Next time you're accused of being selfish, try this Stoppardian rejoinder: Darwin really doesn't do sentimental. Or try putting it another way: We're all hard-wired to be out for ourselves. …
The arrival on Thursday night of the spring program of Hubbard Street Dance Chicago at the Harris Theatre is " by titular definition " a signal of the end of winter. But in these here parts,…
Anyone who has cleaned out a deceased parent's stuff will tell you that the worst part of the process is listening to a dealer denigrate the prized possessions of one that you have so deeply…
The closest thing in the nascent administration of Donald J. Trump to a minister of culture is probably Ivanka Trump, who could be seen in a Broadway theater seat Wednesday night, accompanyi…
Even in this, its final season crisscrossing America, the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus is a very big show. But it's still a fraction of the size it was in, say, 1903. That year,…
Seafood joints usually carry a steak. Pizza Hut offers a tossed salad. This is all to avoid the veto. "The Naked Magicians," now at the Broadway Playhouse at Water Tower Place, have learned …
For a vicarious experience of Frank Loesser's "The Most Happy Fella" at Theo Ubique Theatre, imagine coming inside from the slate-gray skies of a chilly night in an inevitable Chicago March,…
When a phenomenally talented Broadway composer dies young " the likes of Roger Miller ("Big River") or Jonathan Larson ("Rent") " you're left wondering what else they would have done for the…
The coattails of "Hamilton" stretch from sea to shining sea. And along with all the actors, authors, journalists, place-holders and concessions sellers, the riders thereupon now include the …
Fans of Andrew Lloyd Webber will be delighted with the new Broadway in Chicago season " not only is the British composer's current Broadway hit "School of Rock" coming to Chicago as part of …
On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, 38 planes, many of them jumbo jets, were pulled from the sunny skies of the darkest day in modern American history and dropped without warning upon Gander, …
Surely, no star in the history of Broadway has made a more inauspicious entrance than Sally Field's first appearance as poor Amanda Wingfield in director Sam Gold's starkly unforgiving, most…
There are some fascinating similarities emerging between Chance the Rapper and Lin-Manuel Miranda. For starters, both of these artists " one from Chicago, one from New York " clearly know ho…
Hedwig Robinson " that self-styled "slip of a girl-boy from communist East Berlin" " has fit Chicago into her "tight, little agenda" and, as the Village Voice once improbably wrote of Britne…
At one point in our conversation Tuesday night, Tim Hopper started talking about failing a show. This is unusual for an actor; most people only talk about their successes. But Hopper, for wh…
Victory Gardens Theater will stage the first made-in-Chicago production of the Tony award-winning musical "Fun Home" as part of its 43rd season of shows, the Lincoln Park company announc…
Having never had a year when I didn't go to school and subsequently paid the price, the premise for the latest show for the ages 6-11 set at the Chicago Children's Theatre struck me as devou…
A bevy of politically invested Broadway celebrities"including Chita Rivera, Melissa Manchester, Ana Gasteyer, Christine Pedi, Sharon Gless, Alice Ripley and many others"are to appear March 2…
Plays about parenting are rare at Chicago storefronts " plays about parenting teenagers rarer yet. But the new work, "The Snare," by a young writer named Samantha Beach, actually is a show t…
Theresa Rebeck's excellent play "The Scene," which I first saw in an excellent production at the Actors Theatre of Louisville in 2006 and you now can see at Writers Theatre in a misguided an…
The Chicago production of "Hamilton" has announced its new Aaron Burr " the well-known Broadway actor Daniel Breaker. Breaker will take over the pivotal role of the antagonist in the hit mus…
Hedwig Robinson, a transgender German singer, made her first appearance in 1994 at a drag-punk New York club known as Squeezebox. The famous Soho venue " mostly a gay club, but open to all "…
If you know the word "tesseract" " a four-dimensional hypercube " then there's a good chance you were brought up on Madeleine L'Engle's "A Wrinkle in Time," a proto-Potter science fiction no…
The Steppenwolf Theatre ensemble member John Mahoney will return to his company in the fall to star alongside Francis Guinan in the Chicago premiere of "The Rembrandt," directed by Hallie…
In 1985, a comic strip by farseeing cartoonist Alison Bechdel ("Fun Home") featured two women " one white, one African-American " discussing moviegoing. One of the characters says she only g…