The children of immigrants long have written plays and novels about what it's like to be a first-generation American, trying to build a life in a new country under the watchful eyes of forei…
Cut a rug, hit the floor, dance like nobody's watching " never mind that you're on an open-air dance floor in downtown Chicago, surrounded by a gazillion people on a summer night in Grant Pa…
Most Broadway tours are like those old mimeograph machines: the more times they're toured, duplicated and recast, the more the quality fades. So why is "Chicago the Musical" different? I fou…
In 2015, Justin Trudeau was elected prime minister of Canada. In his Montreal victory speech, delivered in both French and English, he said, "Sunny ways, my friends. Sunny ways!" Historians …
FRIDAY "Rent": The non-Equity cast has changed, but this 20th anniversary touring production of Jonathan Larson's musical was last in Chicago at the then-Oriental Theatre in 2017. Nederlande…
Call it advertising or call it art. Three Chicago installations with nighttime projections are coming this month to three different city locations, thanks to the new Cirque du Soleil show "V…
Windy City Playhouse on Wednesday announced its 2019-2020 season, including Mart Crowley's just-on-Broadway play, "The Boys in the Band" in the winter of 2020. The three-play season under ar…
In an extraordinary development likely to transform the fortunes of a bold but small Chicago company, Definition Theatre is to receive $1.6 million in direct funding from the City of Chicago…
In the early years of this century, Tom Dudzick's meat-and-potatoes (or should that be "kielbasa-and-cabbage?") nostalgic comedy "Over the Tavern," about a Polish-Catholic working-class fami…
For fans of Chicago's legendary indie music scene, Hank's Bar will feel like a fusion of The Hideout, Lounge Ax, Martyrs, the Double Door, and any number of other mission-based small music c…
To call "August Rush," the new musical at the Paramount Theatre in Aurora, a pre-Broadway tryout is a major overstatement. What is up on that historic stage at present is more akin to a work…
Steppenwolf's LookOut Series on Monday announced its summer 2019 lineup, including a reunion reading of The Inconvenience's "Hit the Wall" by Chicago playwright Ike Holter. Tickets are now o…
In 1995, his senior year at Ohio State, Eddie George rushed for a school-record 1,927 yards and scored 25 touchdowns, gaining an average of 148 yards per game. Against Notre Dame that season…
The current, vociferous debate over classic Broadway musicals is not unlike that over the Constitution of the United States. On the one hand, you have those who argue that the Constitution s…
"Matilda," the proto-feminist story of a gifted little girl with nasty parents, is perhaps the best family musical of this young century. Prescient for 2010, it managed both to be a thrillin…
Buffalo Theatre Ensemble, the Equity theater company in residence at the College of DuPage, has announced its 2019-20 season of three plays, including the close-to-home "Naperville." Subscri…
If you've not heard of Jireh Breon Holder or his play "Too Heavy for Your Pocket," you might well think that the new drama at the TimeLine Theatre is a long-lost play from the so-called gold…
Friday "Miracle on South Division Street": Faith and a family legend are called into question in this Chicago-set comedy. Buffalo Theatre Ensemble at McAninch Arts Center at College of DuPag…
Some three weeks before leaving office, Rahm Emanuel, the 55th Mayor of Chicago, sat for an interview in his office at City Hall about the arts in Chicago. This is an edited transcript of ou…
Heard of "Venus in Fur"? That's nothing compared to "First Love is the Revolution," a play about a torrid and intensely emotional love affair between a 14-year-old boy and a young vixen. In …
In the summer of 2016, Alexei Kremnev and Anna Reznik formed A&A Ballet. The husband and wife team, originally from Russia, had just lost their positions as directors at the Joffrey Acad…
For hopeful new Broadway musicals, Chicago has become the most famous tryout town in America. But Aurora? Come Friday, it gets a piece of the action that has been going almost entirely to ei…
If " strike that, when " the Earth suffers some sort of horrific ecological disaster of our own making, humanity probably won't disintegrate into dust overnight. More likely, some of us will…
As Broadway looks for a safe landing between changing times and the traditional makeup of its audience, this year's Tony Award nominations, announced Tuesday morning, reflected fevered compe…
After six years of a Cirque drought in the desert, the Cirque du Soleil is to bring a new attraction to the Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas later this year. Instead of the acrobats and trapeze arti…