The biggest problem with any stage production of “The Santaland Diaries” is that it doesn’t star David Sedaris, the witty writer and public-radio raconteur who made the story famous in the first place. Theater Wit confronts that issue head-on with its new production. Almost as soon as actor Mitchell Fain steps out onto the stage, […]
If tap dancing were easier, it’d be called basketball. Don’t just look for Chicagoland’s top athletes on the United Center’s hardwood this season. They’re at Lincolnshire’s Marriott Theatre in the jukebox musical with a George and Ira Gershwin score, “My One and Only.” The plot of this 1983 musical set in 1927 revolves around the […]
You meet a lot of interesting characters when you’re driving a cab — the good, the bad, the weird … and everyone in between. That’s what happens, anyway, to the guy who drives the taxi in Will Kern’s play “Hellcab,” a Chicago cult hit that’s back for a 20th-anniversary revival at Profiles Theatre. The premise […]
My face still hurts from laughing so much. “Potted Potter” is the perfect choice for an afternoon or evening of family fun at the theater this season—and in the perfect location. On stage at the Broadway Playhouse, you can shop ‘til you drop along the Mag Mile and Water Tower Place, then hit the theater […]
That Oscar is no slouch. It can’t be easy to be the understudy in a play where the two lead actors that grace the playbill are so well-known and well-liked. I mean, really, who’s going to want to see you instead of, oh, George Wendt? Wendt’s sudden departure from Northlight’s “The Odd Couple” is sad, for […]
The voters have spoken, and “Duck for President” is a winner! The new production from Lifeline Theatre mixes music, laughter and a mini lesson on democracy into an engaging show that is somewhat reminiscent of a “Schoolhouse Rock” video. The play, adapted from Doreen Cronin’s best-selling picture book follows Duck as he hits the campaign trail […]
I am haunted by this play. I loved the novel, “The Book Thief,”(Knopf, 2007) and mulled over it for weeks after I finished reading it. The play is about the power of words and stories, but also about the randomness of life—and death—driven home by the narrator of the play: Death. Set in Nazi […]
Dance can be modern, classical or theater with movement. The Joffrey Ballet embraces them all in its fall program. Three ballets are being presented under the title “Human Landscapes,” and each one confronts humanity in its own way. Most powerful, of course, is Joffrey’s revival of “The Green Table,” a German Expressionist ballet, choreographed by […]
This show is going to win a Tony or two … or three or four. “Kinky Boots,” currently in its pre-Broadway run downtown at the Bank of America Theatre, is a tour de force de fun. Its stars are Stark Sands as Charlie Price, the son of a shoemaker, and Billy Porter as Lola, the […]
Lyric Opera of Chicago’s production of Giuseppe Verdi’s “Simon Boccanegra” is a masterpiece for the ages. It opened the evening of Monday, Oct. 16 and the Civic Opera House exploded with a house full of male voices of the highest caliber. The cast is a lineup of men at the top of their game. Led […]
