Judgement Day starring Jason Alexander set for Chicago Shakespeare Theater
 Chicago Shakespeare Theater is set for Judgment Day, a hilariously irreverent world premiere comedy starring Tony and Emmy Award winner Jason Alexander (Seinfeld) in his Chicago stage debut. Alexander leads a cast that features Tony Award nominee Daniel Breaker as Father Michael and Candy Buckley as the Angel, along with Maggie Bofill, Olivia Denise Dawson, Joe Dempsey, Michael Kostroff, Ellis Myers, and Meg Thalken. Judgment.... Read More
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Back To The Future: The Musical coming to Chicago
 Theatre enthusiasts and time-travel aficionados, mark your calendars! The 2022 Olivier Award-winning Best New Musical, "Back to the Future: The Musical," is set to dazzle audiences in Chicago. This electrifying production, based on the iconic Universal Pictures/Amblin Entertainment film, will grace the stage of the Cadillac Palace Theatre from August 13 to September 1, 2024. This announcement comes as a thrill to both fans of.... Read More
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Melting Winter's Chill: Theater to Chase Away the Darkness
 The theaters that so gallantly kept working right up to Martin Luther King Day in order to rescue us from the post-yuletide doldrums are not about to abandon us. Over eight plays opened before the end of January, with more on the way—some reminding us of the resolutions we vowed to uphold, to be sure, but others arriving in time for Valentine's Day, Presidential birthdays and even.... Read More
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Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!: A Unique Blend of News, Comedy, and Quiz Show at Chicago's Studebaker Theater
 National Public Radio's (NPR) Peabody Award-winning quiz show, "Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!", is not just a program; it's an experience. The show, currently playing at the Studebaker Theater in Chicago, represents the epitome of what happens when the worlds of news, comedy, and competition collide. "Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!" has captivated audiences for over two decades. Hosted by Peter Sagal, the show features.... Read More
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Harry Potter and the Cursed Child coming to Chicago
 The world of Harry Potter continues to enchant audiences, this time bringing its magic to Chicago with the highly anticipated play, "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child". Set to open at the James M. Nederlander Theatre, this production marks the beginning of its North American Tour. Fans in Chicago can experience the wonder from September 10, 2024, with an official opening on September 26, 2024,.... Read More
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Girl From The North Country Brings Bob Dylan's Music to Life in Chicago
 The critically acclaimed musical "Girl From The North Country," written and directed by Conor McPherson, is set to captivate audiences at Chicago's CIBC Theatre from February 13 to February 25, 2024. This unique production reimagines many of Bob Dylan's legendary songs, offering audiences a fresh and spiritually uplifting experience.
Set in the winter of 1934 in Duluth, Minnesota, during the Great Depression, "Girl From.... Read More
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The Grinch is coming to steal Christmas in Chicago
 Chicago's Cadillac Palace Theatre is set to host a heartwarming holiday event as "Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas! The Musical" takes the stage. From December 19 to December 31, this beloved musical, which has captivated audiences nationwide, will offer a limited two-week engagement in the heart of the Windy City at 151 W. Randolph St.
Celebrated by The New York.... Read More
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The Wiz set for the Cadillac Palace Theatre in Chicago
 Chicago's theater scene is set to welcome a dazzling production this season as The Wiz makes its much-anticipated arrival to the Cadillac Palace Theatre. This revival of the classic musical, which reimagines L. Frank Baum's "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" within the context of African-American culture, promises to be a spectacle of soulful music, vibrant storytelling, and powerful themes.
The Wiz, with its rich.... Read More
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A Holiday Festivus For All Of Us (Every One)
 Who could have predicted that the yearly grumbles about the shrinking separation of winter iconography would guide us to a season for everybody to be jolly? Pre-pando autumn calendars typically featured a few hastily-mounted Halloween spooky-tunes closing promptly on October 31, followed by Fireplace-Food-and-Family fables commencing the day after Thanksgiving and closing Christmas Eve, abandoning audiences to solitary darkness until February.
Not in 2023,.... Read More
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Beetlejuice the Musical: Chicago's Supernatural Sensation
 Chicagoans are in for a ghostly treat as "Beetlejuice the Musical" takes center stage at the Auditorium Theatre. From November 7th to November 19th, 2023, the city will be haunted by the mischievous spirit, Beetlejuice, and a cast of otherworldly characters. Based
on Tim Burton's cherished movie, this comedic musical narrates the tale of Lydia Deetz, an eccentric teen whose life takes a turn upon encountering.... Read More
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Pastoral Settings and Scenic Drives: Shows Playing In Chicago's Suburbs
 The American Suburb, proliferating just after World War Two, was invented to combine the best of rural and urban lifestyles. Decreasing numbers of available servants and increasing numbers of privately-owned automobiles both played a part in disrupting these optimistic goals, but the ancient bonds connecting the Dionysian play festivals of antiquity with our diverse Community Arts Leagues today have remained unbroken. Centuries later, in remote corners of.... Read More
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HOLD THAT CRISIS: Chicago's Fall Season Is Off to an Exuberant Start
 "American Theater is IMPLODING Before Our Eyes!" howled the perpetually-alarmed New York Times last month, as it warned of an impending "crisis" in the arts. Does this sound familiar? Didn't we hear this same outcry at the start of the pandemic in 2020, and in 2016. when gentrification displaced several storefront venues, or, even earlier, following on the "death of irony" airstrike in 2001? Have we.... Read More
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Chicago's Comedy Scene Heats Up: A Look at the Star-Studded Lineup
 Laughter is guaranteed to echo through Chicago's theaters and arenas over the next several months, as some of the biggest and most acclaimed names in comedy descend on the city. The upcoming lineup is a veritable feast of laughter, featuring household names and rising stars alike, all geared up to serve a smorgasbord of humor. Here's what you need to know about each performer and their upcoming.... Read More
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Mrs. Doubtfire Musical Set to Charm Chicago
 Broadway In Chicago has announced that the smash-hit musical comedy, MRS. DOUBTFIRE, adapted from the much-loved film, will come to Chicago next year. The celebrated production, described as "wonderful, heart-warming, and laugh-out-loud funny" by the Manchester Evening News and helmed by four-time Tony Award winner Jerry Zaks, is set to run at Broadway In Chicago's James M. Nederlander Theatre for a brief engagement from February.... Read More
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Road Show On The Information Highway: Ubiquitous Players Celebrate Four Years of Zooming Plays
 Back in 2020, when citizens were advised to sequester themselves against the contagious and then-dangerously fatal Covid-19 virus, distraught playgoers and theater artists confronting the temporary closure of Chicago playhouses found comfort in solutions arising from England's eighteen-year ban on entertainment venues from 1642 to 1660—namely, a proliferation of play readings held in private homes. Quarantine isolation (or "social distancing" as it was now called) may have.... Read More
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Experience the Magic of Michael Jackson: 'MJ' The Musical Set to Dazzle at Chicago's Nederlander Theatre
 Chicago Theatergoers, mark your calendars for a thrilling musical experience! The highly anticipated "MJ" is set to grace the stage of the Nederlander Theatre in Chicago from August 1 to September 2, 2023. This musical is a tribute to one of the greatest entertainers of all time, Michael Jackson, and offers a rare look into the creative mind and collaborative spirit that propelled him to.... Read More
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Fighting Words, Miracles and Life-Changing Bonds in Shaw vs. Tunney
 The lives of George Bernard Shaw (who omitted the "George" in daily life) and James "Gene" Tunney could have been mythologized as fables of unpretentious lads whose talents and ambitions brought them worldwide recognition, or as romances of questing polymaths who won the hands and hearts of—if not royal princesses—ladies of immense wealth and social status, nevertheless. A culture preferring its champions to be decisive, intuitive and.... Read More
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Broadway In Chicago Announces Exciting New Additions
 Broadway In Chicago has announced new events for the upcoming holidays: THE ILLUSIONISTS - MAGIC OF THE HOLIDAYS, THE HIP HOP NUTCRACKER, STOMP and Dr. Seuss' HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS! THE MUSICAL will all be in Chicago for the festive season. An exciting line-up for sure!
THE ILLUSIONISTS - MAGIC OF THE HOLIDAYS
Nov. 21 - 26, 2023Read More
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Theatre Communications Group Selects Chicago for 2024 National Conference
 Theatre Communications Group (TCG), the national organization for theatre, announced that the 33rd TCG National Conference will be hosted in Chicago, IL from June 20th to 22nd, 2024, in association with the League of Chicago Theatres. The TCG National Conference draws between 700 to over 1,000 theatre professionals from around the world for professional development, community-building, performances, and opportunities to explore - and draw inspiration from -.... Read More
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Big Chickens, Baby Robots and X-rated Space Aliens: The World of Jabberwocky Marionettes
 The chickens dubbed "Jersey Giants" by poultry breeders can grow to heights of over twenty-four inches and weigh up to fourteen pounds, but urban audiences at Hell In a Handbag's Agatha Christie parody A Fine Feathered Murder were still unprepared for the entrance of a SIX-FOOT-TALL ROOSTER that proceeded to nuzzle people's pockets in search of snacks and even steal a sip from a front-row customer's glass.... Read More
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Broadway In Chicago announces its next season line-up
 Broadway In Chicago has unveiled its upcoming season, featuring the acclaimed Tony Award-winning Best Musical Revival COMPANY; Broadway sensation BEETLEJUICE; a forthcoming pre-Broadway revival of THE WIZ; the Pre-Broadway A WONDERFUL WORLD; TimeLine Theatre's Chicago debut of the acclaimed Tony Award-winning Best Play THE LEHMAN TRILOGY; and the World Premiere of BOOP! THE BETTY BOOP MUSICAL.
The Broadway In Chicago Season line-up:Read More
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Hamilton the musical returning to Chicago this fall
 After a 3.5 year absence, the hit musical HAMILTON is returning to Chicago this fall. Starting on September 13, 2023, the show will be playing at the James M. Nederlander Theatre in Chicago. The news was announced by Broadway in Chicago and has been met with great excitement from theater-goers across the city. Fans of the show have been eagerly awaiting its return and can.... Read More
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Leapin' Lizards! Annie is coming back to Chicago
 Tickets for the new tour of the classic Tony Award-winning musical ANNIE are now on sale! You can catch the show at Broadway In Chicago's Cadillac Palace Theatre (151 W. Randolph St.) during a limited engagement from March 7-19, and get ready to say "Leapin' Lizards!"
This new multi-week tour is produced by TROIKA Entertainment, LLC. TROIKA Entertainment's COO and Executive Producer,.... Read More
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1776 The Musical set for CIBC Theatre in Chicago
 Get excited, Chicago! The beloved Tony award-winning musical 1776 is coming to the Windy City from February 28 through March
12 at the CIBC Theatre. Prepare for a fantastic evening full of history, drama, and entertaining song and dance numbers as the show takes you back to Philadelphia in 1776 and the birth of the United States of America!
.... Read More
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Into the Woods coming to Chicago after Broadway run
 The critically acclaimed and beloved Broadway adaptation of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's Tony Award-winning show, Into the Woods, is set to have a run in Chicago in 2023. Starring Montego Glover as The Witch, Stephanie J. Block as The Baker's Wife, Sebastian Arcelus as The Baker and Gavin Creel as Cinderella's Prince/Wolf reprising their original Broadway roles, the limited engagement will run from Tuesday, April.... Read More
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Theatre In Chicago's 2022 Holiday Show Round-Up
 If you're looking for some Holiday Shows to get you in the spirit this holiday season, Chicago has plenty to offer. From musicals to family-friendly shows, there's something for everyone. Seeing a live holiday performance is a great way to get into the festive mood. There's nothing like watching a story be brought to life right in front of you. And with so many Holiday Shows to.... Read More
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The Lion King returns to Chicago
 The Lion King is coming back to Chicago for the fifth time since 2003. The popular musical will play at the Cadillac Palace Theatre from November 17 - January 14. The Lion King is a timeless story that has captivated audiences of all ages. The music, the costumes, and the sets are all incredible. If you haven't seen The Lion King, you are missing out!.... Read More
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There's no shortage of Children's Theatre shows coming to Chicago!
 Looking for something fun and engaging to do with the kids? Check out these upcoming children's theatre shows coming to Chicago! From classic tales to new favorites, there's something for everyone. And what better way to introduce young ones to the magic of live theater than by seeing a show designed just for them?
So mark your calendars and get ready for a memorable.... Read More
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Shows To See in Chicago This Fall
 As the leaves will begin to change color and a chill fills the air, it can only mean one thing: Fall is approaching! And with Fall comes some of the best theater performances of the year. Chicago is known for its incredible theater scene, and this Fall is no exception. From classic musicals to brand new plays, there's something for everyone. Here are some of the top.... Read More
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How to Get the Best Seats for "Wicked" in Chicago
 Wicked will be flying back to Chicago this fall as it returns for an extended engagement. The Nederlander Theatre will host the beloved Tony and Grammy Award winning musical for this extended run from September 28 through December 4, 2022. Use our guide and seating chart below to make sure you get the best tickets for Wicked in Chicago.
The Nederlander Theatre,.... Read More
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Anastasia set for CIBC Theatre in Chicago
 Anastasia, the Broadway musical, is set for Chicago and will play at the CIBC Theatre. This spectacular show takes us from the Russian Empire's twilight to the excitement of Paris in 1920s Paris as a young woman attempts to unravel the mysteries of her past. Anya is pursued by a brutal Soviet officer who wants to silence her. Anya recruits the help of a charming.... Read More
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Stand-up Comedians Coming to Chicago
 Are you ready to catch some of the best stand-up comedians coming to Chicago? Check out these upcoming dates and pick your favorite stand-up comedian to go see them live. Stand-up comedians have a way of getting people in the mood for some laughs, so don't miss your chance to see one in person. These comedians will bring their hilarious material to Chicago in the coming months.Read More
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A Villain For All Seasons (and Genders, and Physiques)
 Once the fashion for Juliets, Rosalinds and Lady Macbeths played by actual women became the norm, certain male-identifying characters—Puck, Ariel and Peter Pan, to name a few—also regularly featured female actors in what were called "trouser roles." Whether this practice was grounded in boy-soprano opera or the gender-fluidity traditionally attributed to mythic creatures (e.g. angels or fairies), audiences have proved amenable to gamines of Artemisian appearance assisting.... Read More
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Musical Phenomenon Jesus Christ Superstar set for Chicago
 Jesus Christ Superstar is a musical phenomenon with a worldwide fan base. In celebration of its 50th Anniversary, a new critically acclaimed production comes to Chicago to the Cadillac Palace Theatre during the North American tour.
The show remains based on the 2016 award-winning revival at London's Regent's Park Open Air Theatre. But actor Aaron LaVigne, who played Jesus since the US tour.... Read More
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My Fair Lady coming to the Cadillac Palace Theatre in Chicago
 The North American tour of Lincoln Center Theater's critically acclaimed production of Lerner & Loewe's My Fair Lady, directed by Bartlett Sher, will come to Chicago's Cadillac Palace Theatre from June 28 - July 10, 2022.
Lincoln Center Theater's production of Lerner and Loewe's My Fair Lady won five Outer Critics Circle Awards, including Best Revival of Musical. It was also nominated for.... Read More
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Richard Thomas set for To Kill A Mockingbird in Chicago
 The hit Broadway play To Kill a Mockingbird, based on the best-selling book by Harper Lee, will play Chicago's Nederlander Theatre for a limited engagement May 17-29, 2022. Academy Award winner Aaron Sorkin's new play, directed by Tony Award winner Bartlett Sher and based on Harper Lee's classic novel will come to Chicago as part of a multi-year national tour across North America.
.... Read More
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Rebuilding Rome: Upcoming Spring Productions Proclaim Chicago Theater's FINAL Great Re-Opening
 No matter how we try to turn back the clock to 2019, no daylight saving plan can redeem whole two years' worth of lost time. As theaters are discovering during what we hope is the final Great Re-Opening, "normal" is a commodity that can be preserved, but not restored. Companies awaking from their protracted hibernation are slow to recognize the changes occurring in the outside world, sometimes.... Read More
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Throw On A Corsage, Grab Your Dance Partner, And Throw Up Those Jazz Hands Because You Belong At The Prom!
 The National Tour of the 2019 Drama Desk Award winner for Outstanding Musical, The Prom, will play Chicago's Cadillac Palace Theatre for a limited one-week engagement April 19-24, 2022. Featuring music by Matthew Sklar and lyrics by Chad Beguelin, The Prom is based on a Jack Viertel concept and has a book by Bob Martin, Beguelin and Bob Martin.
