Near the start of "Prince of Broadway," the long-awaited musical celebration of a theatrical director of incomparable productivity, range, longevity, chutzpah and brio, an actor pops out and…
On Monday, even as the fatally fractured political universe was poised to tremor once again, the moon passed before the sun and a Chicago meteorologist cried viral tears. Strange times, thes…
A Red Orchid Theatre, the 25-year-old mainstay of Old Town and the theatrical home of actor Michael Shannon, is amping up all kinds of things " like the budget, the staffing, the programming…
The Drury Lane Theatre in Oakbrook Terrace will not just host Chicago's 2017 Equity Joseph Jefferson Awards on Nov. 6. On that night, the long-lived suburban musical house will see itself li…
It has been 16 years since "Shockheaded Peter," the cultish British "junk opera" created by the Improbable Theatre and the Tiger Lillies, was first seen at the Athenaeum Theatre. Last time, …
The Australian Ballet announced Monday that it has partnered with the Joffrey Ballet of Chicago to develop a new ballet based on Leo Tolstoy's famously passionate "Anna Karenina." The parter…
"I suppose I gotta marry somebody," says the sardonic Young Woman of Sophie Treadwell's "Machinal," sounding like she's acquiescing to a death sentence. "All girls do." The office-bound, mos…
A 21-year-old magician from Kentucky once found himself at the legendary Magic Castle in Los Angeles, where a man named Eugene Burger was performing. The visiting illusionist was inexperienc…
"No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin or his background or his religion," tweeted the 44th president of the United States in the aftermath of white nationali…
Summer has brought several hits " and extensions " to the Chicago theater, allowing you still to catch some fine artistic experiences before the cares of the fall intrude. Steep Theatre's su…
In 1994, an actor named John Lecesne created a solo show in New York City. He ended up starting a movement and saving the lives of uncounted American teenagers. This is the story of Trevor. …
What irritates you the most about buying tickets to live entertainment? Let me guess. Booking fees. New York producer Ken Davenport " who is an interesting thinker on the business " had an i…
At one point in "The Food Show," the new and original production by the Neo-Futurists about the complexity of your average urban progressive's relationship with what they put in their mouths…
In honor of the 50th anniversary of the Summer of Love, and as a counternarrative to our present Summer of Intolerance, "Hair" has sprung up in the friendly confines of the Mercury Theater i…
Thomas Middleton, whose co-authored 1622 play "The Changeling" was the most compelling and timely show I saw at the Stratford Festival of Canada this summer, wrote about lusty sex, crude mal…
When the news of the great Sam Shepard's death was released Monday, my first thought was that here came the natural bookend for the "in yer face" era, which increasingly is out of favor in a…
Three Chicago actors will appear in the Broadway premiere of "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child," the record-breaking two-part addition to J.K. Rowling's world of wizards. Alex Weisman, Jess…
Mariann Mayberry, a self-effacing but essential Chicago actress whose work embodied the city's ensemble ethos and whose emotional intensity on stage seared many a Chicago heart, died f…
Sam Shepard, the bard of America's flat highways, wide-open spaces and wounding, dysfunctional families, has died at the age of 73 in his home in Kentucky from complications from Lou Gehrig'…
The previews accompanying last Sunday's Music Box Theatre screening of Christopher Nolan's heart-pounding "Dunkirk" " proudly shown on 70 mm film " all seemed to be rising to the same dramat…
George Gershwin's 1928 symphonic tone poem, "An American in Paris," was written on commission. Modernist and experimental, rather than obviously lush or romantic, it was intended to convey t…
I picked up my voicemail earlier this week and found the kind of message that makes doing this job feel like a privilege. "I am below the poverty line," the older gentleman on the recording …
Chicago Shakespeare Theater has a proud history of producing family-oriented summer shows that go far beyond what you would expect at a pleasure pier. On Navy Pier in 2010, "The Emperor's Ne…
"An American in Paris," which arrives in Chicago this week for a two-week stand of its national tour, was a critical (and a modest financial) success on Broadway in 2015. But the much-antici…
In the Chicago of 1860, when there barely was a Chicago, McVicker's Theater had what this newspaper called "a rousing hit" with a production of "The Octoroon," a spectacular melodrama by an …