For those of us spending January at home, Broadway in Chicago is trying hard to provide some bright spots in the winter sky. Three productions are coming to the Windy City, and they couldn’t be more different. DATE NIGHT: “Dreamgirls” Cadillac Palace, Jan. 19 to 31 For a night out downtown with your husband or […]
“I probably should have lived in Chicago,” says Brian Dennehy, who is coming to the Goodman Theatre in January. “It’s such a great theater town. There is such a nurturing atmosphere there.” Make It Better managed to catch up with the busy actor via phone from Philadelphia. “And a lot of it has to […]
Think you’ve seen enough productions of “A Christmas Carol” to last a lifetime? Don’t be so sure. The Goodman Theatre in Chicago, which has presented Charles Dickens’s perennial salute to Christmas annually for more than three decades, has a surprise for you. Adapter Tom Creamer and director William Brown have given us a fresh retelling […]
So you’re writing a musical, based on another source — a play, a novel or a movie, and you must find the moment in the original where a song would naturally occur. “You try to crack the material open and find the treasure,” said Jeanine Tesori, composer for the Broadway musical “Shrek the Musical,” which […]
A soprano with a golden voice and tenor who sings with power and beauty. Plus a baritone whose phrasing is exquisite and a bass whose low notes are sinister, indeed. That’s the core of Giuseppe Verdi’s “Ernani,” now in production at the Lyric Opera, and Chicago has assembled a dream team. American soprano Sondra Radvanovsky, […]
When the laurel-laden production “Billy Elliot the Musical” opens in Chicago in March, it will star 3 young boys with astonishing talents. The dancers will alternate in the role, and Broadway in Chicago introduced the trio—and their moms and caretakers—to the press Sept. 10. The Broadway show, based on the 2000 film about an […]
Has the missing link ever been found? In 1912 a skull supposedly unearthed in Sussex, England seemed to prove that man had evolved from the ape, supporting Charles Darwin’s “Origin of the Species” published more than half a century earlier. That’s the crux of the new, thought-provoking drama “Fake,” which opened at Steppenwolf on Sept. […]
This off-beat comedy bears the master’s signature—one liners and sassy repartee. But most of the action takes place inside Jake’s head. Chuck Quinn gives a vigorous performance as the alternately manic and befuddled Jake, an author experiencing a mid-life crisis and facing the break-up of his second marriage. In addition to creating his fictional characters, […]