The show takes.... Read More
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Divorced, Beheaded, Died, Survived... Six the musical set for Chicago
 Henry the VIII is known as one of the most charismatic monarchs in British history. He is known as the father of the navy, and his reign was synonymous with clashes between the monarchy and the church. His reign was significant, but he is most commonly known for something else - his six marriages. His wives in order were: Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anna.... Read More
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Hadestown comes to the CIBC Theatre in Chicago
 Greek mythology is an entire world in itself. There are many tales of Gods, Goddesses, and their children living lives that are far beyond the comprehension of human beings. Their stories are filled with an insane amount of passion, rage, revenge, and lust. The King of Gods, Zeus, reigns over everything. His brothers are Poseidon, the God of the seas, and Hades, the God of the underworld..... Read More
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The Simon and Garfunkel Story set for CIBC Theatre in Chicago
 When we talk about music icons of the 20th century, names like The Beatles, Bruce Springsteen, Metallica, U2, and Aretha Franklin are just a few names from many industry titans who serenaded the airwaves. Simon and Garfunkel were two incredibly talented lyricists and brilliant harmonists. They are known to have created a soundtrack for an entire generation that were hurting, yearning for better times, and wore turtlenecks.... Read More
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Lingering In The Lobby: Slow Starting 2022 Theater Season Finds Its Stride
 Philosophers have likened Time to a river in constant flow, dismissing attempts to circumscribe its boundaries as mere convenience proposed by upstart mortals. This might explain why, for theater artists and audiences, the 2019-2020 season ended in mid-May and didn't resume until JULY of 2021, when the discovery and release of Covid-19 vaccines signaled the beginning of the Great Re-Opening.
No sooner had we.... Read More
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Moulin Rouge! The Musical set for Nederlander Theatre in Chicago
 Moulin Rouge! The Musical is probably one of the most popular shows in the musical world. The tragic story of love, lust, greed, and ultimately heartbreak has been a huge hit and has won 10 Tony Awards including Best Musical. Theatre fans can rejoice as the musical is will make its grand entrance at the Nederlander Theatre in Chicago. It is infact one of the hottest.... Read More
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Give the Gift of Theatre with Theatre Gift Certificates
 If you are stuck figuring out what to buy family and friends this holiday season, think of live theatre to get you out of a gifting dilemma. Theatre gift certificates make great holiday presents. In fact, you are not just giving gifts; you are giving enjoyable experiences to your loved ones.
A 20-year study from Cornell University concluded that experiences create more happiness.... Read More
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Catching Up And Starting Over: Non-Holiday Plays for "The Rest of Us"
 Ho-Ho-Hos, Fa-la-las and Bless Us, Every Ones are always welcome, of course, but after eighteen months of shuttered playhouses, what many theatergoers this year want for Christmas are not just in-person performers staging indoor pageants reflecting the yuletide season, but shows exploring the kinds of topics ignored during those solitary days spent staring at screens.
Furthermore, these playgoers want to go OUT to be.... Read More
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Theatre In Chicago's 2021 Holiday Show Round-Up
 The holiday season is approaching faster than we realize, and there is no better time to soak up the festive spirit. The holiday season is not complete without a trip to the theater to watch your favorite holiday plays. The stage is set, the lights are ready, and the costumes are sparkling as ever - here is a rundown of the holiday plays happening in Chicago, ranging.... Read More
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Welcome Back, Will: Shakespeare Returns to Chicago Theaters in October
 Now that playhouses are cautiously opening their doors again, audiences are united in their enthusiastic welcome to live performance of every kind—musical extravaganzas, topical dramas and drag slapstick alike. For some theatergoers, however, a season just isn't a bona fide season without some SHAKESPEARE.
Fortunately, October features not one, but three, of Willie Shakes' Greatest Hits, spread out over a variety of sites.... Read More
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If The Shoe Fits: Working the Kinks out of Paramount Theatre's Kinky Boots
 Don't be misled by the title—there's nothing kinky in Cindy Lauper and Harvey Fierstein's multiple award-winning musical fable. On the contrary, Kinky Boots is about sons trying to fill the big shoes left by their fathers. It's about putting the shoe on the other foot, setting aside prejudices bred of dissimilar cultures and uniting in pursuit of common goals. It's about walking a mile in somebody.... Read More
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Intermission's Over: Shows Halted by the Shutdown Re-Emerge Victorious
 After what seemed like an eternity of actors phoning in their performances (literally) and dramatic narratives assembled by wired-in videographers, it was probably inevitable for the news of the playhouses reopening to spur a few theatergoers to wonder at the delay necessary for companies to—well, get their acts together.
What? Have we forgotten that quickly? Maybe the theaters weren't idle for over a.... Read More
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Surviving The London Lockdown of 1642: Shakespeare's Heroes Share Alehouse Confidences in James DeVita's Improbable Fiction
 After more than a year of exhortations to keep our distance from one another, is it any wonder that so many of our besties during these lonely times should be imaginary—Lizzie Bennett, Jackson Lamb, Meg Langslow. Maybe we, ourselves, can't share a beer with the loyal companions we have come to know so intimately, but given the cosmopolitan landscape of the locales that Shakespeare's protagonists frequent, it's.... Read More
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Social Justice, Shakespeare-Style: Provocative Streaming Productions of Measure for Measure Look at Recent History
 Why is Measure for Measure still classified as a Romantic Comedy? Its lovers are forced to endure fraud, hypocrisy, blackmail, sexual assault, breach of promise and covert surveillance, all of it orchestrated by an authority figure whose idea of a satisfactory resolution is to forgive Bad Men their misdeeds before legally binding them to Good Women—a boon he grants himself as well.
The plot,.... Read More
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Ambitious, But Not Evil: I, Banquo Contemplates the Cost of Loyalty in Uncertain Times
 "I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be [but only] an attendant lord, one that will do to swell a progress," lamented the meek J. Alfred Prufrock, in the poem by T.S. Eliot. How many of us, after all, are destined for glory—or notoriety? That being so, however, why has it taken so long for somebody to interview Banquo?
.... Read More
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All The 1BR's A Stage: Do-It-Yourself Tech Design in the Age of Theater-From-Home
 Was it really less than a year ago that "a night at the theater" became an evening hunkered down at our desks watching dimly-lit, fuzzily-recorded archival videos on our laptops like ham-radio fugitives in science-fiction dystopiads? And later, after these home-movies gave way to newly-crafted scripts, did we then struggle to accustom ourselves to such visual quirks as the "Kilroy headshot" (that peeking-over-the-window-sill portrait-view resulting from the.... Read More
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Looking Forward To A New Year: Online Play Festivals Usher In an Optimistic 2021
 While the impact of such innovations as headshot acting, long-distance repartee and crowd-sourced musicals remains to be seen, theater historians have been chronicling the progress of necessity-bred inventions sparked in response to the lingering closures of playhouses and isolation of its inhabitants. Among these is the adoption of technology borrowed from radio, film and television—know-how rendering productions once viewed in Chicago storefronts accessible to audiences in faraway.... Read More
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Lighting The Way To 2021: Online Plays For The Holidays
 Back in March, many artists were gloomily predicting the end of theater in Chicago, but YOU weren't one of them—were you? After all, if London playhouses could survive being closed for eighteen years (1642-1660), why should we complain after only ten months? Hasn't art always found a way to thrive in even the most adverse conditions?
This—uh, unusual holiday season of.... Read More
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Drury Lane Wins Big at 2020 Jeff Awards
 In its 52nd annual celebration of theater excellence, the Jeff Awards has recognized 39 recipients for the 2020 awards, selected from among 142 theater artist nominees across 30 artistic and technical categories. Award-winning Chicago actor, singer and teaching artist Michelle Lauto hosted the online awards announcement program and tribute to the theater community that featured work of many of the nominated productions and more than a dozen.... Read More
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What Does The Fox Say: Furry-Pawed Urban Guerilla Protest in Run the Beast Down
 Urban centers boasting plentiful green spaces are often home to squirrels, rabbits and the occasional possum colony, while outlying communities report sightings of raccoons, skunks and deer, but our impressions of foxes are almost wholly drawn from pop songs, PBS nature documentaries, and CGI-animated Disney fables.
The Reynards and Volpones in Titas Halder's Run the Beast Down are not furry lap-fauna, however, but brush-tailed.... Read More
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A Fall Season After All: Streaming and Zooming in the Shutdown of 2020
 A miracle didn't arrive to chase away the fear and the gloom, but history has demonstrated that art will always find a way. As the weather cools and days shorten, theaters mired down in despair during the spring of this annus horribilis have shaken off their shellshock and rallied to the challenge of respite for audiences grimly and bravely making the best of a spartan holiday season..... Read More
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Tar Beaches And Asphalt Parks: Outdoor Theatergoing During the Shutdown
 Some blamed the ambience: cozy low-ceilinged, windowless rooms, accessed by narrow entrances and closely-spaced seats suddenly perceived as microbe-congested cells. Others faulted the intended market—hadn't we been repeatedly warned that elderly people were especially vulnerable to respiratory infections? Or were playgoers of all ages simply wary of making plans, after months of disappointment at one cancellation notice after another?
Whatever the reasons, the Greenhouse.... Read More
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Going Digital (and Prestidigital): Streaming Shakespeare, Sitcoms and Sleight-of-Hand
 You see, there's these four companions who propose taking time off from from social life in order to concentrate on scholarly pursuits, but no sooner does their sabbatical commence than they are visited by a quartet of like-minded acquaintances. Sound familiar? Sure it does! It's Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost—except that in 2020, with the restrictions of a viral pandemic in full operation, the lovers now find themselves.... Read More
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Raven Theatre Announces Revamped 2020-21 Season
 Raven Theatre announced a revamped 2020-21 Season, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This fall's planned revival of Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee's drama Inherit the Wind directed by Ian Frank has been cancelled. Instead, the three-play season will kick off next February with Jonathan Harvey's sweet and charming coming-of-age play Beautiful Thing. Mikael Burke directs this touching story of two boys living in London.... Read More
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Jeff Awards 2020 Non-Equity Award Recipients Announced
 As part of the annual recognition of theater excellence, the 47th Non-Equity Jeff Awards announced honorees in 21 artistic and technical categories. Recipients included 27 theater artists whose work was featured at 14 theater companies during the 2019-2020 season. With respect for current times calling for reflection, conversation and action towards issues of social justice, commemoration of the annual awards was postponed until June 22nd . At.... Read More
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Mercury Theater Chicago to Close Permanently Following Covid-19 Shutdown Effects
 Executive Director, L. Walter Stearns and partner, Business
Manager Eugene Dizon announced the permanent closure of Mercury Theater Chicago after ten years and 25 productions, due to the loss of revenue following the COVID-19 shutdown. Most recently, Mercury's productions of Shear Madness and Priscilla Queen of the Desert were forced to close prematurely in March 2020 due to the Coronavirus pandemic. The theater has maintained.... Read More
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Swashbucklers, Six-Guns and Sci-Fiction: Playscript Publisher SordeletINK Targets Genre-Lit Fans
 Whether or not you agree that the pen's might exceeds that of the sword, the scarcity in recent decades of scripts showcasing the second instrument's utility seemed to indicate the two weapons rarely occupying the same dramatic sphere. How, then, did two classically-trained fight choreographers come to start a publishing outlet for literature reflecting the high-fantasy themes and swashbuckling action so eagerly sought by nerd-culture mavens?
.... Read More
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Writers Theatre Announces New Producing Model For 2020/21 Season
 Writers Theatre Artistic Director Michael Halberstam and Executive Director Kathryn M. Lipuma announced plans for the company's 2020/21 Season with a new adaptive producing model, one committed to remaining flexible and responsive to current events and that allows the theatre to welcome patrons back to the theatre when the time is right.
New for the 2020/21 Season, exact performance dates will be.... Read More
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Moulin Rouge! The Musical - Something to Possibly Look Forward To
 It's safe to say that no matter who you are or what your profession is, the problems that have come with COVID-19 have left you stressed and tired. Sometimes it might even feel as though these health and economic threats will never end. One way to reassure yourself that you will get through the madness that has taken over your life is to envision your post-pandemic life.... Read More
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Support Chicago Theatre with Chicago Acts Together T-shirt
 You can help support Chicago Theatre through the COVID-19 pandemic by purchasing a great "Chicago Acts Together" t-shirt. Designed by Steppenwolf Theatre, who worked with Rowboat Creative and their Creatives Who Care initiative along with over 100 other local theatre companies, this limited edition t-shirt featuring the names of all participating companies is an incredible showcase of Chicago's robust and diverse theater community.
100% of.... Read More |
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Nominees For the 47th Annual Non-Equity Jeff Awards Announced
With the conclusion of the 2019-2020 Chicago non-Equity theater season, the Jeff Awards announced the nominees for the 47th annual awards for theater excellence that include 120 theater artists across 21 categories. During this past season, which ended a few weeks early in mid-March due to government guidelines on public gatherings related to the COVID-19 virus, Jeff Awards members attended the openings of 126 productions. From these,.... Read More |
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Armchair Excursions: In-House Nights at the Theater
 Unlike the real-life Interregnum that shuttered London playhouses between 1642 and 1660, the remedy for the current halt to the spring theater season is not a simple change of venue—not when propelled by the very prospect of performers and spectators occupying the same space.
Almost as soon as the order to back off/stay inside was issued, however, the creative minds of the "city that.... Read More
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Help Theatres During The COVID-19 Pandemic
 Coronavirus has made a huge impact on the theatre industry. Theatres from across the country were forced to postpone or cancel their shows. It goes without saying that a very large percentage of the revenue generated by most theatres comes from the sell of tickets and holding other events that are directly tied to people getting together in groups. The COVID-19 pandemic has virtually eliminated this income.... Read More
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Jeff Awards To Honor Annual Non-Equity Theater With Virtual Celebration
The Chicago theater community's annual awards recognizing non-Equity theater productions will be presented in a virtual format on Monday, June 8, 2020. In preparation for this program, the 2020 non-Equity nominations will be publicly announced, as previously planned, on Tuesday, April 28. To protect the health and safety of the community and comply with government guidelines on public gatherings, this new format is the first time in.... Read More |
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The Shows Will Go On (LATER): Chicago Theaters Recall Setbacks While Seeking Solutions to Current Obstructive Circumstances
 During the period in English history known as the Interregnum, when the Puritans ruled under Oliver Cromwell, London playhouses were shuttered for a record EIGHTEEN YEARS!!! You heard that right—from 1642 to 1660, all public performances of plays were declared illegal, and miscreants subject to a fine.
Of course, this didn't mean theater disappeared altogether: plays were still studied in the schools as "dramatic.... Read More
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List of Chicago Theatre Events Canceled/Postponed Due to Coronavirus
 Theatres across the Chicago-area are canceling or postponing their shows in response to conerns over the novel coronavirus, otherwise known as COVID-19.
We will continuously be updating this page with any news of the cancellation or the postponments of shows.
-Goodman Theatre: Has suspended all performances until further notice. This includes "School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play" and "Molly Sweeney".Read More
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Hiding In Fabulous Sight: The Scenic Psychology of The Boys In the Band
 Theatergoers already familiar with Windy City Playhouse's "immersive theater" techniques were unperturbed when their access into its production of Mart Crowley's The Boys In The Band led them through a faux foyer, then up a trompe l'oeil elevator and down an anonymous hallway to arrive at a likewise nondescript door. Oh, but nobody, not even playgoers retaining first-hand memories of the 1968 Broadway premiere or subsequent.... Read More
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Holding For A Hero: Valiant Theatre Celebrates History's Movers and Shakers
 The Otherworld playhouse is not a large room, by any stretch of the imagination, but the characters occupying its auditorium for Valiant Theatre's New Works Festival share a global diversity of backstories spanning centuries—supreme court justices, Episcopal ministers, Community Activists, Hollywood actresses, pro athletes and New Testament disciples.
The assembly comprises such distinguished trailblazers as Sandra Day O'Conner, Rudy Lozano, Renée Richards, the.... Read More
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The Great Unrest Continues: 1912 Play Rutherford and Son Reflects a Time Not Unlike Our Own
 The folly of expecting human beings to behave with the efficiency of machines has manifested itself over a more than a century of unhappy consequences precipitated by the imposition of commercial paradigms upon social agendas—error constituting a major theme for playwrights from Henrik Ibsen to Arthur Miller. Female reformers, too, have protested the damage inflicted on families viewed as business investments, and none more vehemently than Githa.... Read More
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Goodman's Spanish-subtitled Christmas Carol puts the "Más" in Christmas
 The Goodman Theatre's El Cantico de Navidad (literally, "The Song of Christmas") was not conceived in a vacuum. Chicago's long history of welcoming foreign-born residents is evidenced in its abundance of public buildings, neighborhood shops, and street signs whose exterior displays reflect the cosmopolitan ethnicity of their locales.
"The Goodman has always been committed to accessibility and inclusion, with A Christmas Carol representing.... Read More
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Theatre In Chicago's 2019 Holiday Show Round-Up
 That time of year is back, and what winter season is complete without a trip to the theater to take in some holiday plays? Whether you want to sit back and enjoy the classics that remind you of the true meaning of the season or you want to change things up and experience Christmas through a slightly more eccentric lens, there are plenty of plays to choose.... Read More
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The Phantom Of The Royal George: Ghost Sightings and Other Halloween Highlights
 Hardly had the backpacks and lunchboxes disappeared from the store shelves than preparations commenced for the advent of the three-day festival celebrating ghoulies and goblins, Calacas and Calaveras, hyperglycemic diets and toilet-paper lawn decor.
