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Theater Review: CATCH AS CATCH CAN (Steppenwolf Theatre Company / Chicago)
GETTING CAUGHT UP WHEN THERE’S A CATCH A baffling experiment eventually reveals a powerful emotional core Why? That one-word refrain was what repeatedly popped up in my head through most of the first hour of Mia Chung‘s Catch as Catch Can, the final production of Steppenwolf’s mostly excellent 50th season. The show features three actors—two…
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Off-Broadway Review: CAMPING (Colt Coeur / HERE Arts Center)
INTENTS LOVE Victoria Lynne Barclay’s impressive debut traces a friendship—and a missed connection—across twenty-five years The world premiere of Camping by Victoria Lynne Barclay offers a genuine surprise: this is her professional debut as a playwright. You’d never guess it after witnessing this two-hander unfold across eight scenes spanning twenty-five years of friendship. The play…
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Theater Review: IN OLD AGE (Arts Emerson with Front Porch Arts Collective)
SOMETHING’S GOTTA GIVE A “charming bulldozer” meets a wall of resistance Anyone who has had a home renovation knows the way a contractor can take over one’s life. Suddenly, strange men (usually men) clomp around in heavy boots in the early morning, tearing up floors and tearing down walls. There is noise and dust and…
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Theater Review: CHAMPIONS OF MAGIC (Tour at Studebaker Theatre / Chicago)
TRICKS ARE FOR KIDS AND THEIR PARENTS A large-scale illusion show that never loses its personal touch Most of the magic shows I’ve been to have been small, intimate affairs, with an audience of fifty or less watching one magician perform an array of card tricks and sleights of hand. Champions of Magic, now on…
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Theater Review: FALL OF THE ROMAN REPUBLIC… ON A SHOESTRING BUDGET (Actors Company / Hollywood Fringe Festival)
ET TU, SHOESTRING? An ambitious historical comedy collapses under its own weight— but not without flashes of promise There are many different reasons for failure. All of them sting. The Fall of the Roman Republic… On a Shoestring Budget, now striding the stage at the Actors Company’s Other Space Theatre, is a failure. But a…
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Theater Review: WEST SIDE STORY (Paper Mill Playhouse / Millburn, NJ)
SOMEWHERE, STILL Paper Mill Playhouse proves that a classic doesn’t need fixing The powerful and poignant West Side Story has been retooled, tweaked, and tinkered with in the years since the original 1957 production boldly burst forth on Broadway. Not every change was for the better. For a change, those presenting the version at Paper…
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Off-Broadway Review: ROMEO & JULIET (The Public Theater / Delacorte Theatre / Central Park)
BORDERING ON TRAGEDY Saheem Ali’s politically charged staging complicates Shakespeare’s timeless tale— but the young lovers still shine through This year’s Shakespeare in the Park presents the Bard’s most enduring love story, Romeo & Juliet, where bright youthful innocence collides with dark adult cynicism, and love finds itself trapped in a feud so ancient that…
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Theater Review: THE BOOK OF MERMAN (Prism Theatre / Palm Springs)
EVERYTHING’S COMING UP MORMONS A campy musical mashup finds laughs, heart, and the perfect home at Prism Theatre Palm Springs’ Prism Theatre is christening its permanent home with a production of The Book of Merman, and audiences are eating it up. This gleefully irreverent musical comedy spoofs The Book of Mormon while celebrating the larger-than-life…
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Theater Review: OCTET (Goodman Theatre Chicago)
[Editor’s Note (June 2026): Raven Theatre’s astounding production of Octet, originally reviewed by Stage and Cinema in May, transfers intact to the Goodman Theatre for a limited engagement beginning July 15, 2026.] LOG OFF AND SING Dave Malloy’s brilliant chamber musical turns doomscrolling, loneliness, and internet addiction into something unexpectedly humane I don’t know what…
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Theater Review: LEOPOLDSTADT (Writers Theatre / Glencoe, Chicagoland)
THE GHOSTS IN THE FAMILY TREE Tom Stoppard’s final play is as intellectually dazzling as it is emotionally devastating “Barbarism will not be eradicated by culture.” That line, spoken midway through Leopoldstadt, the final masterpiece by Tom Stoppard—one of the greatest playwrights of his, or any, generation—made my stomach do a flip. Merely one of…
