Kristoffer Diaz's "The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity" caused a bone-shaking, brain-tickling sensation when it premiered nearly nine years ago at Victory Gardens. It transferred to off-Bro…
"Everybody needs something impossible to hope for" sounds like an inspirational sentiment you'd find embroidered on a throw pillow. But cozy domesticity and its accouterments have little to …
In May of this year, Edward Albee's 1962 classic "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" became controversial all over again, when the late playwright's estate withheld the rights for a planned pr…
Reality television has come in for more than its usual share of shaming as a blight on the body politic since November " though in fairness, populist entertainment throughout history has bee…
Buckle up, Buttercup " there's a new "Princess Bride" in town. Well, actually " she's not new. And she's not a princess. But Thomas Heywood's 16th-century swashbuckling romance/comedy, "The …
The future is female " but it's still an unholy mess. That's the dystopic premise in Scott OKen's "Fight City," now in a slam-bang world premiere with Factory Theater. Set in 2077, where a c…
Deborah Eisenberg, whose short stories have been popping up in the New Yorker and in acclaimed collections since the 1980s, began writing when she stopped smoking. She stopped because her lo…
On a clear and pleasant July evening, with just enough breeze to keep the mosquitoes at bay, First Folio Theatre's pastoral setting gives the forest of Arden a run for its money. But that ca…
If the Reduced Shakespeare Company and Forbidden Broadway had a musical baby, it would probably look and sound a lot like "Something Rotten!" No insult intended to the appearance of this ima…
The story of the USS Indianapolis perhaps remains best known in popular culture through "Jaws." Robert Shaw's Quint delivers an unforgettable monologue outlining his experiences in the shark…
In 1937, Marc Blitzstein's famous pro-labor musical, "The Cradle Will Rock" (created through the Federal Theatre Project of the Works Progress Administration) was shut down by federal author…
City Lit Theater's current staging of 1841's "London Assurance" marks the first local production of Dion Boucicault's comedy in 120 years. Felicitously, it opens just a month ahead of Defini…
"If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me, Without my stir." In that one line, William Shakespeare lays bare the central paradox of "Macbeth" " the play and the man. Arguably th…
Alfred Jarry's 1896 absurd and grotesque "Ubu Roi" should be the perfect play for our current political moment. After all, it involves an impulsive vulgarian who, while utterly unacquainted …
One of the markers of adulthood is recognizing that your parents had lives of their own that had nothing to do with you. Often you don't see it until at least one of them has died. They live…
Nature may abhor a vacuum, but holes in the timeline offer catnip to authors of historical fiction. Where facts cannot be found, imagination runs wild. In "Her Majesty's Will," David Blixt's…
"Get out of my way. I feel like making some money today." Few of us can imagine sweeping into our workplace and making that pronouncement in anything other than an ironic tone. But Liz Rico …
A couple of years ago, the feel-good channels of social networking lit up with a story about a Dutch nursing home where college students live rent-free. The idea of old and young living toge…
In "Great Expectations," Charles Dickens crafted an indelible portrait of a young man of no means whose desires to be a "gentleman" almost come true " but with tragic consequences. At its mo…
Summer in Chicago focuses on outdoor fun, whether it's at music festivals, street fairs, ballgames or beaches. But Chicago's red-hot theater scene also has plenty of option. Here are 30 show…
As a playwright, Luis Alfaro is best known in Chicago for his contemporary updates of Greek tragedies, such as "Oedipus El Rey," which reimagines the story of Oedipus through the lens of Chi…
On the heels of its timely and sardonic production of "The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui," Trap Door Theatre takes a turn toward the elliptical and symbolic with "Into the Empty Sky," based o…
"Everybody dies frustrated and sad and that is beautiful," They Might Be Giants sang years ago. Young Jean Lee's "We're Gonna Die," now getting a heartfelt and high-energy production with Ha…
We all know the litany of complaints about life near Wrigley Field. Nonexistent parking. Drunk people committing various, um, quality-of-life offenses. But for decades, the Cubs and the loca…
What's your poison? Noir? Musicals? Gender-bending camp with a twist of melodrama? Well, guys and dolls, stir your stumps upstairs to Mary's Attic, where Hell in a Handbag's "Lady X: The Mus…