The earliest of the seasonal offerings opened in September, only to close by mid-October, but the historical true-crime Bloody Bathory is scheduled to run all the way to mid-November. The.... Read More
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Long Dresses And Tall Hats: Fall Theater Roundup 2019
 Prepare to see an abundance of floor-length skirts and lintel-brushing headgear this autumn. No, theaters haven't adopted a formal dress code for their patrons, nor has Chicago been declared a "Game of Thrones" re-enactment site. A cursory overview of the theater offerings in the months between the major cool-weather holidays reveals a predominance of period plays, some depicting the experiences of firsthand witnesses, and some viewed from.... Read More
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Automotive Technology for a Dystopian Future: Driverless Cars in Pomona
 Viewing Pomona's first scene, theatergoers unfamiliar with the plays of Alistair McDowall may have wondered whether the title referred to a tunnel-ride in an amusement park. What else could explain the shabby little go-cart conveying a trio of urban night-owls—an aging-hippie philosopher, his streetwise young companion and, in the back seat, a vaguely-H.P. Lovecraft octopus-faced monster—on a leisurely surveillance patrol of Steep Theatre's storefront auditorium?
.... Read More
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The History Of A Coin Trick: Sean Masterson Explores Century-Old Mystery in Timeless Magic
 Ask most people what a "magic show" looks like, and whether they cite a backyard birthday party, Las Vegas casino lounge or a neighborhood tavern, they will usually agree that a magic show is exclusively tricks and illusions.
Imagine, then, the unexpected thrill at the 2000 premiere of House Theatre of Chicago's original biodrama Death and Harry Houdini where playgoers watched in.... Read More
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Sisters Command the Band of Brothers: Cross-Gender Casting in Henry V
 Some roles in Shakespeare—creatures from the world of Fancy, in particular—have a long record of exemption from binary restrictions on gender-linked infrastructure. Puck and Ariel, for example, despite being addressed as "he" and "him" in the text, have customarily been played by women, while Titania's fairy entourage typically boasts courtiers representing a wide spectrum of secondary sexual characteristics. (Caliban, significantly, continues to be almost exclusively portrayed by.... Read More
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How The Other Half Dresses: City and Country Fashions in The Winter's Tale
 Shakespeare might not have been the first author to prescribe pastoral retreats as therapy for jaded mortals in need of moral realignment, but western literature in the centuries following has been virtually unanimous in its endorsement of vacations as the universal remedy.
The expansion of England's empire through offshore exploration during the Elizabethan age whetted its citizens' appetites for lavish depictions of exotic realms.... Read More
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Born to Run: Traveling Forward and Backward in Time with Steven Dietz
 The dialogue between the young and the old, between the ages of opportunity and those of experience, between "Where am I going?" and "How did I end up here?" are conversations beguiling writers from the beginning of time. Two overlapping productions in this spring's festival of plays by Steven Dietz feature the prolific playwright speaking in both voices.
First opening is Promethean.... Read More
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Hamilton: The Exhibition set for Chicago Premiere
 HAMILTON: THE EXHIBITION - a 360-degree, immersive exhibit that will travel to select U.S. cities -- will premiere in Chicago on April 27 for a limited engagement. It will be on display in a specially-constructed free-standing, all-weather structure the size of a football field on Northerly Island in Chicago, where HAMILTON has played a sold-out run since 2016.
HAMILTON: THE EXHIBITION is.... Read More
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Not Just For Halloween: David Parr's Dark Magic Comes to Otherworld Theatre
 "Beneath the surface of stage magic, lurking beneath the displays of dexterity and skill, there is always an eerie, disquieting undercurrent, hinting at forces in the world beyond our understanding and control." says David Parr, "If you look at posters from the golden age of magic, when the great magicians were at the height of their celebrity, what you will see in the background are images of.... Read More
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A Play For The Green Season: Factory Theater Premieres May the Road Rise Up
 We aren't surprised in December to see a surge of plays featuring decorated evergreens and be-ribboned packages, nor do we wonder at carved pumpkins and grinning skeletons making their appearance in October. The pleasures of celebration are universal, and so festivals once associated with specific communities frequently achieve a measure of appeal beyond their original boundaries.
Who can explain Saint Patrick's Day,.... Read More
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Theater Adds A Guest Room: Windy City Playhouse's Long-Running Southern Gothic Moves to South Loop
 Regional theaters typically schedule productions for four to six-week stints. Sometimes, however, a show continues to draw paying crowds well beyond its predetermined stay. Windy City Playhouse opened its world premiere production of Southern Gothic in February of 2018. Eleven months later, the popularity of this world premiere comedy evidences no sign of diminishing.
In order to vacate its storefront in the Irving Park neighborhood to make.... Read More
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After The Protest: What We Learned in 2018
 After two decades of outrage, our fingers are weary with pointing and feet sore from recoiling at shadows, bringing us to finally ask whether we can't all just get along. An international play competition recently challenged authors to reach beyond "romanticizing revolt" and instead, offer suggestions for peaceful solutions in the struggle between prejudice and principles.
How did we accomplish this goal in 2018?.... Read More
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Play List 2018: Top Shows Of The Year
 Theatre In Chicago presents its list of the top-rated plays that were produced in the Chicago area for 2018. The list was compiled objectively from critics' reviews, based on the Highly Recommended to Not Recommended scale.
The list only includes those shows that opened in 2018 (so that is why Hamilton is not on the list even though it is the highest rated show now.... Read More
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Theatre In Chicago's 2018 Holiday Show Round-Up
 A popular holiday tradition for many folks in Chicagoland is attending a Christmas play. This year has more options than ever for theatre-goers, with an impressive variety of classic holiday plays as well as a few out-of-the-ordinary experiences for people who may treasure the unique over the tried-and-true. When it comes to seasonal theatre in Chicago, there is truly something for everyone. Here are just a few.... Read More
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How To Make A Monster: Designing Frankenstein's Outcast Offspring
 Even Chicago's most sophisticated playgoers were shocked to behold the nameless protagonist in Remy Bumppo Theatre's production of Frankenstein. Audiences anticipating a marginally-mobile titan like that in the 1931 James Whale film, were instead confronted by a grotesque humanoid (called only "the Creature" in Mary Shelley's groundbreaking 1818 novel) whose likeness invoked tabloid aliens, Expressionist paintings and fledgling birds too soon ejected from the nest.
.... Read More
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Bring On The Bow-Wows: Legally Blonde and Nell Gwynn Showcase Man's (and Woman's) Best Friend
 It is an irrefutable axiom in the theater that children and animals are, by default, the highlight of any show in which they make an appearance. Just recently, a speckled hen received no less than three mentions in the Tribune's review of Mendoza, and a police dog seen briefly in one scene of Bruce Norris' Downstate at Steppenwolf was called by one critic "the most scary dog.... Read More
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Frankenstein Times Three: Mary Shelley's classic horror tale plays on North and South stages
 Nobody had actually planned a festival to honor the 200th anniversary of Mary Shelley's Greatest Hit, so it came as surprise to everyone when no less than four new-or-nearly-new adaptations of Frankenstein (subtitled by its author The Modern Prometheus) were announced for Chicago's 2018-19 Season, all as dissimilar as our vision of the creature at the center of the horror classic's disquieting metaphor.
.... Read More
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No Butterflies Allowed: Vietgone Looks at War in Southeast Asia from the Other Side
 As much as we wish it weren't so, the initial face of upward mobility is usually that of the "good servant"—patient, humble and ever-willing to sacrifice themselves in support of their masters' values. Qui Nguyen (pronounced "Nyen") has forged his career on social commentary expressed in Marvel comic myth and Hollywood-style martial combat, however, and apprises us at the very outset of Vietgone that his will.... Read More
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Announcing The New AuditionHQ Forum for Actors
 TheatreInChicago.com is rolling out a new tool for actors to help them get more information on auditions in Chicago. With our new AuditionHQ Forum, now in beta release, actors and theatre companies can register and go to the forum to update and receive information on the status of current auditions and callbacks as well as ask questions and share opinions and insights on working for the.... Read More
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Every Kind Of Body: Fly Honey Show Welcomes Revelers of All Sizes and Stripes
 A table at the entrance displays earplugs alongside dainty leather harnesses. A swarm of gender-fluid greeters garbed—barely—in shiny fabrics and tattoos leave off dancing in the aisles to guide us to our seats in the Den's Heath Mainstage, decorated for the occasion in spray-lighting and wall-to-wall music. Spectators of all ages, ethnicities and sartorial proclivities promenade the lobby, pausing to pose for strolling photographers. Oh, and this.... Read More
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Two Planks And A Passion: the Return and Revival of Shakespeare's Motley Crew
 The legend of Shakespeare's Motley Crew began like an MGM movie-a group of artists met in a class on "Acting Shakespeare" at the Newberry Library in 1991 and promptly declared, "Hey, this is fun! Let's put on a show!" The resemblance stopped there, however. No fathers in possession of surplus lumber for scenery, mothers to sew costumes or convenient 1500-seat barns emerged to provide a pretext for.... Read More
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Rocking On (And On And On): American Blues Theater's Buddy Holly Settles Into Stage 773 for the Summer
 Long-running shows are rarely premeditated. Famous Door's legendary Hellcab was originally scheduled for five weeks in 1991, but instead ran continuously for just under ten years. Black Ensemble's 2002 season showcasing the great divas required two years to complete. More recently, Million Dollar Quartet had barely closed the curtain on its opening night in the Goodman's Owen before transferring to the Apollo for a record-breaking five years.Read More
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What's In A Name: Sagittarius Ponderosa Explores Questions of Identity
 The story of the prodigal's return can be found in every age and every community the world over. The specifics of the crisis arising from adjustments engendered thereby may vary according to time and place—death, divorce, injury, religious conversion, marriage outside the tribe—but MJ Kaufman's Sagittarius Ponderosa may be the first play of the 21st century to propose a daughter venturing forth from her home in.... Read More
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Just Like Jean Genet Always Wanted: Gender-fluid Casting in The Maids
 Disguise is a recurring motif in the plays of 20th-century French author Jean Genet—indeed, the premise for his 1956 shocker, The Balcony, proposed a brothel trafficking exclusively in costumed fantasies of authority figures such as magistrates, archbishops and generals. The Maids, by contrast, opens on a servant meekly submitting to the verbal abuse of her vain mistress (the latter of whom, after having denounced her husband.... Read More
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Alakazam! The Amazing Reappearance Of Magicians In Chicago
 The predominant discussion of "close-up" magic in recent years has been a lament for its decline. To be sure, aficionados seeking exhibitions of bamboozle-based spectacle not involving gambling for money might stumble across one—on rare occasions, in obscure locations (an exception being Chicago's sumptuous Palmer House Hilton, where Dennis Watkins has regaled guests with in-house magic since 2010). Until this year, that is, when artists practicing Chicago's.... Read More
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Simmering In The Pie With Sweeney Todd: Theo Ubique Stages Immersive Production of Sondheim Classic
 Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd changed the face of the American musical when it premiered in 1979, its libretto proposing a plot premised on Victorian mass murder and cannibalism, recounted in a narrative employing nearly continuous music and minimal dialogue—a structure not unlike that of opera. The No Exit café's 1920s-vintage architecture made for acoustical difficulties even when the venerable Rogers Park coffee house was host solely.... Read More
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A Galaxy Of Our Own: Otherworld Theatre Seeks a Home Amid Lakeview's Historic Cemeteries
 Outer space, we are told, is a place of impenetrable darkness, gloom alleviated by distantly-scattered oases of dazzling light. The storefront at 3914 North Clark Street that once supplied flowers for neighboring cemeteries, but since 1987 has housed Live Bait, Teatro Luna and Public House theaters, occupies a likewise shadowy border, flanked on one side by the raucous nocturnal revels of the Wrigley Field environs, and on.... Read More
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Ibsen Times Three: Traitor, An Enemy of the People and Pillars of the Community
 The protagonists of Henrik Ibsen can be divided into individuals seeking personal happiness despite the disapproval of their society, and those seeking to change the society itself. Of the latter, An Enemy of the People and the play often considered to be its prototype, Pillars of the Community, have exercised the greatest appeal for audiences of diverse countries, cultures and political affiliations. The 2016 election.... Read More
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Art Endured: How Chicago Theater Triumphed in 2017
 Remember January last year? Not since the so-called "Death of Irony" in 2001 were so many gloomy prognostications uttered regarding the extinction of theater as a unifying experience—its goal, to encourage individuals in putting aside their differences and acknowledging the human values we all share.
We endured, however. Healing strategies were implemented. Let's look at what we accomplished at the theater in 2017:Read More
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The Humans In Chicago
 The Humans is set for Chicago's Cadillac Palace Theatre for a limited two-week engagement Jan. 30 - Feb. 11, 2018. The Humans premiered in Chicago at American Theater Company in 2014 under the direction of the late PJ Paparelli. The Broadway production, directed by Joe Mantello, won the Tony Award for Best Play in 2016.
The angst, anguish and amity of.... Read More
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Holiday Messages Of Rebirth: Re-imaginings of Yuletide Classics Debut in Chicago Area Theaters
 As the annual disputes over the species of animals gathered at the manger in nativity scenes attest, any story no longer protected by copyright can become fair game for adaptation, parody or flat-out rewrite. However this irksome this legal snare may be for the creators of literary classics, it now locates both Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol and the multi-authored screenplay for the 1946 film It's A.... Read More
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Theatre In Chicago's 2017 Holiday Show Round-Up
 Looking for an enriching and entertaining way to spend the holiday season? This year, celebrate the yuletide at the theatre. With dozens of holiday plays opening this holiday season there's plenty to see in Chicago's eclectic theater scene. Chicago theaters are presenting everything from the traditional holiday shows to transvestite reindeer to a site specific show taking place in a working Christmas tree lot and much, much.... Read More
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J.B. In Treble Key: City Lit Stages All-Female Production of Archibald MacLeish Classic
 Even devout Bible scholars have been known to admit that the story of Job, as handed down by mortal scribes, does not show the Almighty at his best, instead portraying the Supreme Being as a swaggering gamer willing to inflict terrible injury on his most loyal supporter for no discernible purpose beyond a frivolous wager. Confronted in 1958 with the shadows of global upheaval engendered by the.... Read More
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You Oughta Be In Pictures: Invading Nirvana's Guide to Finding Gold in Them Thar Hollywood Hills
 In Invading Nirvana, Kevin Theis documents his adventures over three months in the fantasy realm of Hollywood, where, nearly a century after the sagebrush desert north of Los Angeles became the center of the newfangled "moving pictures," literally thousands of pilgrims converge daily to seek their fortunes on the screens of big films and tiny televisions.
His three goals are to secure big-bucks artistic.... Read More
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Wonder Woman's Big Sister: Babes With Blades Celebrate Return of The Invisible Scarlet O'Neil
 It's easy to walk away from The Invisible Scarlet O'Neil proclaiming the star of the show to be its special effects. When your heroine is a scientist's daughter turned social reformer after a laboratory mishap endows her with the power of—you guessed it—invisibility, saving the world from enemy aggression is a stroll through the funny-pages compared to translating print-graphic narrative to live-action performance.
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The Scientific Miracle Stage Blood of Gravity and Momentum
 The five empty front row seats at the opening of Factory Theater's Fight City should have been a warning, but one spectator chose—bravely or foolishly—to ignore it. The reason behind this arrangement became apparent in the second act of Scott OKen's action-adventure showcase for unarmed stage combat, when a faux-punch executed near the curtain line sprayed audience members with vivid crimson exsanguination. Fortunately, the artificial "blood".... Read More
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A Voyage Of Derring-Do: The Fair Maid of the West Sails Again in Oak Park
 It may be hard to believe nowadays, but the biggest worry of the CT20 company in 1994 as they prepared The Fair Maid of the West was finding enough actors trained in cloak-and-sword combat. When Thomas Heywood's original drama premiered in 1631, every male citizen was well-versed in the art of fencing, but changing social customs over the next three centuries had relegated swordplay to an.... Read More
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And Your Little Dog, Too: Talented Terrier Tricks for Shakespeare In Love
 There's no denying the affection that theatergoers have for animals onstage, whether written into the scripts, as in Of Mice and Men or The Lieutenant of Inishmore, or rendered literal by directorial fiat, like the live snakes in the Joffrey Ballet's recent production of La Bayadere. So it was no surprise to see opening night audiences at Shakespeare in Love smile upon hearing that Will.... Read More
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Not Just Jocks In Frocks: Three Plays Highlight Women In Sports Today
 American Theater magazine wasn't giving away any secrets when it reported plays featuring narratives extolling athletic activities reaping the benefits of crossover marketing to audiences outside the usual theatergoing demographic. You won't find any argument disputing the timeliness of stories exploring the dark side of glory days under the stadium lights, either.
Whatever the deciding factors, playgoers with an ear for locker-room chat in.... Read More
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Not In Our Theater: Rehearsing Creepy Violence in By The Bog of Cats
 Nobody expects Greek tragedy to be an exercise in polite restraint, but audiences at By the Bog of Cats, Marina Carr's updating of Medea, were still unprepared to witness acts of cold-blooded violence known to most American citizens only through hearing them described in accounts of war atrocities.
