BAROQUE AND BURLESQUE"A TOXIC MIX What happens when a so-called revival needs resuscitation? That's the D.O.A. problem with this perverse collaboration between Chicago Opera Theater and Cult…
LEARNING TO LOVE FROM WHAT DAD DIDN'T DO Dedicated memory-mongering, the 2013 chamber musical Fun Home–based on Alison Bechdel's 2006 semiautobiographical graphic novel–is a wort…
PERFECT PRECIPITATION Of all the legendary Oscar-winning films destined to become stage musicals (42nd Street, Grand Hotel, Fame), Singin' in the Rain, the 1952 MGM movie musical starring Ge…
ADDING DEATH TO LIFE, CHICAGO SINFONIETTA CREATES A GREATER WHOLE Halloween night at Chicago's Orchestra Hall: This year it meant alternately sinister or soaring sounds worthy of its title D…
A TILT-A-WHIRL AT THE HARRIS THEATER FUNHOUSE The big news from this weekend's two-night showcase for the jazz-stepping Giordano Dance Chicago is the world premiere of Peter Chu's roiling ne…
COMMUTING TO KILL In The Right Stuff Tom Wolfe described a huge "sea change" when the space race went from fighter test pilots to astronauts. In the 1920s through 1950s, high-altitude record…
OUR FUNKY FOUNDING FATHERS A hip-hop Alexander Hamilton? A beat-box Father of His Country? A jumping James Madison and a jiveass Jefferson who disses bigtime in a poetry slam? The ten-dollar…
A POLITICAL PROKOFIEV BRINGS R & J CLOSER TO HOME It's been over two years since its Joffrey Ballet"and U.S.–premiere. The Chicago troupe's updated version of Prokofiev's Romeo …
THE MONARCH OF MAKE BELIEVE The Truman Show or The Matrix have nothing on Luigi Pirandello's puzzle play Henry IV, a double-edged blast from the past (both 1921, its inception, and the 11th …
GUMSHOE GLORY It's not as original a burlesque of film noir as City of Angels, but in less than 90 minutes Wicked City, a musical parody by bookwriter/lyricist Chad Beauelin and com…
THE PARTY IS NOT OVER Whether the words flowed from the terrific team of Betty Comden and Adolph Green, the prolific and dynamic Sammy Cahn, or a very young Stephen Sondheim, Jule Styne was …
THE PAUSES THAT DON'T REFRESH Presaging more darkness to follow, The Room, the first play by the late Harold Pinter, is an hour-long psychological thriller from 1957. Full of dour portent, i…
THREE CATHERINES, YOU'RE OUT If you were one of his sextet of spouses, outlasting Henry VIII wasn't just a feat of survival"it became a political statement. The last and possibly least known…
FRIENDLY FOOLING Is stuff magical only because it can't be explained? Perhaps it's more than just the absence of logic, probability, or reason. There's a presence too: Magic evokes a child-l…
LIEBESTOD WAS NEVER DARKER For three performances only, a beloved Chicago movie palace becomes an opera house. Acoustically accurate but with sight lines that worsen toward the back, the …
T&T&T&T&T&T… There's a reason why Tony n' Tina's Wedding, newly revived by the original New York producers, was a 16-year Chicago hit. Throughout the last century t…
BLACKOUT LOVE Winsome and warm-hearted, Fly by Night is an affecting chamber musical which premiered in 2014 at Playwrights Horizon. The two-act labor of love by Will Connolly, Michael Mitni…
KILLER ROSES AND A HUNCHBACK HORROR As disease follows famine, the 100 Years War succumbed to the War of the Roses. It makes sense that the titles of the two parts of Barbara Gaines' massive…
LETTING GO, NOT GIVING UP This is a long and leisurely play that generically examines the leaving of life–as in how, when, why and where to say goodbye. Steppenwolf Theatre Company's w…
FIVE FINGERS, ONE JOKE Unholy rolling, Hand To God is a one-joke coming-of-age comedy, a Twilight Zone episode on steroids. Robert Askins' two-act 2011 travesty treats demonic possession as …
WHEN YOU WISH UPON A THEME PARK You just know that the title The Happiest Place on Earth is ironic–or, like Ringling Brothers' "greatest show on earth," bombastic. How could it not be,…
GOODMAN GIVES GOTHAM GLORY Wonderful indeed. Wonderful Town, Leonard Bernstein's 1952 tribute to the ever juicy Big Apple, has been wrongly overshadowed by the other N.Y.C. musicals he wrote…
LIGHTS OFF BUT LIVING LARGE In The Heights, a two-time Tony-winning 2008 musical, celebrates a place that doesn't quite reward the torrid devotion of its likable characters. They both deligh…
DEATH BY COMMENTARY Glib, pat, and smug, Aaron Posner's Stupid Fucking Bird disrupted and deconstructed Anton Chekhov's The Seagull. Audiences loved it for its bratty, "in-your-face" 21st ce…
MAKE ROME GREAT AGAIN Julius Caesar:Â It's a strong choice for an election year, a timely reminder of why we prefer peaceful changes of power to assassinations and their inevitable knee-je…