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Chicago
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Theater Review: THE PROJECT(S) (Stage Left Theater, Chicago)
THIS YEAR MORE THAN EVER, THE PROJECT(S) MUST BE SEEN It’s a continuing crisis seen from the inside out, fleshed out with warmth and truth. In The Project(s), the late, great American Theater Company artistic director PJ Paparelli and documentarian Joshua Jaeger created a crash course and action meditation on Chicago’s infam0us housing projects. Inspired…
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Theater Review: THE SPIN (Interrobang Theatre Project, Chicago)
THE SPIN IS A SPECTACULAR SPARKLING SPUNKY EXPLOIT Satisfying, enriching, entertaining and proof that Chicago contains some of this country’s greatest actors and theater, The Spin is writer/director Spenser Davis’s brilliant blend of theatric sensibilities in a digital format. This offering from Interrobang Theatre Project in Chicago “opened” last night and it is hands down…
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Theater Review: 45 PLAYS FOR AMERICA’S FIRST LADIES (The Neo-Futurists in NYC, Chicago, and San Francisco)
WHO’S ON FIRST, LADIES? The program states: “Rather than presenting a purely biographical story, this project uses the “honorary” office of First Lady as a lens to examine the roles that women and other marginalized individuals have played in the development of America.” That this recorded production is coarse in value only seems to heighten…
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Theater Preview: SUCH SMALL HANDS (Kane Rep Digital Reading)
UPCOMING READING HIGHLY RECOMMENDED Tony Award winner Rondi Reed and Steppenwolf’s Francis Guinan will star in a world premiere virtual reading of Adam Szymkowicz’s Such Small Hands, directed by Artistic Director of Northlight Theatre BJ Jones on October 14, 2020, at 7:30 p.m. CT, as part of Kane Repertory Theatre’s New Play Lab. The Play: Paul is cancer ridden and descending into dementia. He…
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Theater Preview: CHICAGO SHAKESPEARE THEATER ANNOUNCES 35TH ANNIVERSARY SEASON
CHICAGO SHAKES UP ITS SEASON Chicago Shakes’ 35th Anniversary Season offers an amazing array of options, both in’‘person performances and virtual streaming. Look for plays written and inspired by Shakespeare, new musicals, a timely contemporary opera, and engaging digital content for audiences, students, and teachers. Virtual programming and streamed productions will launch the season in September 2020. In’‘person…
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Theater Preview: WRITER THEATRE’S 2020/21 SEASON (Chicago)
WRITERS READY AND RARIN’ TO GO Chicago’s amazing company, Writers Theatre, has announced its 2020/21 Season with a new adaptive producing model, one committed to remaining flexible and responsive to current events and that allows the them to welcome patrons back when the time is right. Productions will be confirmed and dates will be announced…
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Theater Review: PRIDE AND PREJUDICE (Lifeline)
A PRODUCTION TO BE PROUD OF Pride and Prejudice is Austen’s best-known novel, and its rich tapestry of characters and urbane dialogue have made it a natural for the stage, television, and motion pictures — and now, virtual streaming. To kick off its new line of digital programming, Lifeline Theatre presents Pride and Prejudice, adapted…
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Theater Preview: EASTLAND: AN ORIGINAL MUSICAL (Lookingglass Theatre Virtual Watch Party on August 20)
LITTLE-KNOWN CHICAGO DISASTER BECOMES TOWERING MUSICAL; THE BRILLIANT LOOKINGGLASS THEATRE PRODUCTION STREAMS ONE NIGHT ONLY FOR FREE In 2012, Chicago’s Lookingglass Theatre Company presented the hit, Eastland: An Original Musical, a stunning meditation on one of the most terrible disasters in Chicago history: On the morning of July 25, 1915, an excursion boat overloaded with…
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Theater Preview: OF DICE AND MEN (Otherworld Theatre)
GO TO THE OTHERWORLD Chicago’s premier Science Fiction and Fantasy theatre proudly presents Of Dice And Men – A Play about Dungeons and Dragons! This virtual production is a remount of Otherworld’s first full length production from the spring of 2014, and it has been specifically designed for Otherworld’s digital platform. It will premiere on…
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Dance Preview: 30 FEET TOGETHER, 6 FEET APART (Chicago Tap Theatre streaming ONE performance only July 26 at 3 CST)
SOMEONE’S TAPPING AT YOUR DOOR LET THEM IN! For one performance only — Sunday, July 26, at 3 p.m. — Chicago Tap Theatre (CTT) will present 30 Feet Together, 6 Feet Apart live on its streaming platforms from the historic Athenaeum Theatre in Chicago. It’s a celebration of the power and necessity of dance and…
