The Hypocrites’ Adding Machine Anything But Mediocre
Amidst a cloud of haze and the repeated plunking of a piano key, a nondescript man hunches over his desk, writing feverishly. By the time everyone has found their seats, the monotonous […]
Court’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night: Dysfunctional Family Masterpiece
[soliloquy id=”3269″] Photos by Michael Brosilow. A friend says that all great stories are about dysfunctional families. Certainly much of the best modern theater is about dysfunctional families. You have […]
Matilda, a Musical Bookworms Can Rejoice To
I had to borrow a kid to go see Matilda. I also had to put aside my usual prejudice towards musicals. But no one was forcing Matilda on me. […]
Gift Theatre’s Richard III A Robo-Usurper
Michael Patrick Thornton in The Gift Theatre’s Richard III. Photo by Claire Demos. The real Richard III perhaps wasn’t such a bad chap, not the “bottled spider” Shakespeare would have […]
Writers Theatre Opens New Venue with Sparkling Arcadia
[soliloquy id=”3199″] 1809–Thomasina and Septimus. Present–Valentine, Bernard, Chloe and Hannah. Photos by Michael Brosilow. Writers Theatre opened its spectacular new theater in Glencoe this week with an appropriately spectacular production […]
Cole Theatre’s The Bachelors Would Be Better Off Remaining Single
We are at an ideal time to be making a social commentary on the male perspective. That’s right – the male perspective, the very perspective that has idealized femininity since […]
Strong work in AFT’s after all the terrible things I do
About Face Theatre’s Chicago premiere of playwright A. Rey Pamatmat’s after all the terrible things I do delivers on the company’s promise to produce plays that “advance the national dialogue on […]
Lookingglass Production Diminishes the Power of Lorca’s Blood Wedding
Lookingglass Theatre’s new production of Blood Wedding by Federico Garcia Lorca, directed by Daniel Ostling, is set in the American Dust Bowl of the 1930s. Lorca’s simple and poetic […]
Mary-Kate Olsen is in Love at the Apollo Theatre: Symbols Lost
I walked into the premier of the Comrades’ production of Mary-Kate Olsen Is in Love, knowing that it would be a quirky one, hence the title. I thought I would […]
Broadway in Chicago’s 42nd Street a Rollicking Good Time
When the lights dim, the curtain at the Cadillac Palace Theatre rises slowly, exposing forty pairs of feet dancing perfectly in sync. The curtain pauses at knee-height, focusing your eyes […]
Sideshow’s Mai Dang Lao Struggles to Serve a Happy Meal
There’s a special form of resentment I and the rest of working class America feel about restaurant jobs. Yeah, you know exactly what I’m talking about: coming home from work […]
“Trip the Light Fantastic”– Daring but Disappointing
Trip the Light Fantastic: The Making of SuperStrip, the new dance-theater work from Lucky Plush Productions, defies categorization. Commissioned by the Harris Theater, the show revolves around a group of […]