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Chicago
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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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Highly Recommended Dance: SUGAR HILL: THE ELLINGTON/ STRAYHORN NUTCRACKER (Auditorium Theatre)
An exhilarating story told in dance and live performance by a seventeen-piece jazz orchestra, SUGAR HILL is set to the music of the genre-defying collaboration between jazz icons bandleader/composer Duke Ellington and composer, Billy Strayhorn, in a captivating way that has never been done before. Nikolas Gaifullin, Alicia Mae Holloway, Josue Gomez In its world…
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Theater Review: BOOP! THE BETTY BOOP MUSICAL (Pre-Broadway World Premiere at CIBC Theatre in Chicago)
BOOP! BOPS, HOPS, AND PLOPS Light-hearted, rather silly, and occasionally preachy, BOOP! The Betty Boop Musical could have been so much more. Betty Boop seems an unlikely candidate for revival considering that her fame is almost entirely confined to cartoons animated by Max Fleischer in the 1930s. Although she has gained new fans through merchandising,…
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Opera Review: JENŮFA (Lyric Opera of Chicago)
A RARE OPPORTUNITY TO SEE JANÁČEK’S FIRST OPERA Jenůfa is now the third opera in a row this season whose plot features a woman with two suitors. Yet each opera puts its own spin on this common trope. In Leoš Janáček’s Jenůfa, the titular heroine loves the carousing Števa, but not his half-brother Laca. Both…
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Chicago Opera Review: THE DAUGHTER OF THE REGIMENT (Lyric Opera)
THIS FILLE IS TRÉS TRÉS FUNNY It is hard to go wrong with Lawrence Brownlee: his sensuous and soaring tenor, knack for comedy, winsome smile and infectious energy warm every production he appears in. This Lyric production of Donizetti’s The Daughter of the Regiment (La Fille du Régiment) is no exception. Alongside Brownlee is the…
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Dance Review: FRANKENSTEIN (The Joffrey Ballet)
IT’S ALIVE! When you think of the Frankenstein story, what comes to mind? The mad scientist in the lab hovering over a green corpse when lightning strikes and electrifies the monster into reanimation ’” “It’s alive!” you might find yourself saying. But what if I told you Victor Frankenstein never actually uttered those words, at…
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Dance Review: HUBBARD STREET DANCE CHICAGO (Ahmanson Theatre)
SHOTA MYOSHI THRILLS WITH STREET PERFORMANCE The Chicago veteran contemporary dance company, one of America’s finest, doesn’t disappoint in a dancey triple bill at the Ahmanson in Los Angeles. Hubbard Street Dance Chicago’s Triple Bill last Friday consisted of a variety of styles. The first piece, Aszure Barton’s Busk (2009) is a genre-bending contemporary piece,…
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Chicago Opera Review: THE FLYING DUTCHMAN (Lyric Opera)
HAUNTED DUTCHMAN HERALDS HALLOWEEN SEASON A bold choice with which to open the opera and Halloween seasons, Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman hits all the right notes and sets a spooky tone. From the composer’s magnificent and moody overture to the opera’s mythological subject (inspired by the Wandering Jew of legend), this Lyric production packs a…
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