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Off-Broadway Review: HEATED RIVALRY: THE UNAUTHORIZED MUSICAL PARODY (6th Floor Theater at The Culture Club)
PUCK BUNNIES AND POWER PLAYS Knowing exactly who it’s playing to, this gleefully ridiculous send-up shoots and scores There are fandoms, and then there are fandoms. The kind that inspires message boards, fan fiction, watch parties, and now, apparently, full-blown musical theater parodies. Heated Rivalry: The Unauthorized Musical Parody understands exactly who its audience is,…
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Theater Review: LE BAL (Trap Door Theatre / Chicago)
DANCING THROUGH THE DECADES A mesmerizing theatrical collage that rewards surrender over analysis One never quite knows what to expect from the good folks at Trap Door Theatre, and I’m sure they wouldn’t want it any other way. The company restricts itself to furiously political works from lesser-known authors; they have a fondness for the…
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Theater Review: OEDIPUS EL REY (Huntington Theatre Company / Boston)
Oedipus El Rey, playwright Luis Alfaro’s reimagining of the Greek myth, transforms the familiar tale of fate and tragedy into an urban contemporary story about incarceration, identity, and the possibility of starting over. The premise remains the same—a child fated to kill his father and marry his mother—but Alfaro uses the myth to explore modern…
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Theater Review: ANTIGONE (Antaeus Theatre Company / Glendale)
PULLED OUT OF MYTH AND INTO THE HEADLINES Kenneth Cavander relocates Thebes to a near-future America, and something is lost in the move I first read Antigone in a basement college classroom in the fall of 1984, the week the polls turned against Walter Mondale. Kreon sounded like the calm voice on the evening news…
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Theater Review: THEATER OF THE MIND (Goodman Theatre at the Reid Murdoch Building)
A THEATRICAL EXPERIENCE FOR THE SCIENCE-MINDED Theater of the Mind created by David Byrne and Mala Gaonkar and directed by Andrew Scoville is an interactive neuroscience experiment tied together with storytelling that takes you inside the mind of an audience surrogate, David, who I assume is based on the creator. We begin as guests at…
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Theater Review: HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH (New Conservatory Theatre Center / San Francisco)
WIG IN A BOX, HEART ON A SLEEVE NCTC reinvents the cult classic with a fierce, funny, and deeply moving Hedwig John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask’s Hedwig and the Angry Inch has traveled a remarkable road since premiering Off-Broadway in 1998. Part rock concert, part confessional, part gender-exploration odyssey, the musical became an underground…
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Theater Review: SILVER FOXES (Revolution Stage Company / Palm Springs)
THE GOLDEN BOYS A sitcom-worthy comedy finds surprising heart beneath the laughs The Palm Springs stage has long been fertile ground for stories about reinvention, friendship, and chosen family. Silver Foxes, receiving its West Coast premiere at Revolution Stage Company, embraces all three with a sitcom veteran’s knack for punchlines and a playwright’s understanding that…
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Theater Review: AIN’T TOO PROUD (Ogunquit Playhouse / Ogunquit, Maine)
TRAGEDY AND TEMPTATIONS The rise and fall of a hit machine Ain’t Too Proud tells the story of the rise of The Temptations, a musical group comprised of young Black men who came together in Detroit to form what became the most successful R&B band in history. The story begins like this: Following a six-month…
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Theater Review: ASCENT (Skylight Theatre / L.A.)