The play explores the conflicts arising from proud Hester Swane's refusal to surrender her young.... Read More
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Whistling The Wardrobe: The Dazzling Fashions of Priscilla and Brother's Keeper
 You could hear the audience gasp at the 2016 production of The Other Cinderella when our much-abused heroine's drab household duster swirled gracefully into a princess-line gown as supple and shimmering as molten gold. The same response greets the entrance of Taylay Thomas, playing mid 20th-century Hollywood icon Dorothy Dandridge, in the currently-running My Brother's Keeper: The Story of the Nicholas Brothers as she steps forth.... Read More
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Don't Call Them Squats: Custom-made Environment for Refuge's High Fidelity
 The storefront at 1415 North Ashland Avenue is crammed with bins of vinyl disks, cassette tapes and CDs. The walls and counter are decorated with vintage posters for music clubs like the Empty Bottle, Beat Kitchen and Double Door. Only the sixty-five chairs set up along two sides of the room offer a clue that this is not, in fact, a Used Record Store, but the scenic.... Read More
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This Way Out: The Three Faces Of Uncle Vanya
 No one planned a Chekhov festival, but three sequential adaptations of Uncle Vanya in six months, all of them raising the question of what can be done to end the suffering of its author's unhappy characters, is too much of a confluence not to go unnoticed.
Chekhov's 1896 drama presents us with Vanya Voynitsky and his niece, Sonya, both of whom have dedicated their.... Read More
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Follow That Bus: Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, Parks in Uptown
 Seeing a car in the process of being towed is not an uncommon sight in Chicago's Uptown neighborhood, but In 2002, residents were startled to see a full-size Crown Victoria taxicab unloaded into the front door of the storefront at 4137 Broadway for a production of Will Kern's Hellcab. If that boat-in-the-bottle proved to be a tight fit—a new interior door had to be cut in order.... Read More
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Warm Plays For A Cold Winter: Honky Tonk Angels and La Gringa Offer Escape From the Chill
 For attracting playgoers in the winter months, nobody can dispute the advantages offered by plays boasting locales where overcoats are strictly tourist garb, to be promptly shed upon leaving the airport. Two shows currently running into 2017 provide audiences an opportunity to escape freezing Chicago temperatures: UrbanTheatre's La Gringa transports us to a sunny island in the Caribbean, and Honky Tonk Angels to the.... Read More
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The Outs and Ins of Philip Dawkins
 I first encountered Philip Dawkins in 2007 at The Paper Machete, Christopher Piatt's "Live News Magazine." It was a back-to-school show, and Dawkins - who had then been teaching playwriting in the Chicago Public Schools for 10 years - opened his monologue with comments his students had written on a class feedback survey form. An example: "How many plays have you seen in.... Read More
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Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen- And Ladies: Cross-gender casting in A Christmas Carol
 Over the 39 years that the Goodman Theatre has presented Tom Creamer's adaptation of A Christmas Carol, its various directors have reminded us that Charles Dickens' tale of a lonely misanthrope restored to humanity through divine intervention has its counterpart in every culture the world over. Indeed, to declare the themes of this popular fable universal, wholly transcending the circumstances of their origins, is no exaggeration.Read More
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Bottoms Up At Curtain Time: a Proliferation of Drinking Game Shows
 On a weekend night in Bucktown circa 2006, citizens might have seen a convoy of young clubbers marching to the Gorilla Tango playhouse at the junction of Milwaukee, Armitage and Western Avenues, laden with six- and twelve-packs of beer, liters of wine and fifths of sundry firewaters. Their destination wasn't a block party, however, but a show rapidly becoming notorious for its incorporation of drinking games into.... Read More
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Theatre In Chicago's 2016 Holiday Show Round-Up
 The holiday season has arrived and with it another season of spectacular holiday plays in Chicago. Along with traditional family favorites like "A Christmas Carol," "The Nutcracker" and "It's A Wonderful Life," Chicago theaters are presenting everything from elves in drag bars to interactive comedy to a Scrooge roast and much, much more. To see a complete list of the holiday plays, visit our Holiday.... Read More
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Quicker Than The Eye: Dennis Watkins Brings Close-Up Magic to The Magic Parlour
 The term "Magic Show" most often calls to mind a series of elaborately-structured and lavishly-staged illusions. Rarely did these exhibits include a connective narrative providing continuity—until the House Theatre of Chicago made its debut in 2000 with Death and Harry Houdini, Nathan Allen's play combining the real-life biography with a fictional examination of the reasons behind the legendary magician's determination to defy the Grim Reaper.
.... Read More
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Fighting Or Flirting? "Intimacy Design" in Hand to Hand
 Playgoers might be startled to see "violence/intimacy design" listed in the playbill for Akvavit Theatre's production of Hand in Hand. For centuries, the extent of sex-on-stage training for actors was learning how to kiss while facing the audience, but as playwrights demand ever-increasing levels of realism in scenes requiring physical interaction, whatever its motivation, the potential for accidental injury arising from an excess of adrenaline, not.... Read More
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Semper Fi, Ladies! Babes With Blades Train with the USMC in Promise of a Rose Garden
 Popular myth dictates that the "few good men" of the United States Marines, being trained in combat to the exclusion of other skills, spend most of their off-duty time in recreational activities based on perfecting their battle readiness, whether through martial sports or old-fashioned street brawling. This archetype also applies when the marines are female, as in Dustin Spence's The Promise of a Rose Garden. The.... Read More
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Solo Noir: Chicago Playwright Douglas Post and English Actor Simon Slater Team Up For Bloodshot
 "He had a funny kind of accent, but his clothes weren't from the Red Shields and his hair didn't look like his mother had cut it, so I guessed he was on the level when he strolled into my office, He came to the point right away. 'I can do magic tricks, play the saxophone and ukulele, I can speak in different voices—oh, and I'm a famous.... Read More
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The Artist Reveals Himself: The Portrait Offers an Intimate Look at Symbolist Painter Gustav Klimt
 For an artist whose state-sponsored murals were denounced as "pornographic," and who never married (but was rumored to have fathered fourteen children), Gustav Klimt was actually one of the more low-profile members of the nebulous fin de siecle coterie dubbed "Symbolists" by art historians. The contradictions engendered in embracing an aesthetic mandating complete body-and-soul connection with his muse of the moment, while simultaneously subscribing to the Platonic.... Read More
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Second-Act Playwright: From Numbers to Words with David Alex
 David Alex isn't your average workshop-hustling, grant-grubbing, chardonnay-swilling playwright, but while the term "hobbyist" can be invoked as a pejorative, its negative connotations are undeserved.
A former high school mathematics teacher and track coach, he has served on the administrative boards of several arts organizations, including the Joseph Jefferson committee. He has been married to the same woman for nearly forty years. He.... Read More
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How to Get the Best Seats for "Hamilton" in Chicago
 As the Broadway production nominated for the most Tonys in history and the winner of 11 Tony awards, Hamilton is sure to take your breath away no matter where you sit. However, if you want to take advantage of the full experience, use the following tips and seating chart when purchasing your Hamilton tickets to ensure you have the best CIBC Theatre seats possible.
.... Read More
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Farewell To Broadway: Strawdog Theatre Company Draws Curtain on its Lakeview Loft
 Moving to a new home is always an occasion for contemplation, whether coming after years of planning or launched in the heat of expediency. For the Strawdog Theatre Company, the prospect of abandoning an environment associated with a thirty-year history of hope, ambition and creativity cannot help but call forth memories.
To be sure, these memories may vary substantially. The neighborhood providing Strawdog two.... Read More
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Demand High for Tickets to Hamilton in Chicago
 Finally stepping out of New York, the record-breaking 16-Tony-nominated "Hamilton" is coming to Chicago, and Chicago couldn't be more excited. Reviewers have called the musical enthralling and impassioned, one going as far as to recommend mortgaging your house and leasing your children if necessary to obtain a ticket. For many, conjuring up an image of the founding fathers brings to mind dollar bills and old schoolbooks..... Read More
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Blinded By Science: Disturbing the Universe in The Life of Galileo
 The word "science" calls forth many images. Henrik Ibsen cast it as the hero in An Enemy of the People, and Friedrich Durrenmatt, the villain in The Physicists. Its popular synonym, "technology," can be applied to Jonas Salk's polio vaccine or J. Robert Oppenheimer's atomic bomb. Are citizens who oppose unregulated experimentation promoting ignorance, however, or is their wariness of unforeseen consequences justifiable? Is it necessary for.... Read More
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Stupid Scientific Expeditions: Victorian Souvenirs in The Explorers Club
 There was the moose in Lincoln Park's John Barleycorn pub, and the wild boar in Boystown's Chaps that once led a young cowboy to stand at full height atop a bar stool for a head-on view of the fierce tusks and snout, but animal-head trophies are something of a rare sight nowadays, most wild game hunters preferring to view their quarry as steaks and chops for the.... Read More
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Heaven In A Second-Floor Walk Up: The Last Days of Mary-Arrchie Theatre's Angel Island
 Unlike moving into a new house, closing down a theater is not just a matter of giving the post office a forwarding address and handing over the keys to the new tenants. The second-floor loft over the convenience store at Broadway and Sheridan has been so long associated with the Mary-Arrchie Theatre Company (despite the difficulty playgoers unaccustomed to city streets still encounter trying to find its.... Read More
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Who Are You Calling Chicken? Fighting Fowl in Year of The Rooster
 Plays set in rural Oklahoma are rarely expected to be cheerful, but Eric Dufault's Year of The Rooster compounds the hopelessness by locating its economic and existential despair within the brutal culture of competitive cock-fighting. Though usually associated with Latin countries and illegal in the United States, this blood sport—its promoters remind us—was invented by the same ancient Greeks who gave us democracy. The Greeks also.... Read More
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Ten Isn't Enough: Chicago Theater in 2015
 It's the changing of another year, and that means retrospectives on the departing season—but how can anyone reduce our city's eight hundred-plus plays to a puny "top ten" list? When I think back on 2015, I recall several moments that don't fit the usual categories. Here, then, are my choices for recognition:
STEREOTYPE-FREE ZONE AWARDS - Productions: Cowboy vs. Samurai, A-Squared Theatre. Nice Indian.... Read More
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Hellcab's Endless Journey: Re-Tailoring Kern's Urban Odyssey
 There's this taxicab driver in Chicago, you see, and today is Christmas Eve. From this simple premise, Will Kern forged a play (originally titled Hellcab Does Christmas, but soon re-christened just Hellcab) that appeared year-round from 1992 to 2002 under the auspices of the legendary Famous Door Company. The 1997 film version allowed audiences worldwide to follow the humble hackie on his odyssey through a bewildering.... Read More
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Hamilton coming to Chicago
 The blockbuster Broadway musical HAMILTON - with book, music and lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda - will play its first engagement outside New York this fall in Chicago. Performances begin September 27, 2016, at Broadway In Chicago's newly named The PrivateBank Theatre (formerly the Bank Of America Theatre).
With book, music and lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda, directed by Thomas Kail, choreography.... Read More
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What's That Voice? Baritones Unbound Celebrates the Everymen of Music
 The show is called Baritones Unbound, but who first erected those boundaries? Was it the age of Romanticism that declared all heroes had to be young, blond and sing in tenor range? Was it the memory of the family patriarch's authoritative tones that rendered chest-based vocalizations the province of elders and villains? And when twentieth-century values bestowed heroic status upon men of worldly experience, was it.... Read More
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What Time Is This: Recreating Period Authenticity in The Time of Your Life
 Some plays can be relocated to other periods and locales with relative ease, but others are inseparable from their original milieu. Try to imagine Of Mice and Men or Cat On a Hot Tin Roof anywhere but where their authors decided to set them.
What makes the ambience of William Saroyan's The Time of Your Life so difficult to recreate is not only.... Read More
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Spontaneous Coward (Noel, That Is): Unplanned Noel Coward Festival Welcomes in the Holidays
 "All of Noel Coward's plays feature characters in—or out of—love." observes Derek Bertelsen, director of Pride Films and Plays production of Design For Living. While no one would ever mistake Coward's flagrantly unconventional lovers for your standard-issue Jack-and-Jill sweethearts, the cheerful amorality reflected in the English author's comedies appears to be responsible for Chicago's fall season boasting a thoroughly-unplanned festival of not one, but three, Coward.... Read More
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Million Dollar Quartet To Close After 7 Year Run
 With almost 3,000 performances, Million Dollar Quartet, Chicago's longest-running Broadway musical, is set to close on January 17, 2016. The Tony Award winning rock 'n' roll musical has been breaking box office records at the Apollo Theater, 2540 N. Lincoln Avenue where it will run for only a short time longer.
"When Million Dollar Quartet opened at the Goodman Theatre.... Read More
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Fun Home, The SpongeBob Musical, Finding Neverland Coming to Chicago
 Broadway In Chicago announced the upcoming 2016 season line-up. Broadway In Chicago's 2016 season will include the 2015 Tony Award-Winning Best Musical FUN HOME, the Pre-Broadway World Premiere of THE SPONGEBOB MUSICAL, 42ND STREET, BULLETS OVER BROADWAY, THE SOUND OF MUSIC and FINDING NEVERLAND. The Broadway In Chicago 2016 Season line-up, including performance dates and venues, is as follows:
42ND STREET
March.... Read More |
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Going Down Swinging: Training the Pugs in Sucker Punch
 Despite the conspicuous presence of athletes wearing padded gloves and silk trunks, Roy Williams' Sucker Punch is a play about fighting, and not just boxing. When the slum-dwelling citizens seeking refuge from poverty and violence in Charlie Maggs' shabby gymnasium aren't mixing it up in the ring, they're practicing in anticipation of achieving their moment of glory, and when they're not practicing, they're rough-housing with each.... Read More
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Equity Jeff Awards 2015 Recipients
 Two theatres in their first year of Equity eligibility received the most awards at the gala 47th Annual Equity Jeff Awards held at Drury Lane Oakbrook which celebrated a season of outstanding productions.
Newly Equity eligible, The Hypocrites earned six awards for "All Our Tragic", an epic 12-hour adaptation of the 32 surviving Greek tragedies, which was honored with awards for.... Read More
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Diva Stunt-Double: Vocal Shape-Shifting in The Rise and Fall of Little Voice
 The Rise and Fall of Little Voice is British playwright Jim Cartwright's modern-day fairy tale: its princess is a shy young woman dubbed "Little Voice"—or L.V.—by her boisterous mother, and her prison tower, the shabby public-housing apartment that they share. To muffle the sound of her careless parent's nightly carouses, Little Voice withdraws to her room and the comfort of record albums belonging to her late.... Read More
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Singing Like A Seagull: Ukulele Music in Sideshow's Stupid F**king Bird
 Its technical name is "tenor archtop ukulele"—not the cigar-box toy we associate with raccoon-coated roaring-twenties college boys and backyard tiki parties, but a relative of the lute, the mandolin and a pre-World War Two jazz guitar. So why is a character from a fin-de-siècle Russian classic playing mid-eighties pop tunes on one? Well, it's because this isn't really Chekhov's Seagull, but Aaron Posner's smarter-than-you'd-expect "(sort of) adaptation".... Read More
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Prayer and Kitchens: Cooking with Steppenwolf in Grand Concourse
 Nearly everything that happens in Heidi Schreck's Grand Concourse occurs in a kitchen—not a cozy gingham-curtained sanctuary of the kind often recreated in storefront theaters, but a stainless-steel urban-industrial scullery where meals for hoards of homeless diners are prepared daily by Sister Shelley and her assistants. Joey Wade's design for this oasis offering food for the body and for the soul includes a gas stove, a.... Read More
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Pachydermal Puppetry: Creating the Hindu Elephant God in A Perfect Ganesh
 The reason behind Terrence McNally's A Perfect Ganesh being so rarely performed is not its now-outdated fantasy of India, but that its story's narrator and facilitator is the Hindu deity Ganesha, remover of obstacles and, thus, patron of lovers and travelers. Why should so benevolent a spiritual icon present problems? Ganesha, you see, boasts a human body distinguished by multiple upper limbs and an elephant's head,.... Read More
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Angry Birds: Skyward Battle Cries in Conor McPherson's The Birds
 The "bunker play" literary genre proposes a microcosmic society characters confined in restrictive quarters under duress arising from an outside threat. In Conor McPherson's The Birds (adapted from the short story by Daphne DuMaurier), what precipitates his three refugees securing shelter in an abandoned house on the New England coast are a series of concerted attacks by flocks of, literally, angry birds.
We.... Read More
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Gateway Theater: Windy City Playhouse Welcomes First-Time Audiences
 It's probably the most glamorous storefront theater in Chicago, its façade recalling a Sinatra-era Hollywood lounge. Buildings of this vintage are nowadays most often found in the suburbs, refurbished with an eye to providing weary grandparents with nostalgic memories.
