Perhaps the best compliment I can pay to Memphis, the 2010 Tony Award winner for Best Musical now on at Porchlight Music Theater (directed by Daryl Brooks), is that in the middle of […]
Review: Take a Trip to Memphis in Porchlight’s Latest Hit
Review: Ingredients Don’t Add Up to Much for Refuge Theatre Project’s The Spitfire Grill
Founded in 2014, the relatively new Refuge Theatre Project aspires to bring musical theater to creative spaces, accessible to broad audiences. It’s a commendable mission, and one the crowded Chicago theater scene […]
Film Review: Brie Larson Can’t Save Subpar Basmati Blues
Watching this long-delayed American musical (the film was supposed to be released in 2015) set in India, starring Oscar-winner Brie Larson (but shot before she became an Oscar winner), I didn’t know […]
Firebrand Theatre’s Lizzie Is Delicious Rock-and-Roll Catharsis
Sitting in the audience at the thoroughly impeccable Chicago premiere of Lizzie, it is easy to forget that this production is also the Chicago premiere of the newly christened Firebrand Theatre. Defining […]
Newsies at Marriott Theatre is Relevant, Energetic and Earnest
It’s new show season at the Marriott Theatre in Lincolnshire, and we were there for the opening night of their latest play, Newsies. Set at a time when fat cats with no […]
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 manages to […]
Mary Poppins a Delight for All Ages
This ain’t your mother’s Mary Poppins. Or rather, the NightBlue Performing Arts Company’s production of Mary Poppins is a jaunty expansion of the 1964 movie we all know and love. Based on […]
Refuge Theatre Project’s High Fidelity Reclaims a Chicago Classic
Refuge Theatre Project, the no frills, contemporary music theater group that brought you Next Thing You Know and Glory Days in 2015, is starting off 2016 with a run of High Fidelity. Refuge […]
