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Tours
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Cabaret Review: JULIE BENKO: EUPHONIC GUMBO (Birdland in NYC and West Coast Tour)
LET THE GOOD TIMES ROLL WITH A TWIST Julie Benko’s Mardi Gras–flavored cabaret delights with energy and polish: a tasty Gumbo On a Monday night at Birdland Jazz Club, with a twinkle in her eye, singer Julie Benko refers to her work the rest of the week as being involved in “a little show called…
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Theater Review: BEETLEJUICE (North American Tour at McCallum Theatre)
SAY HIS NAME—AND HOLD ON A neon-charged national tour delivers irreverent spectacle, sharp performances, and just enough heart to make the afterlife feel alive Any doubts that the Netherworld could thrive in the Coachella Valley heat were laid to rest at the McCallum Theatre’s opening night. The North American tour of Beetlejuice has officially haunted…
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Dance Preview: STILL/HERE (Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company on Tour at Royce Hall)
STILL HERE, STILL ESSENTIAL The tour of Bill T. Jones’s landmark dance comes to Royce Hall with undiminished force The first time I saw Still/Here, it was at BAM. It was 1994, the year of Stonewall’s 25th Anniversary and The Gay Games in NYC. So, yes, there was celebrating, but the AIDS epidemic was still…
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Theater Review: PARANORMAL ACTIVITY (North American Premiere Tour at American Conservatory Theater)
A.C.T. EMBRACES HORROR WITH A STYLISH, SUSPENSEFUL STAGE ADAPTATION A slow-burn ghost story elevated by design, atmosphere, and committed performances A.C.T. continues its 2025/26 season by branching out and taking a chance on a new genre: horror. If the posters and ad campaigns look familiar, they should—to fans of the original films. Paranormal Activity is…
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Theater Review: CLUE (Second North American Tour at the McCallum Theatre)
A BOARD GAME FAVORITE TURNS INTO A LIVE-ACTION FARCE OF MURDER AND MAYHEM A high-energy whodunit that entertains, even when the pacing wobbles The classic whodunit murder mystery game Clue leapt from the board to the boards last night at McCallum Theatre. The production—directed by Casey Hushion—is a bit of a double-edged dagger. While it…
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Theater Review: MONTY PYTHON’S SPAMALOT (North American Tour)
HOLY GRAIL, WHOLLY DATED A high-energy tour packed with talent, nostalgic chaos, and humor that doesn’t always land in 2026 Risking impalement by a heavily armored knight, and death by cheeky British puns, I joined a lively crowd at Segerstrom Hall for Monty Python’s Spamalot. Shockingly, I am a virgin—to the musical, that is. The…
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Theater Review: STEREOPHONIC (National Tour, CIBC Theatre Chicago)
THEATER IN STEREOPHONIC A terrific docudrama about artistic temperament and the torment of creation David Adjmi’s Stereophonic, now playing at the CIBC, is an unusual piece of theater. It’s not about learning any life lessons, or coming to terms with things, and with one notable exception, none of the characters have a growth arc; further,…
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Theater Review: SOME LIKE IT HOT (National Tour, Broadway in Boston)
A REIMAGINING OF A HOLLYWOOD CLASSIC Frothy fun with an affirmingly progressive perspective The art deco sets (Scott Pask, scenic design), broad-shouldered plaids (Gregg Barnes, costumes), and jitterbugging choreography (Casey Nicholaw, who also directed) are a pleasing eyeful in Broadway in Boston’s energetic rendition of the Tony-award winning Some Like It Hot. But there’s more…
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Theater Review: A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE (The Streetcar Project Tour at A.C.T. in S.F.)