That's exactly what the Windy City Playhouse is not, though. Its quarters in what was once a caterer's showroom and the absence of a.... Read More
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The Saints Go Marching On: Indispensable Theater Volunteers Continue Their Mission
 They are most often seen at the theaters, performing front-of-the-house chores—checking coats, dispensing refreshments, passing out playbills, tearing tickets and guiding patrons to their seats. They are usually dressed in smart black-and-white ("full penguin" jackets at the Symphony Center, business casual khakis and henleys at Theater Wit, by request of its owner, Jeremy Wechsler). The majority of them look to be of AARP age, though younger representatives—in.... Read More
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Back-Porch Picnic On Fire Island: Cooking With Terrence McNally in Lips Together, Teeth Apart
 Terrence McNally's Lips Together, Teeth Apart is located in and around a luxury beach house in the swankiest part of New York's Fire Island, occupied on a Fourth of July weekend by two couples sunk in their respective funks despite the revelry surrounding them. The Eclipse Theatre Company's production occupies a third-floor studio with a stage measuring a spartan twenty-four by twenty-eight feet, with nary a.... Read More
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TLC In The CCTV Room: Red Handed Otter's Night Shift
 Patrons of A Red Orchid's off-the-street theater are accustomed to scenery unfolding like pop-up puzzles on a shallow stage featuring only a little over a hundred square feet of walk-around floor space. Even so, the scenic design for Ethan Lipton's Red Handed Otter, set in a basement security center for an unnamed property (most likely a mall), may present its biggest technical challenge to date.
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Head To Foot: Baubles, Bling and Big Hair in Marie Antoinette
 Elton John, step aside! Liberace, eat your heart out! You, too, Cher! France's last royal highness and her posse in David Adjmi's Marie Antoinette take fashionable excess to new heights—literally, with yard-high hair-dos, eight inch-high heels and dazzling mirrors on every surface.
"The goal was to create an atmosphere of extravagant luxury," explains costume designer Dede Ayite. "We wanted to showcase.... Read More
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The Birds And The Beasts Were There: Animal Puppets in The Hammer Trinity
 In The Hammer Trinity, Chris Mathews and Nathan Allen's Tolkeinesque three-part fantasy epic, there are two scenes where the entire audience rises in unison to cheer the action transpiring on stage. The villain getting his comeuppance is one, of course, but before that climactic victory, there is the moment where July of the Seven Foxes summons forth the animals of the kingdom to ride with her into.... Read More
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Springtime On The Frontier: Prairie Landscaping in Lifeline's One Came Home
 You'd never guess to look at the Baraboo/Dells region nowadays, but central Wisconsin was once a seemingly endless expanse of rocky glacial terrain teeming with wildlife and dotted with remote farming settlements barely hinting at the nearby state capitol. This is the setting of Amy Timberlake's One Came Home, a saga of feisty Georgie Burkhardt's search for her missing older sister. Her odyssey will bring her.... Read More
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Star-Crossed In South Asia: Nice Indian Boy's Bollywood Connection
 Despite having been written over four hundred years ago, Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet is still invoked by star-crossed young romantics confronted with family opposition. The myth underscoring the courtship of the interracial same-sex sweethearts in Madhuri Shekar's A Nice Indian Boy, currently playing under the auspices of the Rasaka Theatre Company, has a shorter history, but resonates no less vibrantly.
Shekar's prototype is.... Read More
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Mix-Master At Work: Tending Bar in Accidentally, Like a Martyr
 The frontier traditions shaping our nation's culture declare a saloon to be more than simply a liquor dispensary, instead ranking alongside the town church as a community social center, serving as ballroom, hotel, dining hall and funeral parlor as needed. Its elevated status may account for the number of American plays set in barrooms, from The Iceman Cometh and The Time of Your Life to The Sea.... Read More
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Sicilian Southern On The Gulf Coast: Dialect Instruction in The Rose Tattoo
 The upper coastline of the Mexican Gulf forming the southern boundaries of five states—Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Florida—comprises a diversity of languages, having been at various times a port-of-entry for French, Spanish, German, Irish and Scottish settlers. The verbal landscape surrounding the Italian colony lending Tennessee Williams his setting for The Rose Tattoo encompasses the native parlance of foreign-born immigrants, as well as those of.... Read More
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Cratchit's Christmas Dinner: Grocery Shopping in the Goodman Theatre's Christmas Carol
 Nobody talks about food more than a hungry author, so who can blame Charles Dickens for incorporating so many descriptions of sumptuous meals into his novels? A Christmas Carol revels in Fezziwig's holiday feast for his employees, in the meager-but-sufficient repast of the Cratchits and the bounty of rich comestibles enthroning the Ghost of Christmas Present.
Urban audiences accustomed to purchasing their dinner.... Read More
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A Long Hellcab Ride: Richard Cotovsky Takes the Wheel Again After Twenty Years
 On the list of Chicago's longest-running holiday shows, Hellcab (originally titled Hellcab Does Christmas) falls fifteen years behind the Goodman's Christmas Carol, but a few years ahead of The Christmas Schooner. What distinguishes Hellcab from its seasonal compatriots, however, is its setting. Instead of Victorian London, or a turn-of-the-century Michigan logging community, Will Kern's play looks at our own city through the eyes of a humble.... Read More
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Ring Dem Bells: Swinging Hammers in Il Trovatore's Anvil Chorus
 People who profess to know nothing of grand opera recognize the "Anvil Chorus" from Verdi's Il Trovatore immediately—if only the Marx Brothers and Bugs Bunny versions. This rousing ensemble number (properly called "Vedi! Le Fosche Notturne"), set in a Romani encampment, features two eight-measure passages where the orchestra mimics the ring of the blacksmiths' hammers as they work.
The percussionists in the pit.... Read More
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Irish Cats Have Nine Lives: Feline Cameo in AstonRep Lieutenant of Inishmore
 The words "dead cat" will likely inspire amusement in all but the most devout aelurophiles, but in The Lieutenant of Inishmore, the untimely demise of two felines launches a chain of events that will end in their bereaved owners enacting terrible vengeance on the murderers of innocent creatures. More difficult than the quantities of simulated gore, gunfire and furry corpses mandated by Martin McDonagh's scathing satire.... Read More
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Congressional Expectations: Baby On Board in Both Your Houses
 Maxwell Anderson, writing in 1931, probably never anticipated married women, let alone expectant mothers, holding down executive positions in Washington DC, but when Linda Gillum—cast as Greta "Bus" Nillson, the savvy secretary who helps the idealistic crusader of Both Your Houses battle his weasely colleagues—announced that she would be visibly pregnant on opening night, the creative staff at Remy Bumppo Theater Company sat down to discuss.... Read More
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Fight Like A Fish: Swimming Against the Current in The Clean House
 "Life is a joke, so why not die laughing?" is the moral of The Clean House, as well as the rallying cry of the newlywed cancer-stricken Ana—whose recently-acquired family encompasses her doctor/husband, his ex-wife, his former sister-in-law, and their housekeeper. Her rejection of the depression associated with lingering disease is symbolized by her pet fish ("a fighting fish" she declares defiantly) whose bowl is granted pride.... Read More
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An Eye For An Eye: The Wounded Hero of Jane Eyre
 The Romantic sensibility reflected in Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre mandates that the title character's final step toward conquering her horrific early childhood memories is the rescue of her chosen consort from his demons, the latter manifested, literally, upon his physical being. Edward Rochester, we are told, refused to flee the fiery destruction of his unhappy home until the rest of the household had been evacuated, only.... Read More
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Second-Hand Smoke: Acting Tobacco Consumption in Cole Theatre's Ecstasy
 Audiences are usually willing to suspend disbelief for whiskey decanters filled with tea or beer bottles containing diluted coca-cola, but the working-class youths in Ecstasy, Mike Leigh's time-capsule portrait of England in 1979, also consume copious quantities of tobacco, a substance nowadays inspiring such alarm—despite its legal status and widespread popularity in the United States—that special care must be taken, lest playgoers in the close quarters.... Read More
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Tragic Repasts: Feeding the Audiences at All Our Tragic
 Though the tradition dates from antiquity, for modern audiences, it all started in 1980 with the Royal Shakespeare Company's eight-and-a-half-hour Nicholas Nickleby, a sprawling adaptation of the Charles Dickens novel that launched a fashion for marathon productions of duration sufficient to require at least one extended intermission for playgoers to fortify themselves with nutrition more substantial than lobby snacks. In order to prevent customers straying too far.... Read More
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Stitchery Ex Machina: Old-Fashioned Sewing in Intimate Apparel
 It commands the stage picture, positioned firmly downstage center where you can't miss it—an iron-filigree, treadle-propelled Singer sewing machine of the sort nowadays most often found in rural attics, disabled and rusted-out, useful only as a trellis for climbing house plants. Not this one, however! No, this vintage homemaker's helper gleams as temptingly as when first sent forth from its factory, probably sometime between 1877 and 1920..... Read More
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Winston In America: Ronald Keaton's Churchill Moves to the Greenhouse
 He was born to privilege in a time and a society where such accidents determined his future as surely as they restricted that of other citizens. He suffered devastating changes in fortune, distinguished himself in a wide range of endeavors and lived to the age of ninety. He was English, product of a culture Americans are fond of mythologizing (at a safe distance). So what inspired Ronald.... Read More
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Washing With Sam: Bathing Beauty in The Late Henry Moss
 South Pacific calls for a navy nurse to wash her hair onstage while singing a song, and in The Big Funk, a captive woman is given a shampoo and shower by a bevy of servants in full view of the audience, but for The Late Henry Moss, Yadira Correa's duties for the role of the mysterious Conchalla require her to first draw a bath in a.... Read More
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Rocking Out: Wearable Masonry in Monstrous Regiment
 Castle walls are usually easy to replicate—you paint some plywood to look like fieldstone and mortar, or—if you want to get fancy—you paste some Home Depot fiberglass faux-fireplace surfacing material to the plywood. Lifeline Theatre's adaptation of Terry Pratchett's Monstrous Regiment, however, requires a wall to collapse into a pile of gravel at precisely the moment when an unexpected reversal is most needed, and not one.... Read More
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Tony-Award Winning Musical Pippin Coming to Chicago
 Broadway In Chicago has announced that the Tony Award winning Broadway Musical PIPPIN will play Chicago's Cadillac Palace Theatre (151 W Randolph) for two weeks only, July 28 - August 9, 2015.
This all-new production of Roger O. Hirson and Stephen Schwartz's PIPPIN is directed by Tony Award winner Diane Paulus and features choreography by Tony Award nominee Chet Walker in the style.... Read More
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Hey, Mister, Take My Picture: Audience Participation in The Inconvenience's Love Tapes
 "It's a modern mating ritual," Carl explains to his photographer in the quirky comedy Love Tapes co-authored by Penn Jillette and Steven Banks. He is referring to the videotape he plans to shoot of himself, posing as a metal-rocker wearing nothing but a Fender bass guitar, and then dispatch in reply to a likewise self-produced videotape from Melinda of herself, dressed as an Anna Nicole Smith.... Read More
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Jeff Awards 2014 Non-Equity Recipients
"The Mother," a stage tale of class warfare, and "Passion," a musical of love and obsession, took home top honors for Oracle Productions and Theo Ubique Cabaret Theatre respectively Monday, June 2, at Park West during the 41st Annual Non-Equity Jeff Awards ceremony recognizing excellence in non-union Chicago theatre. Oracle, with five awards, and Theo Ubique, with four awards, garnered the most honors at Monday night's ceremony..... Read More |
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Harry, England and Saint George: Re-creating the Battle of Agincourt in Henry V
 For a play whose plot centers on one of English history's most decisive military campaigns in one of its longest wars, Shakespeare's Henry V is curiously short on violence, being more concerned with lessons in how to fight a war—and by extension, how to govern a country.
Oh, but who cares about the political situation precipitating the showdown—those old-time royals were always fighting.... Read More
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Chasing The Night At Mister Cinders: Public House Theatre Brings Back Bouncers
 On its surface, John Godber's Bouncers is simple enough—four doormen at the Mister Cinders dance club describe a typical Saturday night on the job—in doing so, they mimic the personalities of customers, staff members, and other auxiliary personnel. They also comment irreverently on the dead-end life that drives young working-class Brits to squander money and self-esteem in the pursuit of a single evening's good time, while.... Read More
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Back To The Future: Steampunk Invades Promethean's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
 Nowadays we expect brain exercise from Tom Stoppard, but theatergoers in attendance at the 1967 premiere of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead were unprepared for three acts of Hamlet's school chums parsing ontological philosophy, with occasional forays into existential pragmatism—all proposing (so the author claimed) to look at Shakespeare's tragedy, not from the perspective of its powerful monarchs, but the commoners caught up in covert intrigues.... Read More
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Coulda Been A Contender: the Mystique of Irish Boxing in Lay Me Down Softly
 Swordplay and shootouts, karate chops and full-cast tavern brawls, all are capable of dazzling audiences while in progress, but two men facing off, eye-to-eye, in a roped-off arena, is a picture that resonates with spectators long after the activity ceases and the show is finished. Skeptics seeking proof of the indelible impression engendered by pugilistic pageantry should note that in the last twenty years, every Chicago production.... Read More
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Jeff Awards Announce 2014 Non-Equity Nominations
The Jeff Awards Committee today announced 128 nominations in 24 categories of Non-Equity Jeff Awards for productions that opened between April 1, 2013, and March 31, 2014. The Non-Equity Awards honor excellence in Chicago theatres not under a union contract. Jeff judges attended opening nights of 147 productions offered by 65 Non-Equity producing organizations. The judges recommended 66 of those shows, making them eligible for Non-Equity Jeff.... Read More |
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The Book Of Mormon Returns To Chicago
 Following its record-breaking 43-week engagement in the 2013-2014 season, THE BOOK OF MORMON will return to Chicago's Bank of America Theatre in 2015 for a strictly limited engagement from February 24, 2015 - May 17, 2015.
THE BOOK OF MORMON features book, music and lyrics by Trey Parker, Robert Lopez and Matt Stone. Parker and Stone are the four-time Emmy Award-winning creators of.... Read More
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Hell On Wheels: Rolling Through the Underworld in Ghost Bike
 Ghost Bike recounts the story of Ora and Eddie, two kids who found freedom and friendship exploring the big Windy City on their bicycles-but when Eddie is killed by an errant motorist, the inconsolable Ora is not content to erect him a sidewalk memorial like that in the play's title. Instead, she invades the Realm of the Dead on her fixed-gear bike to reclaim her beloved.... Read More
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Never Say Die: The Playboy of the Western World's Indestructible Lawrence Garner
 Storefront-circuit regulars will likely recognize Lawrence Garner—by sight, if not by name. Over the last twenty years, he's appeared as a wide array of characters, ranging from a windy British officer in the David Cromer-directed production of Translations, to a surly Arab in The Time of Your Life, to a vaguely-pedophile scientist in Frankenstein in Love, as well as, most recently, the scheming Salieri in Amadeus and.... Read More
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The Sunday Painter's Secret: Art on the Stage of Joe Egg
 The suffering of families with children crippled by disease are commonplace themes nowadays, but in 1967, Peter Nichols' A Day In The Death of Joe Egg shocked audiences with its brutally unsentimental account of an English couple whose severely disabled 10-year-old daughter's almost nonexistent brain activity renders her barely more vital than the household pets and plants. Her name is Josephine, but her parents, Brian and.... Read More
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Those Merry Dogs Of Windsor: Canine Cameos Steal the Show at Chicago Shakespeare
 Early in Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor, a group of country gentleman discuss a dog belonging to one of them. The modest Mister Page calls the hound "a cur", but the obsequious Justice Shallow declares the creature to be "good and fair." From this casual exchange arose director Barbara Gaines' vision of a London suburb inhabited by not just one, but three dogs—the aforementioned Mister Page's.... Read More
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Another Night With Charles Dickens: Ringing In A New Year with The Chimes
 It would be easy for us to think that the inspiration for The Chimes was the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poem/hymn "I Heard the Bells On Christmas Day." In fact, it was forty years earlier that Charles Dickens visited Italy and, hearing the cathedral bells of Genoa peal on New Year's Day, immediately decided to make them the focus of his follow-up to his successful Christmas Carol..... Read More
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Behind The Wheel Again: Hellcab's First Driver Returns for 21st Anniversary Production
 We usually think of taxicab drivers as young men, but a quick survey of Chicago's fleets also reveals a number of gray-haired drivers determined to "wear out, not rust out" their retirement years. Author Will Kern never specified the age of the nameless pilot helming the lone vehicle in Hellcab—originally titled Hellcab Does Christmas at its premiere for the now-dissolved Famous Door Company in 1992, before.... Read More
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Bigger, Brighter, Louder: Chicago Theatre History Anthology Makes A Great Gift
Bigger, Brighter, Louder: 150 Years of Chicago Theater As Seen By Chicago Tribune Critics (University of Chicago Press) was published in October to positive reviews. The 376-page hardcover chronicle of Chicago's theatrical history (also available on Amazon Kindle), by chief Tribune theatre critic Chris Jones, would make a great holiday gift idea for the theatre lover or Chicago history buff on your list.
