The Joffrey Ballet’s “Rising Stars” program, which opened May 4 at the Auditorium Theater, is an exercise in abstraction. It’s filled with sublime, graceful movement, punctuated with surprises, and packed with tried and truly beautiful dancing. Two world premieres, “Woven Dreams” by Edwaard Liang and “Bells” by Yuri Possokhov, plus a company premiere, “Night” by […]
Like the first generation Apple tablet, Broadway in Chicago and threesixty° entertainment’s “Peter Pan” flew into town with deserved graduation-season pomp and circumstance, befitting theater’s prospective next big thing. Common to most new technology, this production simultaneously wows and disappoints. The wow begins walking up to the 1,300-seat, in-the-round theater tent parked in a lot […]
It’s fall of 1959 and the school year has just begun on Chicago’s northwest side. Leaves are falling, the weather is unpredictable; it’s liable to rain any minute on the senior class at Rydell High. In the American Theatre Company’s latest production, “The Original Grease,” it does. The musical was made famous on Broadway and […]
Want to give Mom a great gift for Mother’s Day? What about a mother-daughter theater afternoon or evening? We’ve combed May offerings on stages in Chicago and the suburbs, and found several options to suit various tastes. Broadway Mom “Spring Awakening” May 8-13 Ford Center for the Performing Arts, Oriental Theatre 24 W. Randolph St., […]
George Bernard Shaw has always had a great deal to say, and in his comic drama “Heartbreak House” he says plenty. This three-hour production, which recently opened at Writers’ Theatre in Glencoe, intends to shine an unflattering light on the British leisured class, who are living on their country estates, filling their vapid lives with […]
Porchlight Music Theatre designates its current staging of Rogers and Hammerstein’s classic, “The King and I,” “an intimate version of the grand love story.” Add “elegant” and “creative” to the playbill. Director L. Walter Stearns’ final Porchlight production as artistic director delivers its promised intimacy at Stage 773’s North Theatre, which seats less than 200. […]
An energetic ensemble cast, combined with expert tap dancing and gorgeous costumes, makes “42nd Street” at the Marriott Theatre in Lincolnshire a must-see. Before appearing on the Broadway stage in the 1980s, “42nd Street” was a movie musical that came out during the Depression, serving as pleasant distraction amid bread lines and surging unemployment. With […]
When Evanston native Anna D. Shapiro won a Tony award for directing “August: Osage County” in 2008, it changed her life. Only the second American woman to ever receive the award for Direction of a Play, Shapiro now finds herself in the enviable and unfamiliar position of being able to pick and choose her projects. […]
Based on Chekhov’s “Cherry Orchard,” playwright Tanya Saracho tells the story of a Mexican family’s legacy being disrupted by drug cartels. A poor carpenter becomes a hired gun. Shifting power and money is changing the roles of the working class and the privileged in modern day Nuevo Leon, Mexico. A mother and daughter return to […]
Writers’ Theatre Artistic Director Michael Halberstam seduces you intellectually.