REACHING FOR THE AMERICAN DREAM Henry Ong’s final play transforms one man’s remarkable life into a timely cautionary tale Ascent is a small gem. It is not ostentatious enough to be affixed to the crown of some monarch, nor sumptuous enough to be a gaudy piece of “bling” dangling about some rapper’s neck, but it…
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Theater Review: TARTUFFE, OR, THE CHARLATAN (The Conspirators / Chicago)
PUNK, PRAYER, AND PURE CHAOS The Conspirators’ neo-commedia take on Molière finds fresh mischief in a timeless satire What could be better than a saucy, irreverent, seventeenth-century French farce? How about a saucy, irreverent, seventeenth-century French farce performed in the twenty-first century, that marries a punk aesthetic to a modern interpretation of a sixteenth-century Italian…
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Opera Review: ZORRO (Pacific Opera Project / San Gabriel Mission Playhouse)
THIS ZORRO NEVER LEAVES A MARK Pacific Opera Project’s lavish production can’t rescue an opera that rarely catches fire Pacific Opera Project gave composer-librettist Héctor Armienta’s 2022 opera, Zorro, a lavish Los Angeles premiere last weekend at San Gabriel Mission Playhouse. Alas, strong production value was not enough to put life into this instantly forgettable…
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Theater Review: CARLOTA: ALHAJERO DE SECRETOS (Latino Theater Company / LATC)
LORCA IN DRAG, WITH HIS CLAWS INTACT Rodrigo García and Ugho Badú reimagine a Spanish classic without dulling its edge Lorca wrote for women’s voices and then watched the world go silent on him. Carlota: Alhajero de Secretos (Carlota: Jewelry Box of Secrets) hands those voices to men, and the swap is the honest move….
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Theater Review: THE TARGETED (A Red Orchid Theatre / Chopin Theatre / Chicago)
SIGNALS IN THE STATIC A Red Orchid’s compelling world premiere favors empathy over satire, sometimes at the expense of deeper exploration Thus far, 2026 has been an uncommonly good year in Chicago for new work, bringing forth plays and musicals that push against the boundaries of theatre, in terms of both narrative and construction. The…
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Theater Review: PIPPIN (Signature Theatre / Arlington)
CORNER OF THE SKY, CENTER OF THE RING Signature’s dazzling revival embraces Pippin‘s whimsy, darkness, and enduring search for meaning A sort of ninth-century, one-ring circus crammed with presentational glee, Pippin has always been an unusual musical. Premiering in 1972 with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz and a book by Roger O. Hirson, it…
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Broadway Review: CELEBRITY AUTOBIOGRAPHY (Shubert Theatre)
READING BETWEEN THE LINES OF FAME Broadway’s funniest staged reading proves that truth is often stranger —and funnier—than fiction Yevgeny Yevtushenko famously wrote, “A poet’s autobiography is his poetry. Anything else is just a footnote.” Judging by the material on display at the opening night of Celebrity Autobiography, many celebrities probably should have stopped at…
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Theater Review: COVENANT (Goodman / Chicago)
THE DEVIL WENT DOWN TO GEORGIA York Walker’s Southern Gothic keeps its secrets close and its audience on edge “Everybody got a secret” That is the line that opens Covenant, the gripping play by York Walker, now playing on the Owen stage at the Goodman. It is about as tight a summation as can be…
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Theater Review: (RE)DRESSING MISS HAVISHAM (Boston Playwrights’ Theatre)
GREAT EXPECTATIONS, OR GREAT DECEPTIONS? Miranda Jonte and playwright John Minigan turn Dickens into the subject of a witty and compelling literary cold case Despite the broken air-conditioning on a hot and sticky night, Miranda Jonte kept me engaged and curious with her spirited portrayal of both a literary sleuth and one of literature’s iconic…
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Theater Review: PICTURES FROM HOME (Marin Theatre / Mill Valley)
SAY CHEESE—AND PASS THE TRAUMA Sharr White’s adaptation of Larry Sultan’s memoir turns one California family into a deeply recognizable portrait of memory, regret, and love Now making its West Coast debut at Marin Theatre is a story with roots here in Marin County. Bay Area photographer Larry Sultan assembled a series of family photographs…
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Theater Review: LA CAGE AUX FOLLES (Theatre Rhinoceros / San Francisco)
WE ARE WHAT WE ARE Theatre Rhinoceros turns its intimate Castro venue into a joyous explosion of feathers, farce, and fierce self-acceptance Since 1977, Theatre Rhinoceros has produced theater celebrating the LGBTQ community. This month, they’re presenting the classic Broadway musical La Cage Aux Folles. Originally written as a French play by Jean Poiret in…
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Theater Review: SCARAMOUCHE (City Lit Theater / Edgewater Presbyterian Church / Chicago)
EN GARDE, YOU FOOLS A spirited cast and plenty of swashbuckling fun can’t quite compensate for a forgettable score “He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad.” That terrific sentence opens Rafael Sabatini’s 1921 novel Scaramouche. A smash hit on publication, this swashbuckling adventure has been adapted…
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