A PERFECT TEN OUT OF TIN, OR YOURS, MIME, AND OURS This "soldier" is well worth saluting: There's an enchanting Christmas Pantomime on Michigan Avenue — Lookingglass Theatre Company's …
INGE'S NOISY DESPERATION Mission accomplished: Eclipse Theatre Company characteristically concludes its season with a play that wears a big heart on an open sleeve. The troupe, which cultiva…
HOT IOLANTA, OR LOVE REALLY IS BLIND A glorious 126-year-old discovery just happened again. First performed at Saint Petersburg's Mariinsky Theater in 1892 (on a double-bill with The Nutc…
BITTER END The gulf is clear from the start. Joe Schermoly's set consists of interconnected boxes that create shelves which suggest two apartments separated by a crosswalk. It's an apt depic…
A SHOW TO END ANY THEATER DROUGHT It's a "big sky" story with a ton of heart, this other musical created by Harvey Schmidt and Tom Jones, composer and lyricist of The Fantasticks…
WHEN REALISM IS NOT ENOUGH, SOMETHING IS ROTTEN IN DENMARK It's strange that an enterprise as lavishly bounteous as Goodman Theatre should seem to shrink itself: Currently it's hosting two w…
A CELEBRATION OF DIVAS Three years ago, Black Ensemble Theater's associate director Daryl D. Brooks created a kinetic tribute called Men of Soul. The revue embraced solid singers whose he…
A COLOSSAL CIRCUS CARAVAN FROM COLOMBIA Three rings do not make a circus, any more than "two boards and a passion" make a play. Sometimes all you need is fifteen performers for for sixty pow…
LA DIVINA EXPLAINS IT ALL FOR YOU After she prematurely destroyed her once "smoky," soaring voice, the "prima donna assoluta" — Greek soprano Maria Callas — decided that if you c…
IT ONLY TAKES A MUSICAL To start with, let's agree to never say "Goodbye, Dolly." Thornton Wilder's genius for the common touch isn't just a golden legacy in Our Town or The Skin of…
TRENCH STAGEFARE It's a small-scale marvel, a feat to treasure: In only 80 minutes director/adaptor Simon Reade and performer Shane O'Regan do total justice to Private Peaceful, Michael M…
LET HER ENTERTAIN YOU! Some people say Gypsy: A Musical Fable is the greatest Broadway musical ever written. And some people are probably right. It isn’t just a stirring story of…
MARY SHELLEY'S ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: FRANKENSTEIN’S TRICK IS OUR TREAT Creating a Halloween story for all seasons in a novel that launched a terror genre, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelle…
THIS TURKEY IS SO SCARY, YOU HAVE TO KEEP REPEATING TO YOURSELF, “IT’S ONLY A PLAY… IT’S ONLY A PLAY…” There's a glaring contradiction in It's Only a P…
THE HOLY ROMAN EMPEROR AS FLOWER CHILD Some shows stay young by never growing up: Stephen Schwartz' silly-stupid 1972 musical is the (im)perfect example of a musical that's saved by its song…
FLYIN’ HIGH: THE HEARTLAND SOLIDARITY OF SODBUSTING SISTERS For a while it must have seemed like a black Eden. Founded in 1877, Nicodemus, Kansas was a Reconstruction success story fou…
CRUMBS IS A RICH MEAL Much like Lorraine Hansberry and Tennessee Williams, Lynn Nottage is a memory-monger. She sees truth in small stuff that looms larger later. And as with Arthur Miller o…
BACK FROM OVER THE RAINBOW Please don't take my word for it. See, hear and cherish for yourselves Angela Ingersoll's wonderful reclamation of the great Judy Garland — the look, voice, …
MORE LIKE A SILVER TICKET Saccharinity, like speed, can kill: The guilty pleasure of loving chocolate can, it seems, cover a multitude of sins. Harnessing "pure imagination" as well as a swe…
CHILD MOLESTERS GET A PLAY Some underdogs seem deeply deserving — which makes sympathy for devils a tricky proposition. Pulitzer-winning Bruce Norris has never shied away from upsettin…
THE BELLE OF COAL YARD ALLEY LEAVES YOU GWYNNING FROM EAR TO EAR When you're mistress to a monarch, your perch is precarious. Envy supplants praise as, moving from "rags to royalty," your or…
A RETROACTIVE RECKONING IN 12 SONGS His seventh coming is a gift worth opening. It's been 13 years since Obie-winner David Cale has appeared on the Goodman Theatre stage. That's where he pre…
ARMS HAS LEGS George Bernard Shaw was not amused when his serious-minded "pleasant play" Arms and the Man, produced in 1894, was diminished into the 1908 operetta The Chocolate Soldier. He i…
FORGET STICKS AND STONES: WORDS WILL ALWAYS HURT YOU Who says words can't kill? In BigMouth, flawlessly intoning English, Walloon, French, and German (with captions), Belgian solo p…
THE RIGHT TO DO WRONG Count this among the finest offerings from a Chicago theater: Shattered Globe Theatre's kinetic staging of Chris Hannan's adaptation of Crime and Punishment is flawless…