On the night of April 26, 2025, the beloved cultural institution, Writers Theatre, a Make It Better Foundation grant partner, welcomed 250 corporate and civic leaders to the Four Seasons Hotel Chicago for its annual WordPlay Gala. With the theme of “Be Bold. Be Here.”, the annual fundraising event raised a record-breaking $905,000 to support […]
The music of The Kinks, marked by raw riffs and a rebellious spirit, has long held a place in rock history — a reflection, Edward Hall says, of the band’s unwavering honesty. “They never sold out,” says Hall, director of Sunny Afternoon at Chicago Shakespeare Theater. “They did things their own way.” Sunny Afternoon, which […]
At the age of 15, a “North Shore boy” by the name of Jeff Perry was propelled into the world of theatre at the encouragement of a high school drama teacher. Since then, his life-spanning career has been in support of theatrical endeavors on the local and national level, but few resonate as deeply as […]
The evening of June 10 came alive with music and dancing at the Court Theatre’s gala — held at Venue West. The event was in full swing with guests celebrating and grooving late into the night, and it served as the culmination of what has undoubtedly been a banner year for the theatre. The theme […]
Whether you’ve been missing “Hamilton” since it left the Chicago stage in January of 2020, or you threw away your shot the first time around — just you wait. After taking Chicago by storm with a record-breaking three-year run, “Hamilton” is returning to Chicago’s James M. Nederlander Theatre September 13, 2023. “We welcome ‘Hamilton’ back to its […]
On July 27, 1919, Eugene Williams, a Black teenager from Chicago, was murdered after he innocently floated into a territory of the Lake Michigan shore that was colloquially for “whites only.” People on the Lake Shore retaliated by throwing rocks at Williams, causing him to drown. This senseless murder ignited the Chicago Race Riots of […]
You’ve heard it said before, “It feels as if we are in the room with them” — a turn of phrase often synonymous with authenticity of set dressing or acting chops. When literally applied, it’s fitting of the sensory immersion displayed in the basement of Wicker Park’s Chopin Theater. Audience members sit arena style below […]
The Opera Festival of Chicago celebrated a successful second season in July with fully staged productions of Italian opera masterworks Il Corsaro and L’Inganno Felice, along with a special concert honoring the one-hundredth anniversary of the birth of legendary soprano Renata Tebaldi. The Festival, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, was born during the pandemic to bring rare […]
When the great Yiddish author Sholom Aleichem created Tevye the Dairyman in a series of short stories first published in 1884, he never could have imagined that 80 years on, Tevye would become an iconic character of stage and screen. It nearly didn’t happen, because some producers originally considered the story and characters of Fiddler […]
Fans of the bestselling 1996 Nicholas Sparks novel, “The Notebook,” will soon have their chance to experience a stage rendition of the beloved story. The tale of of love, loss and reunion is getting its world premiere theatrical debut Sept. 6 at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater. While most audiences are familiar with the 2004 film, […]