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Theater Review: BAD BOOKS (Gloucester Stage Co. / MA)
TO BAN OR NOT TO BAN Who decides what children are allowed to read? Playwrights are among the many who are struggling to reconcile the escalating conflicts among different factions of our society. Huntington Theatre’s Eureka Day portrays the executive board of a progressive private school at odds with itself when a mumps outbreak pits…
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Theater Review: TRENCH (Broadwater Studio / Hollywood Fringe)
UNDER PRESSURE Ann Noble directs Ann Loud in a nicely twisted mystery set in a multi-crew submersible some 30,000 deep. Ann Loud, who penned the script and plays all five characters, skillfully captures the raw nerves of the crew and captain as they struggle to set the world’s record for longest sustained deep dive while…
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Theater Review: DAY AFTER DAY (THE LIFE AND MUSIC OF DORIS DAY) (The Broadwater Second Stage / Hollywood Fringe)
CALAMITY JANE MEETS LAS VEGAS A charming tribute delivers plenty of Doris Day favorites, even if the biography occasionally takes a back seat Day After Day (The Life and Music of Doris Day) is like a slick—very slick—lounge act, the type you’d expect to see during Vegas’s heyday. Penned by Tony Santamauro, with Christy Mauro-Cohen…
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Off-Broadway Review: FEAR & WONDER (Flux Theatre Ensemble / A.R.T./NY Theaters)
FAITH, HOPE, AND QUEERITY: AMEN TO THAT Flux Theatre Ensemble finds grace where religion and identity collide One of the great joys of theatergoing in New York City is discovering the countless small companies producing work that rivals established organizations. Add Flux Theatre Ensemble to that list. Its current production, Fear & Wonder, is ambitious,…
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Theater Review: ANASTASIA (La Mirada Theatre)
WHAT THE MUSIC BOX REMEMBERS A lavish production overcomes a book that never fully solves its own mystery A music box opens. A grandmother sings a lullaby to a five-year-old girl who will spend the evening trying to remember it. That is the show in miniature. Everything that follows turns on whether the memory is…
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Comedy Review: CLUB CLOWN (Hollywood Fringe Festival / The Broadwater Main Stage)
SEND IN THE CLOWNS. ALL OF THEM. Will Thomas McFadden assembles a joyful showcase of clowning talent and comic invention Will Thomas McFadden has created a Jackson Pollock experience, only with clowns. (Really, talented clowns.) McFadden has gathered at the Broadwater Main Stage a kaleidoscope of the city’s top chuckle-creators for nightly romps. The clowning…
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Theater Review: SOMETHING SPOOKY (Hollywood Fringe Festival / Broadwater Studio)
GHOSTS WITH HEARTBEATS Jon Schnitzer finds warmth and wonder beneath the bumps in the night Something Spooky, written and performed by Jon Schnitzer, is more about heart than haunting. Yes, there are strange goings-on, but the “investigation,” while focusing on things that go bump in the night, uncovers the spirit of an altogether different sort:…
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Dance Review: ESCAPE (DIAVOLO / Los Angeles)
DEFYING GRAVITY, DEPENDING ON TRUST DIAVOLO’s acrobatic spectacle turns movement, risk and collaboration into something exhilaratingly human DIAVOLO is currently presenting ESCAPE, a visceral, intimate work following 22 remarkably agile performers as they struggle to break free from a chaotic world. Set to music by Harry Styles, Pink Floyd and Alicia Keys, the production combines gravity-defying…
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Comedy Review: PIVOTAL NOMAD (Hollywood Fringe Festival / Broadwater Studio)
A FREQUENT FLYER OF FUNNY Mike Blaha’s globe-trotting tales land more often than they miss Mike Blaha is a tall tumbler of funny. His show, Pivotal Nomad at the Broadwater Studio, starts with a blast as he relates doing stand-up around the world while pondering whether it’s time to click those ruby loafers three times…
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Theater Review: ALANIS MORISSETTE’S JAGGED LITTLE PILL: THE MUSICAL (Center REP / Lesher Center for the Arts / Walnut Creek)
YOU LEARN… OR YOU DON’T The songs still hit hard, but the family drama built around them feels overly familiar More often than not, as a critic, I like to go into a show cold, without many expectations. Given that Jagged Little Pill is built around Alanis Morissette’s landmark 1995 album, I assumed it might…
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