2,260 stories from Chicago Theater Beat
Another year, another 12 months of great theater! 2016 blessed the Windy City with inspired new works and riveting revivals from a wide range of companies " from the largest equity houses an…
Stage Director Rudy Hogenmiller and Music Director Roger L. Bingaman have assembled a dream cast for the 10 principal roles in Die Fledermaus, and the outcome is near perfection. Operettas m…
Christopher Wheeldon's new Chicago-centric version of Tchaikovsky's timeless ballet, set 5 months before Chicago's 1893 world's fair and beautifully executed by Joffrey Ballet, is imaginativ…
Twist Your Dickens is a must-see for hardcore Christmas Carol fans and Dickens holiday naysayers alike. Thanks to incredible writing, direction and comic timing, the Second City's tribute-pa…
Barrel of Monkey's That's Weird, Grandma--The Holiday Special Returns is a testament to the power of creativity in children and adults, a celebration of live theater and storytelling, and a …
As done here, Mercury Theater's The Christmas Schooner is a perfect mid-size production, offering strong visual design and a good sized cast, while still retaining the intimacy of this gentl…
Smart, snappy and almost hyper-realistic, Levi Holloway's world-premiere The Haven Place is a road trip adventure with edge-of-your-seat action, fully-realized characters and a sense of hope…
The holidays can be a hectic time, but thankfully Silk Road Rising offers some respite in the diminutive and lively persona of Christine Bunuan, who guides you through her world-premiere one…
For 15 years, American Blues Theater has treated Chicago audiences to a live 1940s radio broadcast of holiday favorite, It's a Wonderful Life. The show is always a timely and entertaining wa…
Of all the plays Shakespeare wrote, The Winter's Tale is one of the most problematic. Directed by Declan Donnellan at Chicago Shakespeare, Cheek By Jowl's highly conceptual staging of the pl…
Playwright Simon Stephens never explicitly mentions autism in the drama inspired by Mark Haddon's novel. But as this alternately funny, wrenching, riveting, and ultimately inspiring story un…
A holiday tradition that's pure fun, Black Ensemble Theater's The Other Cinderella is family-friendly and incredibly enjoyable. The cast's concentrated oomph fills the stage, and the story h…
In Greenhouse Theater's Uncle Philip's Coat, by Matty Selman, actor Gene Weygandt gives excellent interpretations of struggling actor Selman, his loving but judgmental father and his eccentr…
Unless you made your home under a rock in the early 90's, or weren't born yet, you remember the ice-skating drama of Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan. Underscore Theatre's Tonya and Nancy - …
Mitchell Fain is putting his pointy-toed, jingle-belled foot down. Instead of yet another foray into Sedarisland, Fain is offering up his own take on Christmas. Theater Wit's This Way Outta …
Though not produced by Disney, it clearly feels and looks like a Disney-style production in the tradition of their big shows. The original film score has been greatly (and nicely) expanded b…
Most people know George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion through its musical adaptation My Fair Lady. Fortunately, thanks to Shawn Douglass' elegant direction and two phenomenal leads in Nick Sandys…
Created in 1991 by Luke Cresswell and Steve McNicholas, STOMP is an hour and forty-five minutes of pure energy and stage craft. No special effects, just movement and music with ordinary hous…
In Sophocles' Electra at Court Theatre, Director Seret Scott makes all of the over-the-top grandeur and affectation work. The talented cast goes huge, creating a beautiful exploration into t…
With Broadway in Chicago's Finding Neverland about J.M. Barrie's journey to write Peter Pan, director Diane Paulus has conceived the piece as a most family-friendly entertainment. There's ev…
Sometimes loud, sometimes garish, and never especially subtle, The Hypocrites' world premiere Cinderella at the Theater of the Potatoes is a confection of an operetta. Throughout, it makes j…
The Chicago theater community will again produce a wide array of holiday plays, musicals, ballets and comedies in 2016, all to put you in a festive mood. Find the entire list of holiday off…
The House Theatre of Chicago's "The Nutcracker", directed and choreographed by Tommy Rapley, is a beloved annual production, and this year its message is more important than ever. With a mos…
The goal of world-premiere [Trans]formation, co-produced and co-developed by Nothing Without A Company and The Living Campus, was to celebrate the diversity of identity, to have the spectato…
At first, Erika Sheffer's world premiere The Fundamentals seems as if it will be a razor-sharp parody/expose of the grimy inner workings of an outwardly gleaming luxury hotel. But the drama,…
