704 stories by "Zach Freeman"
RECOMMENDED Neil Simon has written six plays since he penned "Laughter on the 23rd Floor," but this work almost feels like the final piece of the scribe's life work. It is an homage to the d…
About midway through act one of Bruce Graham's "White Guy on the Bus" (now receiving its world premiere at Northlight Theatre) veteran inner-city teacher Roz (Mary Beth Fisher) states that h…
RECOMMENDED There are a number of well-recognized long-form improvisation structures. A good number of those were developed here in Chicago. When a theater company claims to have created a n…
RECOMMENDED Tristan Bruns can tap dance like nobody's business, which I imagine is why he founded Tapman Productions, LLC. It is also clearly why he is the star of "The Adventures of Tapman,…
By Aaron Hunt The Marriott Theatre in Lincolnshire is kicking off its fortieth anniversary season and I had the chance to speak with executive producer Terry James. "I came here as an actor …
RECOMMENDED Samuel Beckett's "Godot," as presented by the Court Theatre's resident artist Ron OJ Parson, has all of the existential tremble without the hard edges of complete despair. Quite …
RECOMMENDED Anyone looking for a primer on the kind of work that Oracle Theatre does would be well-served by seeing "Circle-Machine." Steeped in the language of the European stage, "Circle-M…
RECOMMENDED Winter can be rough for parents and their children. Snow and cold and sniffles lock them inside for weeks or months, with only intermittent sledding sessions or the occasional pi…
RECOMMENDED "Sorry" is the third play in playwright Richard Nelson's four-part cycle "The Apple Family Plays," which mixes contemporary political history with the story of a looming family t…
RECOMMENDED In his funny, wise family drama set in Rhinebeck, New York, playwright Richard Nelson blends Dreiser's naturalism with Chekhov's impressionistic allusiveness to show us that poli…
RECOMMENDED Covetousness, fueled by ambition and greed, drives the plot of Shakespeare's tragedy "Macbeth," where Scotland's political system is upended twice, with murder the tool to power,…
RECOMMENDED Puccini's score for "Tosca" is chock-full of thrilling moments. The crashing opening chords introduce us to Angelotti, whose escape from prison drives the plot. We don't wait lon…
RECOMMENDED If you have ever attended a small party at which everyone else got stoned and drunk while you remained completely sober, then you know what experiencing Signal Ensemble Theatre's…
RECOMMENDED I will never forget the tears I shed reading the story of Demario Bailey, the Chicago teen gunned down three days shy of his sixteenth birthday, because he refused to give up his…
RECOMMENDED Aaron Holland, Bailiwick's resident playwright, took it upon himself to read one of the world's longest books, Leo Tolstoy's "War and Peace." Grasping Tolstoy's purpose "to blur …
RECOMMENDED Those who know have concluded that Leonard Bernstein's "West Side Story" occupies the summit of American musical theater. I was curious to see what the reputable suburban Drur…
With "The Life and Sort of Death of Eric Argyle," Steep Theatre Company dares to ask the big question of whether a person's life matters at all; if a life lived simply and quietly can be som…
By Aaron Hunt Rodgers & Hammerstein's third stage production, fall of 1947's "Allegro," opened to mixed reviews, creating controversy rather than covenant. After a scrape between the dir…
Had "Plastic Revolution" consisted only of its first act, I would have thought it to be an unpolished musical of the ilk that often graces stages of Fringe Festivals around the country. As a…
RECOMMENDED It has been said that casting is directing. The right cast will work out many a kink, but a bad choice in a key role cannot be made good by any stagecraft. So it is with director…
RECOMMENDED At first blush a play that is set at Christmastime may seem misplaced when presented a month later, but Grant James Varjas' play about grief in a gay bar, though by turns funny, …
What annoyed me most about City Lit's "Father Ruffian" is that it is something very old doing all it can to convince you that it is something new. By condensing Shakespeare's "Henry IV" Part…
"Top Girls," a 1982 play by the prolific dramatist Caryl Churchill, begins with Marlene (Patricia Lavery) preparing to celebrate her promotion at the Top Girls employment agency in London wi…
RECOMMENDED Self-schooled Broadway scribe, gifted theatrical gossip, and Jeff Award nominee Christopher Pazdernik offers up his second dose of Cult Classics-medicine, certain to heal the gre…
A flop is a painful thing for everyone concerned, but as with all adversity, there are lessons to be learned. So it is with this ten-car pileup of a play presented by the newborn Cor Theatre…
