio
The Beginning: Tim Crouch in/as I, Malvolio. Photo by Bruce Atherton British actor and playwright Tim Crouch gives audiences a hysterical new perspective on Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night through the solo lens of […]