Broadway, Stages, Theater

Review: Broadway in Chicago Brings Well-Crafted, Hilarious Fun in Mrs. Doubtfire

Once in a while, a theater production comes along that does better on tour than it does on Broadway. Mrs. Doubtfire, by the songwriting team of Wayne and Karey Kirkpatrick […]

Anne Siegel /
Broadway, Stages, Theater

Review: Midnight’s Broken Toll …. Girl from the North Country

Girl from the North Country, a musical adaptation of Bob Dylan’s songs by the Irish playwright Conor McPherson, has already appeared in London’s West End, Off-Broadway at the Public Theater, […]

June Sawyers /
Broadway, Stages, Theater

Review: Broadway in Chicago’s The Wiz Casts a Magic Spell

Just about halfway between MGM’s (and Judy Garland’s) immortal The Wizard of Oz and Broadway’s current box-office smash Wicked, there was another musical retelling of L. Frank Baum’s classic American […]

Doug Mose /
Broadway, Review, Stages, Theater

Review: Beetlejuice Exhausts More Than It Entertains, and Audiences Don’t Seem to Mind

Like movie theater blockbusters and best-selling fiction franchises, Broadway has its own version of the audience vs. critic debate, where the biggest commercial successes are often the ones least likely […]

Lisa Trifone /
Broadway, Circus, Stages, Theater

Review: Not Much Warmth in This Chilly Touring Production of Company

The American musical theater has been graced with another revival of Company, Stephen Sondheim’s and George Furth’s 1970 musical about our basic human need for togetherness. In this 2021 Broadway […]

Anne Siegel /
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: Broadway in Chicago’s Into the Woods Casts Its Splendid Magic

The latest incarnation of Stephen Sondheim’s and James Lapine’s storied musical fable, Into the Woods, is making a magical appearance at the Nederlander Theatre through May 7. Brought to town […]

Doug Mose /
Stages, Theater

Review: A Soldier’s Play, a Murder Mystery, Explores Racism Among the Military Yesterday….and Today

Near the end of A Soldier’s Play, set on a segregated Army base in the Jim Crow South in 1944, a white captain says to his Black counterpart, “I was wrong […]

Nancy S Bishop /
Stages, Theater

Review: A High Energy and Ebullient Tina: The Tina Turner Musical

I grew up watching shows like Ed Sullivan and American Bandstand. The most memorable act was the Ike and Tina Turner Revue. The Ikettes formed a backdrop to the long-legged […]

Kathy D. Hey /
Stages, Theater

Review: To Kill a Mockingbird Isn’t Your Parents’ Mockingbird, But It Tells a Powerful Story

Aaron  Sorkin’s To Kill a Mockingbird is not the same story you read in high school or reread last year. It’s not the award-winning film you saw many years ago. In adapting Mockingbird for the […]

Nancy S Bishop /
Stages, Theater

Review: Far From Being Forgotten, Six Returns as an International Sensation

Guest review by Anne Siegel.  Make no mistake; while most of the real-life wives of Henry VIII ended their days in misery (or worse), their 21st century counterparts are wiser, […]

Anne Siegel /
Stages, Theater

Review: Hadestown Celebrates Human Love and Tragedy Against a Joyous Jazzy Musical Backdrop

Hadestown is a tragedy of human love and suffering and it will make you happy with its joyous, percussive music and slick dance performances. The musical production, based on the […]

Nancy S Bishop /