That history starts.... Read More |
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What Dickens Didn't Tell Us: Jacob Marley's Christmas Carol
 Marley's death may have been necessary to launch Charles Dickens' venerable parable of atonement and redemption on that fatal eve, but in 1991, Tom Mula—then in his first of seven seasons playing the role of Scrooge for the Goodman Theatre's annual holiday Christmas Carol—heard a child protest "Marley got a raw deal!" The result, three years later, was Jacob Marley's Christmas Carol, a novella that immediately.... Read More
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Acting Disabled: Learning Wheelchair for The Normal Heart
 They don't require licenses to operate, but contrary to popular belief, you can't just plop someone down into a wheelchair or an assisted-mobility scooter and expect them to go happily about their business, any more than you'd turn an untrained driver loose in traffic. This is especially true in situations when back-tracking is not feasible—in the midst of a tense dramatic moment onstage, say, during Timeline Theatre's.... Read More
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Theatre In Chicago's 2013 Holiday Show Round-Up
 Welcome to Theatre In Chicago's 2013 Holiday Show Round-Up, the most comprehensive (of course) list of all of this year's seasonal-themed plays and musicals performing all over Chicagoland. As ever, there is a vast and diverse array of offerings from which to choose, from the time-honored traditional (A Christmas Carol at the Goodman Theatre and elsewhere) to the alternative (take your pick). As to the latter,.... Read More
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Sisterhood Is Powerful: Twenty Years of Late Nite Catechism
 An advertisement once proclaimed "You don't have to be Jewish to love Lender's bagels"—nor, apparently, do you have to be Catholic to attend Late Nite Catechism, authored by Vicki Quade and Maripat Donovan, premiering in 1993 and running continuously to the present day. With a scenario premised on a class offering adults instruction in the tenets of Catholicism, conducted by a nun in full pre-Vatican II.... Read More
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Jeff Awards Announces 2013 Equity Awards Recipients
At the gala 45th Annual Equity Jeff Awards held at Drury Lane Oakbrook on Monday, November 4, Steppenwolf Theatre Company's "Good People" received the award for Production-Play in a large tier theatre. Principal Actress Mariann Mayberry was also honored for her role in this David Lindsey-Abaire play, which considers the dangerous consequences of holding on to the past or leaving it behind. William Brown received Best Director.... Read More |
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Theatre In New York Launched: A New Site Covering Broadway and Off-Broadway Shows
 Theatre In New York, a new source for everything happening on stage in New York from Broadway to Off-Off-Broadway, has been launched. Theatre In New York will join its sister sites Theatre In Chicago, Theatre In DC, Theatre In Boston, Theatre In LA, Theatre In Minneapolis, Theatre In San Francisco, Theatre In Seattle, and Theatre Atlanta in providing the most comprehensive and up-to-date information on live.... Read More
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Snakes In Tutus: Live Serpents Are Featured in Joffrey Ballet's La Bayadere
 La Bayadère: The Temple Dancer recounts the story of a humble girl who falls for a celebrity hero, but he's betrothed to a Rajah's daughter—you can guess the rest. What distinguishes Maurius Pepita's rarely-performed ballet from its 19th-century brethren is not only its exotic South Asian setting, but its heroine's untimely death arriving at the hand—or teeth, rather—of a deadly poisonous Krait snake.
Houston Ballet.... Read More
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Pulling The Strings: Musical Instruments in Hank Williams: Lost Highway
 The array of glossy stringed instruments festooning the upstage wall could be a honky-tonk vision of the pearly gates! Actually, it's the backdrop for Hank Williams: Lost Highway, Randal Myler and Mark Harelik's biodrama of the man who introduced the melded harmonies and twanging vocals of the southern-white blues we now know as "country" music to audiences throughout the world.
In American Blues Theater's production,.... Read More
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Broadway In Chicago Announces 2014 Spring Season
 Broadway In Chicago announced the upcoming 2014 spring season line-up. Supporting Broadway In Chicago's commitment to Chicagoans seeing shows first, the season features four premieres. Coming to Chicago first is the World Premiere Pre-Broadway production of THE LAST SHIP, the U.S. Tour Premiere of MOTOWN THE MUSICAL and the North American Premiere of HEARTBEAT OF HOME, as well as the U.S. Tour Premiere of BUYER AND CELLAR.... Read More
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The Nuts and Bolts Of The Future: Looking Back on R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots)
 They're all over the headlines today, these robots, even making the cover of Time magazine. To be sure, the automated semi-mobile support staff of today-discounting the old-school androids used in photographs accompanying the aforementioned headlines-bear little similarity to their Hollywood predecessors: Robby in Forbidden Planet, Gort in The Day the Earth Stood Still, R2-D2 and C-3PO in Star Wars, to name a few. Nor is there much.... Read More
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Jeff Awards 2013 Equity Nominations Announced
Five world premiere plays and three new adaptations seen first by Chicago audiences received Jeff nominations by the Jeff Awards Committee and are among the 166 nominations in 36 categories announced for Chicago Equity theatrical productions opened between August 1, 2012 and July 31, 2013.
Luis Alfaro's "Mojada," a reimagining of Euripides' Medea transported to Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood, and Philip Dawkins' "Failure: A Love Story," about.... Read More |
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Enchanted Wisteria: Flowering Garden in Enchanted April
 The magic words in Patrick Barber's adaptation of Elizabeth Von Arnim's Enchanted April are "sunshine and wisteria"— the romantic prospect thereof spurring four Englishwomen to flee the gloom of their native Hampstead in 1922 for an Italian holiday that will forever change their lives. Wisteria is no domesticated back-yard bloom, however, but sturdy-trunked garden foliage demanding very specific meteorological conditions — among them, full sunshine for.... Read More
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Bad Cops Finish First: Danny Goldring Plays All Sides of the Law
 If you're a fan of cops-and-robbers shows, you've probably seen Danny Goldring, whose recruiting-poster appearance has earned him a resume replete with flatfoot-in-patrol-cars and gumshoe-in-precinct-room roles not unlike the one he currently occupies as Detective Vince Getz in Keith Huff's spoof of hard-boiled noir, Big Lake Big City, at Lookingglass Theatre.
"For some reason, people see me as an authority figure," Goldring shrugs,.... Read More
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Dancing With Pythons: Creating Kaa in The Jungle Book
 There are the parade lions at Chinese New Year celebrations, of course, and the wind-sock whales in outdoor productions of Moby Dick. Just recently, audiences had an opportunity to pet wood-and-fabric foxes in The Iron Stag King and gawk at an LED-studded dragon in She Kills Monsters. On a grander scale, Chicago has seen horses and even elephants recreated through ingenious puppetry.
Snakes are a special.... Read More
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A Flood Of Protest: Hydrospectacle in Oracle Theatre's Waiting for Lefty
 It's not as if Chicago audiences had never seen stage precipitation before. Steppenwolf's rain machine received almost as much press as its actors throughout the 1990s, and just last year, The Hypocrites' Fall of the House of Usher featured the title mansion springing leaks like a shotgun shack in Florida.
What distinguishes the spectacle in Oracle Theatre's production of Clifford Odets' pro-labor Waiting.... Read More
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Swashbuckler Noir: A Three Musketeers for Adults
 The playbill assures us that this is The Three Musketeers, but the trio of military lifers and the young civilian seeking to join their ranks are not the familiar Anglo-Norman cavaliers of Hollywood romps and candy-bar logos. Granting that even in the 17th century, it was possible to find Frenchmen with faces revealing African or Asian ancestors, and that multi-ethnic casting in storefront theaters is likewise.... Read More
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Staring Into The Glass: Mary-Arrchie Theatre's Glass Menagerie
 Whether you've seen The Glass Menagerie a hundred times before or only in the textbook, you are unprepared for the spectacle that greets you in this production. First you notice the glass—a dazzling array of bottles, decanters, urns, flasks and goblets, stacked on the stairs, lined up against the walls, assembled in delicately-balanced towers—in short, everywhere you look. Closer scrutiny of this walk-in collage, with its.... Read More
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My Kingdom For A Harley! Biker-themed Richard III at The Den
The concept is irresistible! The royal court in Shakespeare's Richard III envisioned as a roadhouse where rival motorcycle gangs (distinguished by the white and red roses displayed on their riding gear) wrestle for power—none more ruthlessly than the scheming Richard of Gloucester, himself. This analogy is not as bizarre as it may seem: wherever you have veterans of major wars, whether the Viet Nam or the.... Read More |
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2013 Non-Equity Jeff Awards Recipients
A stage tale of troubled families, a true-life story musical about gay servicemen in World War II and a rousing rock'n'roll revue took home top honors Monday, June 3, at Park West during the 40th Annual Non-Equity Jeff Awards ceremony recognizing excellence in non-union Chicago theatre.
Circle Theatre in Oak Park and Theo Ubique Cabaret Theatre in Chicago each received four awards, more than any other.... Read More |
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Eric and Andy Live From The Jeff Awards
 Eric Roach and Anderson Lawfer, interviewers for TheatreInChicago, will be holding a "Red Carpet" style event from the Park West Theater at the 40th annual Joseph Jefferson Awards on June 3rd, 2013 that will be streamed live and can be seen right here at TheatreInChicago.com.
The production will be handled by Brad Little and Ben Fuchsen from Oracle Theatre Productions who have live streamed other theatrical events in.... Read More
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Million Dollar Quartet Becomes Longest Running Musical in Chicago's History
Million Dollar Quartet announced that Saturday, May 25, 2013 marks the official date at which it becomes the longest-running musical production in Chicago's history. With 1,949 performances and 5 smash years in Chicago, the Tony Award-winning rock 'n' roll musical has surpassed both Wicked and Pumpboys and Dinettes, setting a new record for the longest running Broadway musical in Chicago.
.... Read More |
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Who Was That Lady? The Statue's Secret in Creditors
 The Remy Bumppo Theatre Company proved itself adept at smashing crockery in 2011 with their production of Edward Albee's The Goat, Or Who Is Sylvia. Two years later, statuary once again plays a role in David Greig's adaptation of August Strindberg's psychological thriller, Creditors—specifically, a faceless nude odalisque made in the image of the sculptor's wife, the former played by Gabriel Ruiz and the latter by.... Read More
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In The Belly Of The Whale: Full-Body Makeover in Samuel D. Hunter's The Whale
 When we first see Charlie, he gives his weight as somewhere between 500 and 600 lbs. If this were merely a few extra pounds, a few extra layers of clothing—some of them quilted or waffle-textured, perhaps—would be the solution. For localized corpulence (think Falstaff or Fezziwig), a leotard lined with foam rubber would do the trick. In Samuel D. Hunter's The Whale, however, our hero's professed.... Read More
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2013 Non-Equity Jeff Award Nominations Announced
The Jeff Awards Committee announced 120 nominations in 25 categories of Non-Equity Jeff Awards for productions that opened between April 1, 2012, and March 31, 2013. The Non-Equity Awards honor excellence in Chicago theatres not under a union contract. Jeff judges attended opening nights of 146 productions offered by 65 Non-Equity producing organizations. The judges recommended 54 of those shows, making them eligible for Non-Equity Jeff Award.... Read More |
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Revising The Gospels: Finding Faith in The Book of Mormon
No one can deny the success of The Book of Mormon—the runaway hit musical by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, that is. The irony is that it isn't really about the gospel according to the Church of Latter-Day Saints. To understand why, it is necessary to look at the evolution of religious sects in general.
"Evolution"—you heard that word right. The fundamental beliefs.... Read More |
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Rock-And-Roll Will Never Die: Smokey Joe's Cafe Appeal Crosses Generations
 There are some who declare that Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller wrote the Rock-and-Roll songbook—or the first few chapters, at least—but nobody guessed that an evening of top-40 songs dating from the mid-20th century would prove so popular that Theo Ubique would be turning away customers after a run of nearly three months. Granted, the award-winning company has forged its reputation on intimate shows in the very.... Read More
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Skin Deep: Tattoos in TimeLine's Concerning Strange Devices From the Distant West
 He is a Japanese ricksha driver, his body tattooed in blue and green and purple, and we can't take our eyes off him. This is because the other two characters onstage—a Gilded-Age American matron and a sybaretic expatriate photographer—are likewise riveted by his exotic body decoration, their shared curiosity drawing our gaze in his direction. Since we in 2013 are less unnerved by the notion of living.... Read More
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The Midas Gun: Golden Weapon in Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo
 Even sharing the stage with flying topiary animals and the ghost of a dead tiger, it commands our attention immediately: a gold-plated Desert Eagle .44 caliber semi-automatic pistol, alleged to have belonged to Uday Hussein—Saddam's playboy son—and looted by American troops during the invasion on the dictator's palace. The distinctive firearm is then passed from one owner to another, sometimes coveted for its material value, sometimes for.... Read More
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Broadway in Chicago Announces Fall Season
 Broadway In Chicago has announced the upcoming 2013 fall season line-up. Broadway In Chicago's 2013 fall season will include BUDDY, FLASHDANCE, TO MASTER THE ART, EVITA, ONCE and ELF. The 2013 fall off-season specials include Emerald City Theatre's production of THE CAT IN THE HAT, WE WILL ROCK YOU and the return of Broadway's biggest blockbuster, WICKED.
The complete fall season line-up, including.... Read More
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Wicked Flying Back to Chicago
 Broadway In Chicago has announced WICKED, Broadway's biggest blockbuster, will return to Chicago in celebration of its 10th anniversary on Broadway and play the Oriental Theatre (24 West Randolph) for a limited eight-week engagement, Oct. 30 to Dec. 21, 2013.
With music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz (Godspell, Pippin, Academy Award-winner for Pocahontas and The Prince of Egypt) and book by Winnie Holzman.... Read More
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Look, Ma! No Wires: Dennis Watkins' Mysterious Flight to The Magic Parlour
 "Teleportation" is the name given to slight-of-hand tricks involving an object disappearing, then re-appearing somewhere else. Actors can also find themselves working in two productions running concurrently, hurrying from curtain call at one theater to sign-in at another. The distance may span a few blocks or hundreds of miles, as it did for Philip E. Johnson in 2005, when he would finish his solo act at a.... Read More
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The Motherf**ker with the Hat and Other You-Can't-Say-That Plays
 It started in 2001 with Bailiwick Repertory's production of Mark Ravenhill's Shopping And F**king, a brutal look at youths forced by poverty to commit distasteful deeds, its name derived from publishing trade jargon for a popular fiction genre featuring rich people behaving badly. David Zak, former Bailiwick artistic director, reminisces about displaying the uncensored title on the company's Belmont Avenue theater marquee.
"We had one group.... Read More
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No-Passing Zone: Parking the Taxi for Hellcab
 When Will Kern's Hellcab Does Christmas first opened in 1992, technical director Robert G. Smith had to remove the street doors of the Hull House at Broadway and Belmont in order to squeeze the front half of a Yellow Cab into the multi-purpose facility. Profiles Theatre's twentieth anniversary revival of the long-running hit, now titled simply Hellcab, is mounted in a single-wide storefront, its performance space.... Read More
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Play List 2012: Top Shows Of The Year
 Theatre In Chicago presents its annual list of the top-rated plays that were produced in the Chicago area for 2012. The list was compiled objectively from critics' reviews, based on the Highly Recommended to Not Recommended scale.
There are 20 shows on the list, produced by 14 different theatre companies. There were five repeats: Chicago Shakespeare Theater shows up four times, and Writers Theatre in Glencoe, Lookingglass.... Read More
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Stage Directing: William Brown goes for the contact of conversation
 At heart, director William Brown is a minimalist, or perhaps more accurately, chamber musician. The Chicago theater veteran, who early in life saw his future as an opera singer, loves those intimate scenes for two or three actors getting deeply into the characters' lives -- what he calls parsing a text.
"I've been an actor all my life, and nothing thrills me more than.... Read More
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Saving Face: Alien Visages In A Klingon Christmas Carol
 If you don't know what a Klingon is, any Star Trek enthusiast will be happy to acquaint you with this tribe of warriors recognizable by their distinctively scarred foreheads—a hereditary deformity tracing its source to a plague centuries earlier. As with such fantasy-epics as The Lord of the Rings or the Harry Potter series, the culture of the fictional worlds in which Klingons dwell has been analyzed.... Read More
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Bathing Beauties: Splashing and Shivering in Bulrusher
 In the Chicago Theater roster of aquatic spectacle, Mary Zimmerman's Metamorphoses first comes to mind. Then, there was Pegasus Players' production of The Frogs in the Truman College swimming pool or The Neo-Futurists' Fake Lake in the Welles Park natatorium. Storefront-circuit regulars might even recall Michael Shannon, Amy Landecker and Guy Van Swearingen wrestling in a spa-sized hip-bath for Red Orchid's Victims of Duty.
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Theatre In Chicago's 2012 Holiday Show Round-Up
 By now it's no secret that, every holiday season, the Goodman Theatre puts on a classic production of A Christmas Carol, that the House Theatre puts on a hip production of The Nutcracker, or that several theatres put on competing productions of It's A Wonderful Life. I have written about each of those in the past, and they all continue to be well-crafted, popular, and.... Read More
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Black Ensemble Announces 2013 Season of Treasures and Tributes
 Jackie Taylor, Founder and Executive Director of the Black Ensemble Theater, announces the Black Ensemble Theater's 36th Season of Excellence titled "Treasures and Tributes." The 36th season includes original musicals paying tribute to the Doo Wop era, Curtis Mayfield, Howlin Wolf, and Chicago's Golden Soul.
