Review: The Souped-up Car Is the Star of Back to the Future at the Cadillac Palace
During the lazy days of summer, who wants to see a depressing show that reminds you of all your troubles? Nobody. Instead, you just want to sit back and be […]
Review: The Kite Runner Reveals Complex Story of Guilt and Redemption
The Kite Runner is a contemplative play that spans decades, continents and various aspects of the human heart. The national tour production is currently playing at the CIBC Theatre through […]
Review: Broadway in Chicago’s Death Becomes Her Is Full of Camp and Knock-Out Performances
Chicago is no stranger to Broadway trials—especially adaptations of classic films. We have seen countless move through the city over the years, and many seem to fall into the trap […]
Review: How I Learned What I Learned by Congo Square Theatre Is Wisdom on Being Black in America
Congo Square Theatre is celebrating a landmark anniversary of 25 years of producing and staging plays written by Black artists about the Black experience in America. Their production of August […]
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 […]