The holiday season is magical. The holiday season is wondrous. The holiday season is … overwhelming! It doesn’t take too long to grow weary of mall Santas, festive bunting and the continuous chorus of “Ho ho ho!” You want to enjoy the season, so make sure you take a break from it once in a […]
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 […]
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 […]
The Chicago Children’s Theatre’s production of “Harold and the Purple Crayon” is chock full of delight, wonder and charm. Inspired by the Crockett Johnson’s classic of the same name, the play tells the story of Harold, a creative and curious toddler who creates his own adventure with the help of his trusty crayon. It’s a […]
Check out Center for Independent Futures (CIF) Story Pirates event as an easy and fun way to enjoy live theatre and support a great cause! When: Sunday, Oct. 21, 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. Where: SPACE, 1245 Chicago Ave., Evanston, IL 60202 Cost: Purchase tickets online, $20 for adults and $10 for children under 12. […]
One out of every 236 people living in 1980 still alive today yearns for a theatrical homage to the song and fashion stylings of that time, according to a study by the Department of Sociology at Nevada’s Cadwallader University. That doesn’t necessarily bode well for Drury Lane Theatre’s staging of “Xanadu.” Because this musical is […]
Remember corporate raiders? The financial guys in the 1980s who bought companies to close them? Citadel Theatre Company in Lake Forest has Larry the Liquidator right on stage — the shark who swallows vulnerable companies whole by selling off their assets to maximize shareholder value. Larry Garfinkle is part of the five-person cast of “Other […]
Water has a mysterious power in Mary Zimmerman’s “Metamorphoses.” The actors spend much of their time wading, floating, swimming, bathing and splashing in a swimming pool — not always for any logical reason that has anything to do with the action in the stories. The very presence of the water seems to heighten the yearning […]