"After our record breaking first year in our new home with more than $2.5 million in.... Read More
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Fifty Shades musical parody SPANK! opens at Royal George Theatre
 SPANK! The Fifty Shades Parody, the hilarious and naughty new musical parody of Fifty Shades of Grey, will dominate willing audiences at the Royal George Theatre Main Stage, 1641 N. Halsted, in a limited three-week engagement starting Wednesday evening, November 28. The production, which premiered in Springfield, MA earlier this month, is co-produced by the Just for Laughs Group and Mills Entertainment.
.... Read More
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Jeff Awards Announces 2012 Equity Awards Recipients
At the gala 44th Annual Equity Jeff Awards held at Drury Lane Oakbrook on Monday, October 15, Goodman Theatre's "The Iceman Cometh" took top honors for a play in the large theatre tier with a total of six awards, including Production-Play, Director Robert Falls, Supporting Actor Brian Dennehy, Scenic Designer Kevin Depinet and Lighting Designer Natasha Katz. The all-star cast of Eugene O'Neill's "Iceman," a colossal production.... Read More |
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Minnie's Private Wrangler: Live Mice On Stage in The Woman In White
 In Wilkie Collins' early Victorian thriller, The Woman In White, the villainous Count Fosco is fond of small animals—even to traveling accompanied by a collection of caged birds and mice. Robert Kauzlaric's adaptation for Lifeline Theatre dispenses with the portable aviary, but retains the rodent contingent with a cameo appearance by a genuine live mouse.
"Fosco's affection for his pets—in several chapters of the novel, he is,.... Read More
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Watch Your Tail: Creatures From The Blue Lagoon in Seascape
 You almost expect to hear squeals of "Look! Dinosaurs!" the moment they appear. Indeed, so fascinating are the pair of reptiles who constitute half the onstage personnel in Remy Bumppo's production of Seascape that at one performance, an ostensibly adult theatergoer, finding herself in close proximity to one of the scaly beasts, couldn't resist trying to pull on its tail. These saurian personages are not cuddly.... Read More
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What's For Supper? Edible Props in Steep Theatre's Moment
 Moment opens on the Lynch family preparing a dinner to celebrate the homecoming of the clan's prodigal son. Frozen microwavable quiches have been purchased, celery and carrots are chopped on the counter, a carton of eggs is dropped on the floor. One sibling munches a sandwich, visitors sip chilled beer and the hostesses maintain their serenity with freshly-brewed tea.
This constitutes a week's groceries for most households..... Read More
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Turning On The Waterworks: Rain Effects in Fall of The House of Usher
 Edgar Allen Poe's tale of the doomed twin siblings in The Fall of the House of Usher is a classic in American literature. In the original telling, the fate of the doomed mansion is to sink into the marshy New England soil. In the film version, it's destroyed by fire. Sean Graney's adaptation, however, has the family home swept away in the flooding generated by two.... Read More
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Straight Up, No Chaser: Directors In the Spotlight for ETA's 2012-2013 Season
 The ETA Creative Arts Foundation was conceived as a self-contained organization, developing original scripts through its education and training programs, and then performing them under the supervision of artists affiliated with its teaching staff. The slate for their upcoming 2012-13 season, however, reads like a history of African-American Theater, with plays ranging from 1954 to 2007, each selected by the production's director.
Explains ETA Producing Director Kemati Porter,.... Read More
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Jeff Awards 2012 Equity Nominations Announced
The Jeff Awards Committee today announced 197 nominations in 34 categories for Chicago Equity theatrical productions, which opened between August 1, 2011, and July 31, 2012. The Jeff Awards judges attended opening nights of 118 Equity productions offered by 55 producing organizations. From these openings, 96 productions were "Jeff Recommended," which made them eligible for award nominations.
The 44th Annual Jeff Awards ceremony.... Read More |
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When The Ground Hits Back: Rubber Floors in The Monument
 At first, it appears to be simply a painted floor, part of the decor in the Side Project's storefront black-box auditorium, but playgoers entering Idle Muse Theatre's production of The Monument may suddenly find themselves walking on a springy surface, not unlike that of a mattress. Closer inspection reveals it to be a thick layer of shredded tires, called "rubber mulch" and more commonly used in.... Read More
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The Bare Facts: No-Clothes Acting at the Naked July Festival
 Onstage nudity—the artistic variety, not the Gentlemen's Club kind—is nothing new. Experimental theatre groups in New York's Greenwich Village like the Living Theatre took it all off back in the 1950s, as did the casts of Hair and Oh, Calcutta in the 1960s. Steppenwolf actor Jim True skinny-dipped in full view of playgoers for the 1989 premiere of The Grapes of Wrath, and just recently, in Timon.... Read More
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Here's What In Your Eye: Slinging Mud in Mary-Arrchie Theatre's Electra
 Even to urban dwellers many generations removed from the soil, mud is a profoundly disturbing image—representing, as it does, both the source of all life on our planet and the ultimate fate lying at the end of its existence. So when Sonya Moser, in adapting Euripedes' tragedy of Electra for modern audiences, searched for a Central Visual Metaphor to invoke her heroine's obsessive desire for revenge.... Read More
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Stage Directing: Nick Bowling changed his tune about theater
 Nick Bowling doesn't beat around the bush about directing: "I'm all about finding the conflict in a play, that's what I'm all about. It's conflict that generates dramatic energy and drives a play toward its climax."
You're thinking this is one serious theater guy, and he is. But what Bowling's terse self-analysis doesn't reveal is the heart of a director who thinks of himself first and foremost as.... Read More
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Priscilla Queen Of The Desert and Catch Me If You Can coming to Chicago
 Broadway In Chicago announced two Chicago premieres in their 2013 Spring season: Tony Award-winning Priscilla Queen Of The Desert and Catch Me If You Can. Priscilla Queen Of The Desert will play the Auditorium Theatre of Roosevelt University (50 East Congress Parkway) for two weeks only, March 19 - 31, 2013. Catch Me If You Can will play the Cadillac Palace Theatre (151 West.... Read More
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Hangin' The The Baze! with Eric and Andy!
 If you know anything about Eric and Andy, then you know that we love The Vampire Diaries on television! Through a generous donation from the Make-A-Wish Foundation, we were recently invited to tour the set and meet some of these L.A. stars! Well, while we were there, who did we run into? None other than the host of Chicago's "The Interview Show", and former popular Red Eye.... Read More
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Hell On Wheels: Rolling with The Jammer
 We think of America in the 1950s as a sedentary age, when the upheaval of two world wars and the Great Depression gave way to an atmosphere of placid security. This impression, it must be noted, is chiefly based in commercial images spawned by the boom economy and promoted by an advertising industry coming into its own as the powerful social influence it is today.
.... Read More
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Filament Finds Its Rhythm Traveling Hank Williams' Lost Highway
 A little over a stone's throw down Lincoln Avenue from where the Apollo Theatre's evergreen production of Million Dollar Quartet is running, another musical will begin playing for Chicago audiences who can't get enough of that show's mix of familiar vintage songs and music star biographies. That's when the Filament Theatre Ensemble's production of Hank Williams: Lost Highway opens at the Athenaeum Theatre.
Co-directed by Filament Artistic.... Read More
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Highlights from Eric & Andy Live at the Jeff Awards
 Eric and Andy were LIVE From the 39th Anniversary Non-Equity Jeff Awards Ceremony that took place at the Park West in Chicago on Monday, June 4. If you missed the show don't worry, you can watch the full show below. .... Read More
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2012 Non-Equity Jeff Award Recipients
At the Non-Equity Jeff Awards held at Park West on Monday, June 4, Theo Ubique Cabaret Theatre took most awards with 6 honors for their jewel box production of A Light in the Piazza" including Production-Musical, Director-Musical for Fred Anzevino and Brenda Didier, Principal Actress for Kelli Harrington, Supporting Actor for Justin Adair, Music Director for Jeremy Ramey and, in a new award recognition, Dialect Coach for.... Read More |
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Eric and Andy Live From The Jeff Awards
Eric Roach and Anderson Lawfer, interviewers for TheatreInChicago and curators and founders of the insider Chicago Theatre blog Reviews You Can Iews!, will be holding a "Red Carpet" style event from the Park West Theater at the 39th annual Joseph Jefferson Awards on June 4th, 2012 that will be streamed live and can be seen right here at TheatreInChicago.com.
The production will be handled by Brad Little and.... Read More |
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Seven Years Of What? Breaking Mirrors in Timon of Athens
 In Shakespeare's play, our hero, Timon of Athens, has been abandoned by those he thought were his friends, so what he does is to throw one last party, where he tells them all to go to hell, trashes the table in a clatter of silver plates and cutlery, and finishes his tirade by snatching up a piece of dinnerware from the floor and hurling it with.... Read More
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Harris Banks On Beverly! With Eric and Andy!
 Ricky Harris is new to the scene. He is hard to miss because he is about 6'3" and the laugh of someone twice his size. This bodes well for his career choice as a musician and actor, because once you hear this guy's voice, you will never forget it. We ran into the generally jovial Ricky Harris on the CTA Green Line at 3 AM while we.... Read More
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Stage Directing: Kimberly Senior listens, and success follows
 It was an illness that led Kimberly Senior to the first principle of successful stage directing: Be a good listener. Senior has carved a prominent place on Chicago's theater scene since arriving here straight out of Connecticut College in 1995. But her revelation came just two seasons ago while she was directing Martin McDonagh's "The Pillowman" at Redtwist Theatre.
"At one rehearsal I was very ill — I.... Read More
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Racial Politics With A Beat: Silk Road Rising's Re-Spiced Cabaret
 Musical revues usually strive for easy-on-the-ears melodies, warbled by attractive vocalists, often with an emphasis on romantic ballads—but when your theme's satirical edge centers on the oft-distorted portrayal of ethnic minorities by chauvinistic host countries, the score runs the risk of incensing audiences, even when performed by representatives of the very cultures described therein.
Some selections in Silk Road Rising's Re-Spiced cabaret revue are catchy-rhythm nonsense like.... Read More
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Rise Of The Numberless! Eric and Andy!
 In the world of Chicago Storefront Theater, one name stands alone. The New Colony has been on the forefront for 4 years, dedicating their lives to the the craft of collaboration in creating new aesthetics. Now, they open "Rise of the Numberless," a co-production with the venerable Bailiwick Theater. Billed as an underground rock concert in a future American dystopia, the buzz on.... Read More
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Tough Guys In Love: Steve Pickering Plays It Romantic
 When you're cast as Stanley Kowalski in high school (an all-boy's school yet!), you quickly abandon hopes of someday playing Romeo, or Hamlet—or any role where you get to kiss the girl, for that matter. Steve Pickering has made a career of playing tough guys—Iago in Othello (twice), Kent in King Lear, Harry Brock in Born Yesterday. "When have I ever played a love scene where I.... Read More
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Jeff Awards Non-Equity Nominations Announced
The Jeff Awards announced 124 nominations in 25 categories for Non-Equity Jeff Awards for productions that opened between April 1, 2011, and March 31, 2012. The Non-Equity Awards honor excellence in Chicago theatres not under a union contract. Jeff Awards judges covered opening nights of 154 productions offered by 71 Non-Equity producing organizations. The judges recommended 64 of those shows, making them eligible for Non-Equity Jeff Award.... Read More |
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Connecticut Countryside Inside A Box: Scenic Design In A Moon For The Misbegotten
 Realism in scenic design was a response to the formal wing-and-border stage decor of the 17th and 18th century, replacing artificial symmetry with more natural arrangements. The theaters of the 19th and early 20th century were much more spacious than those today, however—certainly larger than the 23 X 34-foot classroom in the Irish-American Heritage Center that houses the Seanachai Theatre Company's production of Eugene O'Neill's 1947 classic,.... Read More
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Brandon Bruce Boldly Bounces Back! With Eric & Andy!
 New Artistic Directors are a celebrated people in Chicago. They become our leaders of organizations and have a hand in the direction of the Chicago Theatre Scene, the largest subculture in the continental United States. We had a chance to meet with the brand new Artistic Director of Strawdog Theatre, the great Brandon Bruce on a spacecraft made famous in a Disney movie and talk to him.... Read More
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Broadway In Chicago's 2012-2013 Season
 Broadway In Chicago announced the complete 2012-2013 subscription series. The upcoming season will include I Love Lucy Live on Stage, Kinky Boots, Sister Act, Dr. Seuss' How The Grinch Stole Christmas! The Musical, War Horse and Peter Pan. Off-season specials include Stuffed And Unstrung, Rock Of Ages, Rain: A Tribute To The Beatles and Les Miserables. The 2012-2013 Season Series emphasizes Broadway In Chicago's.... Read More
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Mike Beyer Occupies Chicago! With Eric and Andy!
 For almost 20 years, Mike Beyer has been a prolific Chicago playwright. Writing only comedies and working exclusively at The Factory Theatre, Beyer is taking a step forward. His new piece, "Johnny Theatre" (co-written with Kirk Pynchon) is being produced at Chicago's laugh sanctuary Chemically Imbalanced Comedy Theater. The Factory Theatre is also re-producing his 16 year old hit "White Trash Wedding And A Funeral". We met.... Read More
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Stage Directing: Ron OJ Parson comes to work as a team player
 When Ron OJ Parson, resident artist at Court Theatre, looks in the mirror, he sees an athlete forever young in the guise of a middle-aged stage director.
"The discipline you learn in sports definitely carries over into theater," declares Parson, who at fiftysomething still chases down fly balls in the Chicago Theater Softball League.
The Buffalo (NY) native went to the University of Michigan thinking he.... Read More
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Bread and Circuses: Kitchen Magic With Chef Bayless at Lookingglass Theatre
 It's not uncommon for Hollywood to shape movies around non-acting celebrities—swimming stories for Esther Williams, opera stories for Luciano Pavorotti—and in theater, the currently-running Death and Harry Houdini at House Theatre was created to showcase the company's resident illusionist, Dennis Watkins. The hero of Lookingglass Theatre's Rick Bayless In Cascabel, however, is a cook. Not just any cook, either, but superstar foodslinger Rick Bayless, starring as.... Read More
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Gene Weygandt: Not Just Another Thieving Republican! With Eric and Andy!
 Some people are just touched by God. They are amiable, kind, and relentlessly watchable onstage. One of our heroes in Chicago is the great Gene Weygandt. A man who got his start in theatre in Chicago and has moved his way up to performing one of the classic roles of our time, "The Wizard" in Stephen Schwartz's musical "Wicked". Gene met us in a music store outside.... Read More
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Girls Gagging Grossly: Simulated Barf in Bachelorette
 Humor based in male body functions have been a part of popular comedy for centuries—indeed, during the 1990s, the legendary Torso Theatre forged a reputation for plays featuring precisely such anal-infantile imagery—but the fashion nowadays is for women getting in touch with their grosser selves. Not just any women, either—in Yasmina Reza's God of Carnage, it's the chic young wife who takes ill and vomits all over.... Read More
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Flash Dressing: Costume Changes in Enron
 In big custom-built theaters, rip-and-throw costume changes are implemented with the aid of hidden dressers, but the room that houses Timeline Theatre's production of Lucy Prebble's Enron is buried in the depths of a church community hall, its in-the-round configuration mandating that the nine actors who play more than two dozen characters frequently exit, only to dash down stairs, through basements and then upstairs again to.... Read More
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How To Talk To An Extraterrestrial About Theatre
 When they come, we must be ready—and not with glib approximations. Our alien visitors will want to know everything about us. They will want honest answers—especially about theater. It's wrong to fool an inquisitive extraterrestrial. They came this far because they care.
As the not-so-top-secret Rockwell files disclose, past star trekkers have been especially interested in why we act out in front of paying strangers. (Their planets, which.... Read More
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Forever Young with Eric and Andy!
 It's one of those years. Everybody has a lot going on, and it's hard to get excited about the new seasons of our beloved theatre companies. Maybe we are jaded. We decided to take it to the street and meet up at a Quizno's with a couple youngsters who are the bright future of the scene.
Amber Robinson, the young and plucky Artistic.... Read More
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Everything and the Kitchen Sink: Supplying the Clutter in Clutter
 Collectors, stockpilers, scavengers and archivists all have their limits, but there was nothing to stop the wealthy and privileged Collyer brothers from saving everything, and so they did—living in a house with rooms filled floor-to-ceiling with miscellany acquired over fifty-plus years. Mark Saltzman is the most recent of many writers to find in this eccentric compulsion a lesson for our own society, reflected in the play titled,.... Read More
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Talkin' Football! with Eric and Andy
 Signal Ensemble has become a watershed company here in Chicago. Since 2003, they have established themselves as the go-to place for new and exciting works - whether they were beautiful Midwest premieres of published properties or original works like the smash hit "Aftermath", a jukebox Rolling Stones extravaganza with more on its mind than just amazing rock and roll. "Motion", their new play about.... Read More
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Not Your "Shakespeare on the Pier": A Barebones Hamlet Cuts to the Core
 They call it a "passion project." And if pain proves passion, they're pros. Though abandoned by their original producer, the young thespians of (re)discover theatre have begged and borrowed a lot--rugs, shovels, cars, chairs, tables, and more. Each now does the work of three, contributing their salaries from day jobs and rehearsing in a vast, unheated (but free!) rehearsal space, which they transformed into a commune with.... Read More
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Industrial-Strength Wardrobe: Leather and Steel Costumes in Ironmistress
 The widow Darby is heir to a vast ironworks empire, but rather than relinquish her leadership status through remarriage or delegation, she proposes to manage the business herself—no easy task in the mid-19th century, when men ruled the world of commerce. This independence is not to be shared with her daughter— nicknamed "Little Cog" by her late father—who is groomed for a more traditional role in society.
