Playwright Kristoffer Diaz takes a hard behind-the-scenes look at the complex world of wrestling: the ruthless producers, the arrogant *champions*, and the workhorses who genuinely love the …
Nearly 90 years after it first premiered, Machinal's fast-paced and ruthless exploration of what it means to be a woman trapped in a patriarchal society still rings true. Greenhouse Theater …
Controversial to the point of dangerous in the late 1960s, Hair is still edgy, with nudity, simulated drug use and profanity galore. Mercury Theater Chicago's production is explosive and tim…
Michael Perlman's play At The Table focuses on a group of college friends who reunite as adults and find that much has changed, and much remains, unfortunately, the same. In Broken Nose Thea…
The cast of Kokandy Productions' Little Fish, by Michael John LaChuisa, is capable enough, and they make beautiful music together. The show sinks, nonetheless, because it's both predictable …
Pride Arts Center's newest children's show is a rainbow take on the traditional story hour, aiming for younger audiences with its messages of love and recognition. Incorporating puppets, aud…
Chicago Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, presented throughout the city at various parks free of charge, is both delightful and tragic in its portrayal of young love and rash decisions, Marti …
The Neo-Fururists' The Food Show is an original work centered around the culture of food: why we eat it, how we eat it, who we eat it with, and includes music and dance, and a hands-on, inte…
The Food Show Created by Dan Kerr-Hobert, Caitlin Stainken Metropolitan Brewing,…
It's difficult to see anything redeeming about In The Wake, as the script is so flawed and the main character is so screechy. Director Alex Mallory does her absolute best to keep things movi…
There is so much impossible beauty in Cirque du Soleil's Luzia, that watching it almost hurts. Act for act, Luzia: A Waking Dream of Mexico - written and directed by Daniele Finzi Pasca with…
Factory Theater's *Fight City* lives up to its name and is an innovative and fiercely energetic production that gets high marks for staging, choreography, and fight design. Established nearl…
In all, Broadway in Chicago's An American in Paris is joyous, fascinating and moving. It is also an incredible showcase of just how much beauty an ensemble of extraordinary dancers are capab…
How you feel about They're Playing Our Song will depend on how you feel about Neil Simon and the 1970s. Simon wrote the 1970s-set script, Marvin Hamlisch the music. Luckily, Brown Paper Box …
Thanks to excellent direction and choreography from one of Chicago's best, Rachel Rockwell, as well as stunning production values and a great cast, this flashy production at Navy Pier will n…
In a nutshell, the musical Triassic Parq is *Jurassic Park* from the perspective of the dinosaurs who eventually escape their quarters and turn a dream theme park into a disaster. What ensu…
Michael Washington Brown opens his evening with a question to the audience - Why am I now African-American when for so many years, I've been Black? From there, listening in rapt attention t…
Steep Theatre's Lela & Co. is a difficult but vital watch. The title character presents her life story through the eyes of the men in her life as compared with what she actually experie…
Eclipse Theatre's mission of *one playwright one season* allows the audience to delve into a specific playwright's body of work. With the world premiere of Megastasis, playwright Kia Corthro…
Playwright Taylor Mac has created a kitchen sink family drama whose disarray is actually anxiety-inducing. There's chaos and trouble and pain layered into the heaps of old laundry and bowls …
Step into a lonely Amsterdam bar in 1959. What will you find? If you are the team behind Jacques Brel's Lonesome Losers of the Night, the answer is: an openhearted bartender, two winsome sol…
With Beauty's Daughter, Playwright Dael Orlandersmith returns to the broken beauty of Harlem, where she came of age. Directed by Ron OJ Parson, and starring the indelible Wandachristine, thi…
As national tours go, Something Rotten! is something splendid - a mindess but gleeful hoot-and-a-half. If you aren't laughing five minutes in, you seriously need to lighten up. Highly Recom…
The Bridges of Madison County is well worth the jaunt outside of Chicago. The story is simple, the direction stellar, the music hauntingly beautiful and the actors stunning. Bridges is an in…
Moliere penned The School for Lies more than 350 years ago, but in David Ives' insouciant, gleefully anachronistic reboot, the satire still glitters and cuts like fine-cut diamonds. The rhym…