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 […]
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, […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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, […]
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 […]