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Theater Preview: CHICAGO’S RAVEN THEATRE (Season 2021)
THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC HAS CHICAGO’S RAVEN THEATRE REVAMP ITS 2020-21 SEASON This fall’s planned revival of Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee’s drama Inherit the Wind directed by Ian Frank has been cancelled. Instead, the three-play season will kick off next February, 2021, with Jonathan Harvey’s sweet and charming coming-of-age play Beautiful Thing. Mikael Burke directs this touching story of two boys living in London who…
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Theater Preview: THE MAGIC PARLOUR AT HOME (New Virtual Show by Chicago’s Dennis Watkins)
JUST AS MAGICAL REMOTELY Is stuff magical only because it can’t be explained? Perhaps it’s more than just the absence of logic, probability, or reason. There’s a presence too: Magic evokes a child-like sense of wonder in the oldest adults, rewarding their imagination more than their ignorance. At least that’s the working philosophy of House…
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Theater Preview: BEETHOVEN — LIVE FROM FLORENCE (Hershey Felder)
BEETHOVEN TO APPEAR LIVE IN YOUR HOME Dramatizing Dr. Gerhard von Breuning’s factual memoir, Aus dem Schwarzspanierhaus (Out of the House of Black-Robed Spaniards, Beethoven’s last residence), Hershey Felder brought Ludwig van Beethoven to life on stage through the eyes of the Viennese Doctor Breuning who spent his boyhood by the Maestro’s side. Featuring some of…
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Theater Feature: MERCURY THEATER CHICAGO TO CLOSE PERMANENTLY
A SAD DAY FOR THEATER Executive Director, L. Walter Stearns and partner Business Manager Eugene Dizon announced today the permanent closure of Mercury Theater Chicago after ten years and 25 productions, due to the uncertain future in the performing arts (and beyond) caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, and the incredible financial hardship that has come…
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Virtual Theater: TEENAGE DICK (Theater Wit in Chicago; Third Extension)
DICK EXTENDS Chicago’s Theater Wit announced a third and final extension today of Teenage Dick, its long-running critically acclaimed virtual production of Mike Lew’s devastatingly funny new play inspired by theater’s most famous disabled character — Shakespeare’s Richard III — like audiences have never seen him before: scheming his way through the brutal, no-holds barred…
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Virtual Theater: TO MASTER THE ART (Timeline Theatre / Chicago)
STARVING FOR THEATER? FEAST ON THIS! It’s not just for Chicagoans anymore. Time and again, we have trumped that Chicago theater is the most exciting in the country. Not just because of the array and number of companies, but the affordability. Theater artists in Chicago do theater for theater’s sake — and for ours. Case…
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Theater / Virtual: SONDHEIM @ 90 ROUNDTABLE (Porchlight Music Theatre Virtual Series)
CELEBRATING A PASSION FOR SONDHEIM Welcome to a new, free virtual series to celebrate Stephen Sondheim as an American icon while celebrating his 90th birthday year. Sondheim @ 90 Roundtable, created and hosted by Chicago’s Porchlight Music Theatre Artistic Director Michael Weber, gathers talents from Chicago, Broadway and the world of theater to offer episodes…
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Theater Review: THE HEALING (formerly titled LEGENDS) (Black Ensemble Theater)
SINGING AGAINST HATE If it takes a village, the Black Ensemble Theater creates one nightly. Actually, it’s a “healing circle” that’s literally at center stage and figuratively at the heart of Legends the Musical: A Civil Rights Movement, Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow. Written and directed by founder Jackie Taylor, this generous new work departs from…
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Opera Review: THE QUEEN OF SPADES (Lyric Chicago)
WHAT A QUEEN! Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikosky’s ballets Swan Lake and The Nutcracker are both beloved and celebrated, yet his operas are scarcely known. Indeed, we don’t get much Russian opera at all, at least in Chicago. Lyric produced Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin in 2017, while Chicago Opera Theatre produced his Iolanta in 2018 and Rachmaninoff’s Aleko…
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Theater Review: THE BOOK OF MORON (Tour)
STAND-UP MEETS SELF-HELP It’s a singular solo show: Creator of The Male Intellect: An Oxymoron, satirist Robert Dubac now delivers Book of Moron, an 85-minute riff on reality and all its threats. Delivering rapid-fire, hit-and-run observations about contemporary consciousness, this driven lecturer imagines himself coming out of the coma of everyday existence to embark on…
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