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Theater Review: SUPERIOR DONUTS (TheArtistic Home at The Den Theatre)
GO ON AND BITE INTO THIS DONUT– YOU’VE EARNED IT It must have been quite a shock to Tracy Letts fans when Superior Donuts premiered at Steppenwolf in 2008. Chicago Theatre’s favorite adopted son had been coming off a streak of intense, gripping dramas, with his most recent one, August, Osage County, cleaning up at…
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Opera Review: FRA DIAVOLO (Pacific Opera Project)
A Night with a Gentleman Thief: Pacific Opera Project’s Delightful Fra Diavolo Daniel Auber’s Fra Diavolo amassed over 900 performances at the Opéra Comique during the 19th century before being dropped from the repertoire in 1907. Pacific Opera Project’s current production at The Highland Park Ebell Club makes a case for why this neglect is…
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Theater Review: SALLY & TOM (Marin Theatre Company)
BREAKING THE FOURTH WALL INTO THE WHITE HOUSE This play-within-a-play probes power, mythology, and who gets to tell the story Making its West Coast premiere at Marin Theatre Company is Sally & Tom — a return to material the same company explored in 2017 with the earlier, more controversial Thomas & Sally by Thomas Bradshaw….
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Off-Broadway Review: ARCHDUKE (Roundabout Theatre Company at Laura Pels)
THE SANDWICHES THAT COULD HAVE CHANGED THE WORLD A wickedly funny revision of history delights even as it faces catastrophe All they ever wanted was a sandwich… That’s the revised motivation for the young Bosnian conspirators who plotted to assassinate Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, in 1914. It’s posited by playwright Rajiv…
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Theater Review: AMERIKA OR, THE MAN WHO DISAPPEARED (Open Fist Theatre Company)
THIS WAY TO THE AMERICAN DREAM– MIND THE TRAP DOORS Kafka’s story still needs an ending, but Open Fist delivers a wildly inventive Amerika If you think America is in an existential crisis right now, you either don’t know your U.S. history, or you aren’t familiar with Franz Kafka’s Amerika or, The Man Who Disappeared—which, in Dietrich…
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Theater Review: ANGRY FAGS (Ghostlight Ensemble)
SHARP CAST, BLUNT SATIRE A Fierce Ensemble Fights for Meaning in Angry Fags Topher Payne’s Angry Fags first made its appearance in 2015, in a world that was decidedly different from what it is now, and Ghostlight Ensemble’s new production at the Lifeline Theatre in Rogers Park is timely. There have been some changes made…
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Theater Review: BLUEBEARD’S CASTLE: A MEDIEVAL MUSICAL THRILLER (Odyssey Theatre)
Bluebeard’s Castle, A Medieval Musical Thriller by Russian director and playwright Sofia Streisand, making her U.S. debut at the Odyssey Theatre Ensemble, displays immense ambition that achieves only partial realization. Streisand took her inspiration from La Barbe Bleue, the French fairy tale of a serial killer whose preferred victims are the women wed to him….
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Theater Review: AS YOU LIKE IT (Midwest Premiere at Writers Theatre in Glencoe)
425 YEARS LATER, THE O.G. ROMCOM STILL CASTS A SPELL Writers Theatre in Glencoe, a charming North Shore Chicago suburb, has developed a reputation for impeccably produced theater of extremely high quality. Their newest production, a Midwest premiere of the musical adaptation of William Shakespeare’s As You Like It by Laurie Woolery and Tony-winner Shaina Taub…
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Off-Broadway Review: KYOTO (Royal Shakespeare Company at Lincoln Center’s Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater)
“It will never be forgiven.” With those chilling words, delivered just days ago, the UN climate chief branded our reckless indulgence in fossil-fueled destruction as a transgression so grave it stains the conscience of humankind, and he is not being dramatic! From Stratford-upon-Avon to London’s West End, and now at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater…
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Theater Review: ARMS AND THE MAN (Lamb’s Players Theatre in Coronado)
A DELIGHTFUL LITTLE SCRIPT—FOR SHAW! Best known for Pygmalion (which was adapted into My Fair Lady), Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw challenged people’s views on social issues, including class structure. In his Arms and the Man, there’s a clear message of celebrating the letting go of putting on airs, as well as a hard look at…
