Chicago

LET THERE BE DARK In endurance sagas such as Lord of the Flies and The Blue Lagoon, stranded youngsters on deserted islands try to reimagine civilization by mimicking adult classics, or else surrender to the anarchy that underlies’”and undermines’”innocence. A similar phenomenon happens in Anne Washburn’s post-apocalyptic fantasy Mr. Burns, a Midwest premiere from Theater…

CAUGHT IN TENNESSEE’S WALTZ An opera disguised as a play, Tennessee Williams’ 1951 labor of longings The Rose Tattoo is the first and last word on heartbreak. The master made a good choice to tell it through vibrant, hot-blooded Sicilian-Americans living on the sultry Gulf Coast between New Orleans and Mobile. These sometimes stereotypical survivors…

SING OUT, ETHEL! What a difference a vowel makes! After his catchy title  The Book of Merman, it seems that Leo Schwartz’ delightful world premiere musicale  practically wrote itself: You just follow the formula, “Fish Out of Water meets Irrepressible Icon.” Mormon missionaries on a two-year stint to convert more Latter Day Saints, young Elders Aaron Shumway…

ONE MIRACLE TOO MANY A very righteous offering from Stage Left Theatre, Penny Penniston’s world premiere Keys of the Kingdom is a well-intentioned attempt to build bridges between ideological opposites: a creative lesbian muralist and the self-appointed men of God who run a repressive evangelical megachurch. The play’s point, it seems, is that our humanity’”as…

HIT AND MISS SEMI-HORROR Calling your 75-minute compilation Scary Stories 2015 puts the premium on terror, a concept or condition that’s hard to compete with real life. In the thoughtfully paradoxical style of the dusky Twilight Zone series, which can offer food for fear as much as thought, these eight sketches’”written, adapted and directed by…

FALSTAFF LITE There’s potent psychology operating inside Shakespeare’s two-part Henry IV,  the twin tales of a false father and a false son. The latter is Prince Hal, the fiery rebel whose Spartan-pure rage against his father, Henry IV, makes daddy  (formerly “Bolingbroke”) wish that the  rebel Henry Percy (“Hotspur”) was his son and not Hal, the current Prince…

IT DOESN’T GET ANY MERRIER THAN THIS This radiant revival is Light Opera Works’ fourth coming of Franz Lehár’s masterpiece from an earlier turn of the century. Rudy Hogenmiller’s sterling staging carries more than enough jubilation to make The Merry Widow a holiday delight. Running through the rest of the Old Year, this three-hour confection,…

YES, VIRGINIA, THERE IS A CHRISTMAS CIRCUS It’s dazzle central and a welcome return to Chicago by the one-ring, 20-feat Cirque Dreams performers, but only through December 21. Their extravaganza Cirque Dreams Holidaze lives up to all three names with a two-hour spectacular to charm even the most jaded brat or cynical adult. Wonder isn’t…

A POOR MAN’S LANFORD WILSON Only in New Orleans could a dumpy parking lot flanking a decrepit motel on a highway leading only to the airport be transformed into a lagniappe-soaked, Mardi Gras-festive party place. This ugly setting gradually gets festooned with colored lights, bunting, papier-mâché medallions, beer kegs, glitzy garlands, and loud jazz. “Laissez…

THE HOTTEST SHOW IN TOWN One of the best-reviewed and most popular Christmastime shows, The Ruffians’ Burning Bluebeard, returns beginning tonight for three weeks only through Jan. 4, 2015, at Theater Wit. Pam Chermansky joins original cast members Anthony Courser, Molly Plunk, Jay Torrence, Leah Urzendowski Courser, and Ryan Walters to tell this fantastical tale…

CST STAGES A FRESH AND FANTASTICAL PERICLES William Shakespeare is a man of many faces. To most, he is quite simply a master of the English language and one of the greatest playwrights who ever lived. To others, he is a crypto-Catholic who encoded his plays with hidden meanings. To some, he is a gay…

RADVANOVSKY IS REGAL IN ANNA BOLENA With so much filmed and written about the six wives of Henry VIII, the Tudor period is perhaps one of the most familiar eras in English history. Yet Gaetano Donizetti’s Anna Bolena manages to give us a fresh perspective by focusing on the transition between Anne Boleyn and Jane…

SUGAR PLUMS AND COALS’”ALL IN A VERY STUFFED STOCKING Goodman Theatre just got schizoid. On one end of its block-long Dearborn Street lobby is the Albert Theatre, where the sacred cash cow A Christmas Carol continues to attract traditional holiday lovers. But, on the north end, the black-box Owen Theatre is showcasing an unsubtle subversion…

HUMOR CAN BE HOLY When, earlier this year, I saw Bluebird Arts’ revival of Sarah Ruhl’s magically realistic domestic drama, I couldn’t grasp the buzz behind her successful whimsy. Yes, it had played Goodman Theatre and a previous production at the Athenaeum Theatre, but it seemed consumed by its own quirks. Happily, a definitive delivery…

THIS SCHOONER SAILS IN ON YULETIDE EUPHORIA A joyous holiday tradition, The Christmas Schooner has been warming Chicagoan hearts for nearly two decades. Following a lengthy run at Bailiwick Theatre from 1996-2008, it now happily resides at the Mercury Theatre since 2011. L. Walter Stearns directs the present production, Eugene Dizon provides musical direction, and…

HANDEL WITH CARE Talk about a 135-year labor of love! This all-volunteer choir’”founded in 1872 after the Great Chicago Fire and performing at the opening of the Auditorium Theatre in 1899 and the 1893 World’s Columbian Exhibition’”must sing. Since 1879 they’ve devoted untold hours of rehearsals and performances to their signature rendition of Handel’s masterpiece,…

CHRISTMAS CHESTNUTS NEED A NUTCRACKER Even though the second half of this holiday favorite actually seems set in spring (with the “Waltz of the Flowers” as chief evidence), its warmth is never more welcome than in winter. Tchaikovsky’s tale of plucky Clara’s defeat of the wicked mice and her rescue of a now-human Nutcracker born…

NOT TOO FAST TO FEEL This latest revue from Chicago’s comedy empire won’t be confused with its 102 predecessors. The Second City’s Panic on Cloud 9 isn’t half as frenzied as the title implies. For one thing, there are fewer and longer sketches, and they don’t all end in punch lines or exit laughs. Often…