EVEN MORE TO DESIRE A stripped-down Streetcar that proves Tennessee Williams needs no scenery. Since struggle for power among the classes is one of the central themes in Tennessee Williams’ still-shocking A Streetcar Named Desire, it makes perfect sense that director and co-creator Nick Westrate would strip the Pulitzer Prize winner down to its rawest…
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Theater Review: CAMELTON (Stephen Cole’s One-Man Show About One Man’s Wild Ride)
THERE’S NO BUSINESS LIKE SHOW BUSINESS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE MIDDLE EAST Stephen Cole’s backstage Qatar saga is stranger than fiction—and just as entertaining In the story category of “truth is stranger than fiction,” and well worthy of inclusion in an edition of Ripley’s Believe It or Not, comes the mind-boggling saga of how…
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Theater Review: THE TRAGEDY OF HAMLET (Eddie Izzard; International Tour; Hollywood’s Montalbán)
A SOLO HAMLET BUILT ON PRECISION AND VELOCITY Inside the White-Box World of Izzard: One Performer, Twenty-Two Roles, No Safety Net Suzy Eddie Izzard—formerly known as Eddie Izzard until 2023 and now using she/her pronouns—is a groundbreaking British comedian known for her gender-defying stage persona. Now Izzard has taken up a new challenge, the actor’s…
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Dance Preview: GRAHAM100 (Martha Graham Dance Company International Tour in Chicago)
GRAHAM’S DANCE DYNASTY DESCENDS ON THE AUDITORIUM THEATRE Martha Graham Dance Company pairs signature works with a Bernstein-inspired Chicago premiere. On January 24, The Auditorium Theatre will host the living legacy of a pioneering genius. As part of its celebratory 100th anniversary international tour, the Martha Graham Dance Company will commemorate this unmatched milestone with…
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Theater Review: ALL THE DEVILS ARE HERE: HOW SHAKESPEARE INVENTED THE VILLAIN (Patrick Page at BroadStage)
A MASTER VILLAIN TAKES THE STAGE Patrick Page turns Shakespeare’s greatest monsters into a riveting, slyly funny tour through human nature— one blood-red spotlight at a time. Dubbed “the villain of Broadway” by Playbill, Patrick Page has never shied away from exploring his dark side. Now, with his tour-de-force solo show All the Devils Are…
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Theater Review: THE NOTEBOOK: THE MUSICAL (North American Tour)
Three Couples, Zero Accumulation With a score that forgets to remember, The Notebook drowns in its own mawkish bathwater There’s a musical version of The Notebook that might actually work. A decades-spanning romance built on longing, separation, and fading memory? That’s theater. What’s currently stinking up the Hollywood Pantages? That’s a $30 million hostage situation…
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Theater Review: THE SOUND OF MUSIC (National Tour at the Citizens Opera House, Boston)
THIS SHOW IS ALIVE … WITH THE SOUND OF MUSIC A classic musical celebrates the power of music to promote authenticity How do you solve a problem like—presenting a musical that is so familiar as a movie that an audience may think they already know everything it has to offer? Director Jack O’Brien offers a…
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Theater Review: SIX (2025 National Tour, Boleyn Cast)
SIX QUEENS BEAT A FULL HOUSE A Clever, Electrifying Concert That Sometimes Overwhelms Its Own Story History serves us well in stories for musicals. From 1776 to Evita to Hamilton, all the plot is ready and waiting to be served up and put to music. So when you marry six women in thirty-four years, you’re…
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Concert Preview: THREADS OF GOLD—DOLLY PARTON GOES SYMPHONIC (National Tour)
THREADS OF GOLD—DOLLY PARTON GOES SYMPHONIC Her songs get the orchestral treatment in a cross-country concert experience Dolly Parton has never been one for half measures. When she says the threads of her life run through her songs, she means it. That idea is taken literally with Dolly Parton’s Threads: My Songs in Symphony, a…
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Concert Review: CHEYENNE JACKSON (Carnegie Hall Debut / National Tour Launch)
A BROADWAY BARITONE TAKES STOCK A career-spanning concert that blends ambition, gratitude, and sheer vocal muscle When Cheyenne Jackson stepped onto the stage of Carnegie Hall on December 8 and announced, “This is a dream come true in real time,” it didn’t feel like a rehearsed line. It landed as a genuine moment of arrival—one…
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Theater Review: MOULIN ROUGE (2025 Touring Production)
TRUTH, BEAUTY, FREEDOM, LOVE — MOULIN ROUGE! LIGHTS UP THE DESERT A pop-fueled fever dream lands at McCallum Theatre Moulin Rouge! The Musical took the stage of McCallum Theatre in all its splendor on Tuesday night, where it runs through December 14. I first saw this tour when it launched in 2022, and it was…
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Theater Review: HARRY POTTER AND THE CURSED CHILD (National Tour, Emerson Colonial Theater)
SPECTACULARLY CONFUSING You don’t need me to tell you that J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series has tapped into something deeply elemental for many people. Her stories about a young wizard and his education at Hogwarts, a school that teaches the magical arts while bearing a strong similarity to a traditional British public school, have…
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