You’ve never seen a puppet show like this before! Eric Carle’s stories come to life in a magical new performance produced by Chicago Children’s Theatre and the Mermaid Theatre of Nova Scotia. The show, “A Brown Bear, a Moon and a Caterpillar: Treasured Stories by Eric Carle,” showcases three of Carle’s time honored classics with […]
It feels good to laugh, and Citadel Theatre’s production of the popular farce “Lend Me a Tenor” has everything from chuckles to just plain guffaws. The little stage in the 150-seat theater on the west campus of Lake Forest High School rocks with the antics of overblown characters who find themselves in bizarre situations. And […]
If you had told me 22 years ago, back when I was managing Frontera Grill and Topolobampo, that in 2012 I would be writing a theatre review of Chef Rick Bayless starring in a Tony-winning theater production, I would have laughed. Sure, Rick is a fantastic chef. But can he act? Can he dance? Can […]
Oh man, you might be thinking. Avant-garde theater?
A play about business? Really? Yes, really fantastic. I didn’t know what to expect when I heard about TimeLine Theatre’s latest production, “Enron,” an award-winning play by British playwright Lucy Prebble that debuted on Broadway in 2010 to mixed reviews. Would I be lost because I barely passed Econ 101? The glossary of business jargon […]
Like the work of Pinter, Joyce and Beckett?
The blockbuster film “New Year’s Eve” features hometown girl Jackie Seiden alongside its numerous stars, such as Ashton Kutcher, Sarah Jessica Parker, Robert De Niro and Katherine Heigl.
Donny Osmond proclaims, “What we need is less discouragement and a lot more Christmas.”
Tennessee Williams and Harold Pinter aren’t usually thought of as joined-at-the-hip dramatists. The former favored florid self-dramatizing southern gothic tragedy, while the latter is famous for what isn’t said in his “comedies of menace” peppered with those oft-analyzed pauses. But thanks to Writers’ Theatre, I now see both as masters of domestic, territorial battles that […]
The sprawling cast of characters in “Season’s Greetings” includes a dashing young novelist, who says his writing is “painfully witty or wittily painful—I forget which.” That’s also an apt description of what British playwright Alan Ayckbourn was aiming for with “Season’s Greetings”—a mix of humor and pathos. The play has plenty of both, and a […]
