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Chicago
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Highly Recommended Theater: NOISES OFF (Steppenwolf Theatre Company and The Geffen Playhouse)
Geffen Playhouse and Steppenwolf Theatre Company announce the joint Chicago/LA cast of Noises Off Written by Michael Frayn Directed by Anna D. Shapiro A Co-Production with Steppenwolf Theatre Company Featuring Vaneh Assadourian, Amanda Fink, Audrey Francis, Francis Guinan, Rick Holmes, Ora Jones, Andrew Leeds, James Vincent Meredith & Max Stewart Doors slam, sardines fly, and trousers drop in Michael Frayn’s…
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Theater Review: IN HIS HANDS (First Floor Theater)
A SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE AT THE THEATER First Floor Theater’s Chicago premiere of In His Hands by Benjamin Benn, which opened last night, is breathtaking from start to finish. Benn’s writing is a poem of the mundane turned miraculous, and the deeply intimate, visually striking production does Benn’s words justice. Alex Benito Rodriguez and Matt Klingler This…
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Theater Review: ALICE BY HEART (Kokandy Productions — Midwest Premiere at The Chopin Theatre)
ALICE BY HEART: FULL-HEARTED PRODUCTION; HALF-HEARTED SCRIPT Alice by Heart follows a young girl, Alice (Caitlyn Cerza), during the London Blitz of World War II as she takes refuge in her beloved copy of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Alice and her friend Alfred (Joe Giovannetti), who is deathly ill with tuberculosis, seek shelter in an…
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Highly Recommended Theater: THE NORMAL HEART (Redtwist)
The windiest militant trash Important Persons shout Is not so crude as our wish: What mad Nijinsky wrote About Diaghilev Is true of the normal heart; For the error bred in the bone Of each woman and each man Craves what it cannot have, Not universal love But to be loved alone. — from “September…
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Theater Review: THE LORD OF THE RINGS: A MUSICAL TALE (Chicago Shakespeare Theater)
BORED OF THE RINGS In J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, Bilbo Baggins famously states to his nephew and adoptive heir, “It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.” It’s also a…
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Theater Review: DON’T LET THE PIGEON DRIVE THE BUS! THE MUSICAL! (Marriott Theatre in Lincolnshire)
THIS PIGEON ADAPTATION IS NOT FOR THE BIRDS My kids love Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!, the popular children’s book by Mo Willems. It’s a simple, comic story about a pigeon that wants to be a bus driver, but whose dreams are thwarted by reality. An incredibly expressive and somewhat sympathetic character, the…
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Theater Review: MIDNIGHT IN THE GARDEN OF GOOD AND EVIL (World Premiere Musical at Goodman Theatre in Chicago)
MIDNIGHT IN THE GARDEN OF GOOD AND BAD — GET HIGH FROM A TALL GLASS OF LADY CHABLIS; TAKE A BOTTLE OF BOURBON TO ENDURE THE OTHERS The Goodman Theatre’s premiere production of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil brought the beloved non-fiction book by John Berendt to life in a way that…
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Theater Review: ZAC EFRON (Token Theatre at A Red Orchid)
ZAC IS ON THE INSIDE TRACK Token Theatre’s world premiere production of Zac Efron by David Rhee — co-written by Wai Yim and directed by Alan Muraoka — is not about Zac Efron at all, beyond recognizing that he’s a cookie-cutter hot white man. The play spotlights a gay Asian-American love story and the pair’s rise to…
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Theater Review: LITTLE BEAR RIDGE ROAD (World Premiere at Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago)
LITTLE BEAR RIDGE ROAD IS A BRIGHT STAR IN OUR VAST UNIVERSE Steppenwolf’s world premiere production of Little Bear Ridge Road by Samuel D. Hunter lays bare the reality of two people who feel so much yet are stubbornly unwilling or unable to tear down their walls and allow connection. Laurie Metcalf and Micah Stock This…
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Theater | Event Review: CLUE: A WALKING MYSTERY (The Streets of Downtown Chicago)
CLUE: A WALKING MYSTERY IS INDEED A WALKING MYSTERY MY ADVICE? JUST KEEP WALKING You could say that CLUE: A Walking Mystery lives up to its name, in that the intended audience for this experience is a mystery. This murder mystery experience, produced by Right Angle Entertainment and The Wild Optimists, is an escape room…