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Theater Review: RENT (Revolution Stage Company)
NO DAY BUT TONIGHT Revolution Stage Company’s Rent delivers heart and heat, if not always polish Revolution Stage Company’s production of Rent, directed by James Owens, bursts with passion and commitment, offering an earnest exploration of love, loss, and survival in New York City’s East Village at the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis. The energy…
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Theater Review: GOLDEN AGE (Force of Nature Productions at Sawyer’s Playhouse in North Hollywood)
SUPER ZEROES UNITE! Aging heroes, flat jokes, and laughs that need life support Golden Age by Thomas J. Nisuraca is the roughest of rough theatre. Staged by Force of Nature Productions and directed by Aurora Culver at North Hollywood’s Sawyer’s Playhouse, Golden Age kicks off with a premise worthy of a Saturday Night Live skit:…
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Highly Recommended Event: PALM SPRINGS PLAZA THEATRE COMMUNITY OPEN HOUSE
RAISING THE CURTAIN AGAIN Palm Springs Plaza Theatre celebrates its grand reopening with a free community open house After a two-year, multimillion-dollar restoration, the historic Palm Springs Plaza Theatre will reopen its doors with a free community open house and block party on Saturday, November 22, 2025, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Visitors can…
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Off-Broadway Review: MESSY WHITE GAYS (The Duke)
THE ONLY THING STRAIGHT IN THIS ROOM IS THE LINE TO THE CREDENZA Messy White Gays—which opened November 2 at Off-Broadway’s Duke on 42nd Street—is a contemporary drawing-room comedy, a modern spin on the comedy of manners, built on witty exchanges, social commentary, and the absurdities of its characters. Classic models include Oscar Wilde’s The…
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Theater Review: BESIDE MYSELF (Laguna Playhouse)
A GREAT PREMISE GETS LOBOTOMIZED Laguna Playhouse offers a dazzling wall of doors and not much behind them Paul Slade Smith’s new play Beside Myself arrives with a knockout premise: Gemma, a therapist, is so consumed by anxiety that she undergoes an experimental “minimally invasive” brain surgery to excise her worry. But near the end…
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Theater Review: THE BEAUTIFUL LAND I SEEK (LA LINDA TIERRA QUE BUSCO YO) (Teatro Chelsea)
GUNNING FOR PUERTO RICO Stephen Sondheim chose an unlikely topic for his 1990 Assassins, a musical that portrays assassinating or attempting to assassinate a president is as American as popular music. I can’t say whether or not playwright Matthew Barbot was inspired by Sondheim’s musical, but Barbot certainly fills a hole in Sondheim’s line-up of…
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Theater Review: THE HEART SELLERS (South Coast Rep)
THE QUIET COST OF BELONGING Suh’s Thanksgiving duet is lovely and lived-in, but leaves one wishing for deeper stakes The Heart Sellers at South Coast Rep offers a focused, uninterrupted glimpse into the lives of two strangers on Thanksgiving Day, 1973, near the end of Richard Nixon’s reign. The story begins with Luna (Nicole Javier),…
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Opera Review: HILDEGARD (World Premiere, LA Opera and Beth Morrison Projects at The Wallis)
BEST BE ON YOUR HILDEGARD WATCHING THIS THING When approaching a work based on history, it’s expected that there will be some degree of fictionalization. Even though it won’t be completely true, the broad strokes will be, and you’ll leave having learned a tiny bit of something new. However, Hildegard, the dull new opera by…
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Off-Broadway Review: THE BURNING CAULDRON OF FIERY FIRE (Vineyard Theatre and The Civilians)
A SPELLBINDING CAULDRON BOILS OVER, SUMMONING THEATER’S WILD GODS Suffice it to say, there’s nothing else in New York quite like Anne Washburn’s new play The Burning Cauldron of Fiery Fire, now at the Vineyard Theatre in collaboration with The Civilians. For anyone bored by the constraints of realism and naturalism—and instead drawn to theater…
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Theater Review: THE HOUSE THAT WILL NOT STAND (Invictus Theatre Company)
THIS HOUSE STANDS ON FAITH AND FURY The House That Will Not Stand blazes with wit, grief, and grace Following the smashing success of its production of Angels in America, Invictus Theatre Co. notches up another triumph with Marcus Gardley’s Obie-winner, The House That Will Not Stand. In this (very) loose adaptation of The House…
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