Over the course of his storied career, composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim had quite a stunning list of successes and very few misses. His greatest fail, however, came in 1981 […]
As fans of Stephen Sondheim may know, Passion is not as widely prod’suced as some of his other musicals. There are many reasons for this. The music can be quite […]
Liz Callaway came home last night to deliver a love letter. Not a private note, but a public tribute on the Studebaker Theater stage, where she sang the works of […]
This review offers some tough love. Love for Kokandy Productions, for its ambitions and scope, for its actors and musicians. But I’m also going to add a tough critique for […]
Chicago’s Porchlight Music Theatre is a standout among a crowded landscape of local production companies. Focused on musical theater, their shows—usually presented at the Ruth Page Center for the Arts […]
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 […]
Choreography by Jerome Robbins, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and music by Leonard Bernstein are the calling cards of West Side Story. This is an energetic and passionate contemporary retelling directed […]
It’s not entirely clear when (or if) Lin-Manuel Miranda sleeps, but really, that’s his personal business. In his very productive waking hours, Miranda has seemingly not stopped creating since moving […]
In 2016, for the second season of the groundbreaking British mini-series The Hollow Crown (adaptations of Shakespeare’s royalty-based history plays), director Dominic Cooke cast Benedict Cumberbatch to play one of […]
At a typical (however one defines that) performance at Lyric Opera of Chicago, the accompanying program includes in each cast and crew bio the professional’s previous Lyric credits. The asterisks […]
In 1981, Stephen Sondheim and Harold Prince collaborated with writer George Furth for a new musical based on a 1934 play, Merrily We Roll Along. The show was to be […]
When I interviewed La La Land writer-director Damien Chazelle a couple months ago for Ain’t it Cool News, we discussed one of the film’s themes being the power of rejection […]