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Theater Review: THE KITE RUNNER (National Tour)
A KITE THIS BIG DOESN’T ALWAYS TAKE OFF; WHEN IT DOES, THIS STAGE ADAPTATION IS WORTH SEEING Directed by Giles Croft, the touring production of The Kite Runner at CIBC Theatre is an intensely human piece of theatre perhaps better suited for a more intimate venue. Based on the best-selling book by Khaled Hosseini, the…
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Theater Opening: THE LIGHTNING THIEF: THE PERCY JACKSON MUSICAL (Otherworld Theatre in Chicago)
HOLY HADES! HERE COME LIGHTNING IN A BOTTLE! Otherworld Theatre, North America’s premier fantasy and genre live theatre production company, is bringing The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical to the theatre’s Chicago storefront location July 12–August 18, 2024. This electrifying adaptation of Rick Riordan’s best-selling 2005 young adult novel promises an adventure “worthy of…
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Theater Review: TURRET (A Red Orchid at Chopin Theatre)
MICHAEL SHANNON STARS IN A TANTALIZING TURRET If you had to define the word turret, what would an easy definition be? Well, I love castles, so I know a turret was often the corner where a guard could be positioned. But a turret is also that rotating structure you’ve seen in Star Wars on the…
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Opera Review: AIDA (Lyric Opera Chicago)
THOMAS AND BRADLEY AIDA LEADS LACKLUSTER One of Verdi’s most beloved operas, Aida has all of the elements one would expect in a grand opera: rousing choruses, dramatic arias and duets, military marches, ballet dancing, massive spectacles, and exotic settings. This production delivers on all of these, but is unsatisfactory, nevertheless. And the dissatisfaction is…
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Recommended Theater: SHAKESPEARE’S R&J (PrideArts at Pride Arts Center in Chicago)
REIMAGINING THE REIMAGINED AT PRIDEARTS Four young female prep school students, tired of going through the usual drill of conjugating Latin and other tedious school routines, decide to vary their very governed lives. After school, one breaks out a copy of William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, and they all take turns reading the play aloud….
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Theater Review: GIRL FROM THE NORTH COUNTRY (North American Tour)
MCPHERSON EXPLOITS DYLAN IN GIRL FROM THE NORTH COUNTRY Girl from the North Country is one of those shows that sounds promising in the abstract: a musical incorporating songs by Bob Dylan. Whatever you think of Dylan’s singing voice, it’s undeniable that he wrote some great songs–and a few of them are used in this…
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Highly Recommended Theater: LITTLE BEAR RIDGE ROAD (Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago)
World premiere of Little Bear Ridge Road by Samuel D. Hunter and directed by Joe Mantello The Cast: Laurie Metcalf, Micah Stock, John Drea and Meighan Gerachis. June 13 – July 21, 2024 in Steppenwolf’s Downstairs Theater Steppenwolf, the nation’s premier ensemble theater company, is bringing to Chicago the world premiere of Little Bear Ridge Road,…
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Highly Recommended Theater: MOTHER COURAGE AND HER CHILDREN (Trap Door Theatre)
One of Chicago’s most thrilling companies, Trap Door Theatre, continues its 30th anniversary season with Bertolt Brecht’s boisterous musical Mother Courage and her Children, translated by Eric Bentley. Resident Director Max Truax returns to direct this epic play, having previously tackled Brecht’s iconic work with his adaptations of Round Heads and Pointed Heads and The…
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Recommended Theater: WOMEN BEWARE WOMEN (Blue in the Right Way at The Edge Theater in Chicago)
Chicago theatre company, Blue in the Right Way, formed to make provocative, stylized theatre as visual art, presents its inaugural production, Women Beware Women, a queer, feminist version of Thomas Middleton’s 1621 psychosexual revenge tragedy. Freely adapted by Kevin V. Smith and Daiva Bhandari, Smith’s abstract, expressionist staging will feature elements of drag performance and…
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Recommended Theater: THE SMUGGLER (Jackalope Theatre)
Jackalope Theatre Company launches its 16th season February 16, 2024 at its new home in Edgewater’s Berger Park with the Chicago premiere of the solo performance The Smuggler by Ronán Noone, directed by Gus Menary. The Smuggler is a thriller in rhyme. It is 2023. Tim Finnegan is a clever and enterprising Irish immigrant tending bar…
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