This nerve-jangling, otherworldly world premiere travels deep into the emotional desperation of people who exist on society’s fringes. Illinois playwright Brett Neveu gets into the rhythmic thinking of those who survive by conning others. Aged street hustler Eddie Sisson (played with emotional vibrancy by esteemed Steppenwolf Theatre veteran Francis Guinan) has one last shot […]
My youngest son Luke didn’t get the nickname Tasmanian Devil because he likes to sit still. And while he’s almost completely non-verbal, he is wholly capable of communicating his wants and needs (though sometimes not in ways most people expect). No surprise that we’ve been hesitant to expose him to live theater, imagining our […]
Lyric Opera of Chicago’s production of Richard Wagner’s “Lohengrin” is glorious. In its first sinuous strains, the score, conducted by Lyric’s music director Sir Andrew Davis, creates a deceptively serene dreamscape. But the story, set in 10th century Antwerp, portrays a violent collision between vengence and virtue. To experience this, you must commit 4 and […]
The amazing civil rights story of Jackie Robinson is brought to life in Chicago Children’s Theatre’s delightful production “Jackie and Me.”
“Guys and Dolls” is a musical fable of Broadway, and this production lives up to expectations.
Raw and powerful, Danai Gurira’s “Eclipsed” is a show that will inform audience members. The play recounts the atrocities of the final months of the war in Liberia from a distinctly feminine perspective. Unfortunately, the brutality is much too fraught for children. Telling the story of the multiple “wives” of one of the rebel army’s […]
“Sex with Strangers,” a play about a 30-something woman dating a 24-year-old guy, is a libidinous, funny exploration of the Internet generation.
You’ve probably seen Shakespeare reinterpreted a hundred ways: transported settings (modern day Berlin), interpretive costumes (Macbeth in Armani), but Claudio as a rap star?much “Funk It Up About Nothin’ ” is definitely a new twist on “Much Ado About Nothing.” Playing in the intimate upstairs theater at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater through Feb. 13, this […]
“The Trinity River Plays,” which premiered Jan. 24, is a beautifully realized play about family betrayal and family love—about the roots and wrongs that hold people together or wrest them apart. Three related dramas by Regina Taylor introduce us to Iris on her 17th birthday. The occasion coincides with the arrival of the 17-year locust, […]
Puccini’s opera “The Girl of the Golden West” is a real Western—the “True Grit” of its day—packed with the good, the bad and the ugly aspects of the American frontier. The show is set in the Sierra Mountains of California during the Gold Rush of 1849 and has a golden voice at its center. American […]
