MUSICAL MEASURES Grandstine, the beloved Mississippi matriarch of the Harris clan, has died and gone to her reward. Her many loved ones return to their roots for a "going to heaven" sendoff …
THE CONTINUUM OF LOVE Ethan Lipton is a magic maker who's mastered the art of intertwining characters. The five lost and found souls in his 2012 offering Red Handed Otter are security-…
HIPSTER HUMOR ON A ROLL The title of Second City e.t.c.'s 39th revue, Soul Brother, Where Art Thou?, is more wordplay than revelation. They know very well where to find their very spec…
SHTICK ON A SHIP R.M.S. Titanic was not unsinkable but the S.S. American really is. It's been sailing strong since 1934 as Cole Porter's biggest hit before Kiss Me Kate. It may have jetti…
MAKING HEAVY OF LIFE "Can you see magic?" That's both process and purpose in Jordan Harrison's deliberately dazzling 75-minute bravura piece The Grown-Up, now strutting its precious stuff…
CONDITIONAL LOVE AND EARLY DEATH The perils of parenting are center stage in Steppenwolf Theatre Company's truth-teller. British playwright Rory Kinnear's strangely named The Herd (…
BEFORE IT WAS TOO LATE Six symbolic lives get ruthlessly entangled in this blast from the past. The world is pre-independent Virginia circa 1676 and the outcome is today in Marcus Gardley'sÃ…
MY FAIR SONGBIRD They were the proverbial strange bedfellows who forged a classic Vegas act. The template for Sonny and Cher, they also held a mirror up to a misfit marriage. But Louis &#…
ENERGY IS NEVER ENOUGH Nothing is sadder than a forced farce. Or phonier than chases without consequences. Famed for his frenetic The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity (a comedy about w…
ON THE HORNS OF HISTORY Imagine history as a roller coaster–more specifically, Oscar Wide's masterpiece The Importance of Being Earnest transmogrified into cerebral vaudeville. E…
IN DEED HE DOESN’T Will Eno's 2012 solo script, now in a Midwest premiere, represents quite a departure (almost a repudiation) of Lookingglass Theatre Company's vintage style. Here be …
MALE DISBONDING Friendship tests us in ways we never signed up for: Plays about it task us by making us measure what we would do when the characters' choices come too close for comfort…
HEALING BY THE NUMBERS It cost over a million dollars to launch the Windy City Playhouse, a beautiful new 149-seat theater on Chicago's Northwest Side (3014 W. Irving Park Road). Designed by…
THEATER'S TALKING CURE AT WORK AND PLAY The first theater to perform all ten dramas of the late August Wilson's 20th century chronicle, Goodman Theatre just staked a new claim to a lastin…
STRIPPING DOWN TO BASICS Charged with unforced sympathy and unpolemical solidarity for plucky underdogs, The Full Monty, like the Fox movie that inspired this musical make-over, fits the …
LITERAL LEVITY On display through this weekend at Millennium Park's Harris Theater for Music and Dance, the Spring Series from Hubbard Street Dance Chicago consists of five offerings t…
ANOTHER SCHOOL FOR WIVES It's a huge reversal. For generations the sole route for a successful show was from Broadway to Hollywood–from musical to movie. For young theatergoers today t…
PATHETIC PAYBACK Some plays all but ambush their audience–dramatic Trojan horses that promise laughs and deliver the opposite. Aesthetically treacherous, they lure innocent onlookers i…
THE OTHER CHICAGO FIRE No question, this 20-year-old tragedy is not as sexy a Chicago calamity as either the historic three-day blaze of 1871 or this year's centennial of the foundering of t…
A PORTABLE COMMUNE SELF-DESTRUCTS This weird show is a strange but stirring entry in Steppenwolf's three-play "Garage Rep" series: Red Tape Theatre's The Walk Across America for Mother…
SOPHOCLES, ANCIENT BENDER OF GENDERS This "free translation" of Sophocles' timeless tragedy about a sister against the state is only 75 minutes long. Even so, Antigonick manages to alm…
THE SCOTTISH TRAGEDY: NEVER SAY DIE You can't kill the Scottish tragedy. Written 408 years after Macbeth, Dunsinane is the Shakespeare sequel we never knew we needed. Now on tour at…
OPT OUT OF A PLOT THAT'S NOT The real "sweeter option" is to miss this altogether. A new work written by company member John Henry Roberts and hyper-directed by Marti Lyons, The Sweeter O…
FAME BY DAY, A CLOSET AT NIGHT This retrospective 2010 drama by British playwright Dylan Costello is so well meant, you want to forgive it for its good intentions. But–well–don't…
DEFINITIVE DATES ON INDEPENDENCE DAY In this 95-minute one-act called Four, half the "dialogue" seems unspoken but not unfelt. The audience is literally just along for the ride. Christopher …