The.... Read More
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Enter, Pursued by a Bear, in Elizabeth Rex
 Timothy Findley's Elizabeth Rex proposes a dialogue between Her Royal Highness, Queen Elizabeth I, and the members of the Lord Chamberlain's Men—William Shakespeare's troupe—on a troubled night when the crown weighs heavily on its wearer. The underlying theme of their discussion, however, is the stress of denying your true nature: The monarch must be unflinching in her rule, even to ordering the execution of her dearest.... Read More
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Play List 2011: Top Shows Of The Year
 TheatreInChicago presents its annual list of the top-rated plays that were produced in the Chicago area in 2011. The list was compiled objectively from critics' reviews, based on the Highly Recommended to Not Recommended scale.
Somewhat unsurprisingly, 2011 was another good year to be a revival of a classic musical in Chicago. Of the twenty-five plays that make up this list, seven of them are productions.... Read More
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Bodily Changes: Playing the Prince in Changes of Heart
 How do actors act? We know that it involves memorizing speeches and moving around a stage, but what exactly do they do to convince us that they are somebody they aren't?
There are two fundamental ways to proceed when creating a persona: you can determine the character's psychological orientation and use it as a gateway to understanding their actions—Hamlet is angry at his mother, for example, and so.... Read More
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Protecting The Force: Star Wars memorabilia in All Childish Things
 If the quarry in Joseph Zettelmaier's heist comedy was money, or gold, or diamonds, it would have been no problem—everybody knows that what they see onstage is just gilt paint and glass beads. Ah, but the treasure tempting a quartet of Star Wars fans to the Dark Side in All Childish Things is a warehouse filled with rare memorabilia commemorating George Lucas' legendary six-part film series—ephemera.... Read More
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Bombs and Body Parts: Gruesome Gadgets for A Behanding In Spokane
 Does Martin McDonagh sit up nights, thinking up extravagant scenic stunts to make the theater technicians who must stage them likewise lose sleep? Scalding fry-pan torture for The Beauty Queen of Leenane. Desiccated human bones smashed with sledge-hammers for A Skull In Connemara. A kitchen stove shotgunned to smithereens for The Lonesome West. Feline corpses and blood-spray shootings for The Lieutenant of Inishmore. And now, for the.... Read More
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Theatre In Chicago's 2011 Holiday Show Round-Up
 Chicago is a pretty good place to be for the holidays. We have Christkindlmarket, a wondrously Teutonic market/fairground in Daley Plaza selling all manner of Christmas tree ornaments and ridiculously detailed hand-carved Bavarian wooden clocks. We have Michigan Avenue, lit up and festive and able to provide enough egregious shop-till-you-dropness for even the most insatiable suburbanite or out-of-towner. And we have the Bears, who are doing pretty.... Read More
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Jeff Awards Announces 2011 Equity Awards Recipients
At the gala 43rd Annual Equity Jeff Awards held at Drury Lane Oakbrook on Monday, November 7, "The Madness of George III," from Chicago Shakespeare Theater, took top honors for a play in the Large Theatre tier with a total of 5 awards, including Production - Play, Director Penny Metropulos and Principal Actor Harry Groener. In musical categories for large theatres, the Goodman Theatre and Shakespeare Theatre.... Read More |
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Hold The Liquor: (Fake) Strong Drink in Touch Of The Poet and Old Times
 The champion of dramatic binges, we all know, is Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, where for nearly three hours, liquor is swilled in quantities to test the livers of the dramatis personae, and the bladders of the actors who portray them. Whether hearkening to the Dionysic origins of western theater, or simply providing a handy means of exposing emotions, the propensity of playwrights to incorporate.... Read More
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Sleeping Snug In Tight Spaces: Beds in Becky Shaw (and Other Plays)
 Designers confronted with tiny storefront stages cheat all the time—substituting love-seats for sofas, armchairs for loungers, parson's stools for coffee tables—but a bed cannot be easily stretched or squeezed, especially when the play's significant action calls for the hotel-sized variety—a factor presenting no obstruction to the three theater companies this year replicating an array of transient lodging in spaces barely bigger than walk-in closets.
Jack Magaw's.... Read More
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Painting By The Numbers for The Pitmen Painters
 The Pitmen Painters recounts the fortunes of a group of English coal miners who hire a professor through their Workman's Education Association to teach a night-school course in Art Appreciation. When the teacher assigns his pupils the task of making their own art to serve as material for discussion. None of them anticipate a fashionable collector championing their amateur efforts to make them the toast of.... Read More
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How Do Chicago Actors Survive?
 Being an actor is akin to being a clown in the circus. You need to get into character for every performance, and juggling is a must for survival. In place of dogs and flying objects on a unicycle, an actor balances multiple bill-paying gigs while chasing down rehearsals, auditions and performance. Both jobs—actor and clown—require a healthy amount of risk and sacrifice for its rewards.
From doing corporate.... Read More
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Ernie Nolan Drives Eric and Andy Wild!
 We all love a good surprise, and none of us deserves a happy one more than the great Ernie Nolan. Ernie has been working hard as the Artistic Director of Emerald City Children's Theatre, directing plays such as the popular Pinkalicious for the Broadway In Chicago collaboration, and writing children's plays. Eric and Andy got a chance to take Ernie on a mysterious car ride to the.... Read More
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Sweeney Todd: The Bloodless Barber of Fleet Street
 Sweeney Todd calls its protagonist "The Demon Barber of Fleet Street"—a fitting sobriquet for the crazed Victorian haircutter who murdered the customers in his chair and delivered their corpses to the pastry shop downstairs to be made into pies (the original "mystery meat"). So what you need to stage this Stephen Sondheim-Hugh Wheeler pop-opera is lots of blood—right?
Hold the hemostats, however! Unlike.... Read More
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Chicago gains "Love, Loss And What I Wore" for an extended run
 Famed rom-com writer/director Nora Ephron (When Harry Met Sally..., Sleepless In Seattle, etc.) is bringing her Drama Desk Award-winning, critically acclaimed, smash hit Off-Broadway play Love, Loss, and What I Wore to the Broadway Playhouse at Water Tower Place beginning September 14, 2011 for a run that's already been extended six more weeks, through December 4, 2011.
Love, Loss, and What I Wore is based on the.... Read More
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The Women of the Jeffs talk with Eric and Andy
 As everyone knows, here in Chicago we celebrate excellence in the theatrical arts with the Joseph Jefferson Awards. The nominations were recently released for the Equity Jeff Awards, and we noticed three young artists that have really made the grade after working in the non-Equity storefront scene for years. Golden throated Bethany Thomas was nominated for Best Actress in a Supporting Role - Musical for her.... Read More
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Jeff Awards Announces 2011 Equity Nominations
The Jeff Awards announced 185 nominations in 35 categories for Chicago Equity theatrical productions which opened between August 1, 2010, and July 31, 2011. The Jeff Awards sent judges to the opening nights of 130 Equity productions offered by 51 producing organizations. From these openings, 100 productions were "Jeff Recommended," which made them eligible for award nominations.
The 43rd Annual Jeff Awards ceremony honoring.... Read More |
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Drury Lane Theatre Announces 2012-2013 Season
 Drury Lane Theatre, known for producing acclaimed, innovative and classic musicals and comedies, announced its 2012-2013 season featuring five glorious films brought to new life on stage. The Tony Award-winning phenomenon Hairspray previews April 12, opens April 19 and runs through June 17; the riveting thriller The 39 Steps previews July 5, opens July 12 and runs through August 26; the effervescent Broadway classic Promises,.... Read More
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Team Colors: Outfitting Sports Fans in Black and Blue
 The play's title, Black and Blue, refers to the uniforms worn by Chicago's two baseball teams—black and white for the Sox, Blue and Red for the Cubs—in this world premiere play by Nick Digilio and Anthony Tournis. They are the flags under which brothers Jake and Tommy pledge their respective allegiances. Despite their widower father's attempts to address the needs of his sons, friendly dissent becomes.... Read More
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The World According To Quinn
 Former Saturday Night Live star and Comedy Central regular Colin Quinn is bringing his one-man comedy show Colin Quinn: Long Story Short to Water Tower Place's Broadway Playhouse for a three-week engagement beginning August 24th. Directed by Jerry Seinfeld, Long Story Short was extended twice on Broadway and was nominated for a Drama Desk Award. It ran as an HBO special in April 2011, and Quinn.... Read More
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Jersey Boys Return to Chicago
 Dates have been announced for Chicago's return engagement of the Tony, Grammy and Olivier Award-winning hit musical JERSEY BOYS, the story of Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons. The musical will make its much-anticipated return to Chicago to play the Bank of America Theatre (18 W. Monroe) nine weeks only; April 5 through June 2, 2012.
JERSEY BOYS is the winner of the 2006 Best Musical.... Read More
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How We Differ: Why Chicago Actors Stand Out
 Sweeping Generalizations Alert: This article contains extravagant speculation about the differences between Chicago actors/theaters and their counterparts in Los Angeles and New York City. Sensitive, literal-minded and humorless souls with a preference for nitpicking nuance, factual relativism and reality checks may experience toxic side effects to the broader truths in this playful piece. Consider yourself warned.
So on to this hubristic feast of xenophobia, special pleading and Chicago.... Read More
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Salomé's Reward: Creating A Severed Head
 When death was more public and playhouses bigger, plays frequently featured sensational spectacle difficult to reproduce in modern theaters, where the level of realism achieved in cinema has raised the bar on audience expectations. The biggest obstacle to performing Oscar Wilde's Salomé in 2011 is not its Biblical origins, its lyrical language, or even its leading lady's erotic dance, but the graphic decapitation of Iokanaan (the.... Read More
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Jersey Boys Return to Chicago
Dates have been announced for Chicago's return engagement of the Tony, Grammy and Olivier Award-winning hit musical JERSEY BOYS, the story of Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons. The musical will make its much-anticipated return to Chicago to play the Bank of America Theatre (18 W. Monroe) nine weeks only; April 5 through June 2, 2012.
JERSEY BOYS is the winner of the 2006 Best Musical.... Read More |
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Even Walls Have Ears: Eavesdropping on Redtwist's Bug
 Audiences attending Redtwist Theatre's revival of Bug—the first in Chicago since its premiere at Red Orchid in 2001—step off Bryn Mawr Avenue into the storefront playhouse's lobby, then into a hall flanked on one side by an Edward Keinholz-styled facade depicting a motor court in the American Southwest. We proceed through a numbered door to find ourselves in a motel room.
You heard that right. A motel.... Read More
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The Return Of Sherlock Holmes: Actors Repeating Roles
 Acting the same character in the same play is one thing, but tailoring a persona to the demands of different authors, directors and artistic concepts over a series of productions is quite another. A quartet of Chicago actors whose resumés list multiple portrayals of heroes drawn from classic genre fiction weigh in on the joys—and headaches—of wearing the same personality over several seasons.
The record-holder for.... Read More
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Beauty And The Beast To Be Chicago's Guest For 6-Week Return Engagement
 Who could ever love a beast? Apparently many people. A little more than a year after Disney's stage musical version of Beauty and the Beast played to sold-out Chicago crowds, the show is back for a six-week return engagement at the Ford Oriental Theatre June 29 through August 7, 2011, produced by NETworks Presentations.
Closely based on Disney's hit film of the.... Read More
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Recipients of 38th Annual Jeff Non-Equity Awards
At its 38th annual celebration of Chicago's non-union theatre scene, the Jeff Awards honored 27 award recipients for excellence Monday evening at the Park West. The event, emceed by Circle Theatre's Kevin Bellie for the second consecutive year, featured production numbers by the nominated musicals and presentation of awards, two of which were delivered by robots. The robots, created for Sideshow Theatre Company's "Heddatron," earned their creators.... Read More |
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Highlights from Eric & Andy Live at the Jeff Awards
 Eric and Andy were LIVE From the 38th Anniversary Non-Equity Jeff Awards Ceremony that took place at the Park West in Chicago on Monday, June 6. Take a look at the below highlight reel of the festivities and some of the people that they interviewed prior to the ceremony. .... Read More
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Nora Dunn Good with Eric and Andy!
Nora Dunn first entered our collective consciousness as the brash Pat Stevens during the second golden age of Saturday Night Live. You have watched and loved her in the film "Three Kings" and the hilarious television show "It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia". Now.... Read More |
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Live From The Jeff Awards
Eric Roach and Anderson Lawfer, curators and founders of the insider Chicago Theatre blog Reviews You Can Iews! and writers for TheatreInChicago, will be hosting a "Red Carpet" style event from the Park West Theater at the 38th annual Joseph Jefferson Awards on June 6th, 2011 that will be streamed live and can be seen right here at TheatreInChicago.com.
The production will be handled by Brad Little and.... Read More |
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Flipping Wigs at Navy Pier with George III
 In Alan Bennett's big-cast historical drama, The Madness of George III, the stage picture often resembles (to our yankee eyes, anyway) portraits of our nation's Founding Fathers—aka "old men in white wigs". The primary reason for this déjà vu is the play's setting in late 18th century England, when fashionable members of the royal court habitually sported abundant tresses, real or false, crimped into various shapes.... Read More
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Eric and Andy Interview the Great Heather Gilbert!
 If you need some lighting design in this town, there are only a few places to look. One of the leading artists in this field is the beautiful and luxurious Heather Gilbert. We had a chance to talk to her about lighting, prom, and listen to some great war stories from the past! She joined us on the site of our prom, themed "The Great Ball of.... Read More
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Filament's Marketplace: A Personal Approach To Selling Tickets
 The purchase of a ticket to a live theatrical production (or any entertainment event, for that matter) is a largely anonymous ritual: you go online, select a ticket that you want at a price arbitrarily set by a producer you never see, present that ticket at the box office, and hope that you haven't wasted your money. It's a system that works, to be sure, or people.... Read More
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A Hare-aclitean Saga: Acting Like Rabbits In Watership Down
 Richard Adams' Watership Down is an epic saga of a community driven from their land and forced to explore unknown territories in search of a new home. After a journey fraught with danger and uncertainty as they encounter a diversity of strangers, some friendly and some hostile, our pilgrims discover their opportunity to make a fresh start, but must then face the challenge of finding mates.... Read More
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Jeff Awards Announces 2011 Non-Equity Nominations
The Jeff Awards announced 106 nominations in 23 categories for Non-Equity Jeff Awards, which honor excellence in Chicago theatres not under a union contract, for productions that opened between April 1, 2010, and March 31, 2011. The Jeff Awards judged the opening nights of 146 productions offered by 62 non-Equity producing organizations and recommended 62 shows for further judging, making them eligible for Non-Equity Jeff.... Read More |
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A New Play Redefines Chicago: The City as a Family Living By A Lake
 A huge hit when it opened at Theater Wit as a vibrnat world premiere by Caitlin Montayne Parrish, "A Twist of Water" has made a major move. This just triumph reopens at Lakeview's Mercury Theater on May 1 to deliver even more shocks of recognition to appreciative audiences. The biggest one is that cities and families are just a matter of degree.
The success.... Read More
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Eric and Andy's Sexy Interview with Elizabeth. AW MAN!
 When your theatre company gets serious about growing and being the best, you look for the best Managing Director you can find. One woman has proved herself TWICE (Victory Gardens and TimeLine) to be the best and her name is Elizabeth Auman. We invited her to our new home and pill factory in the basement of an old burned down elementary school on the South Side.
Hi Liz.... Read More
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Trashing the Stage in Edward Albee's Goat
 There are basically two kinds of scenic disorder: the jumble representing accumulated clutter, usually applied by crew members during intermission (as employed in True West, for example), and the chaos created right before our eyes when characters give way to grief, anger or frustration with an old-fashioned temper tantrum.
Pandemonium can be generated cheaply by knocking over furniture, pulling books off shelves, throwing pillows or scattering papers. In.... Read More
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Profiles Theatre announces 2011-12 season
 Artistic Directors Joe Jahraus and Darrell W. Cox announce Profiles Theatre's 2011 - 2012 Season. Profiles, one of Chicago's longest-running storefront theatres, presents its 23rd season of new and challenging works, including the Midwest premiere of the Broadway hit A Behanding in Spokane by Martin McDonagh, directed by Steppenwolf ensemble member Rick Snyder; the Midwest premiere of Neil LaBute's controversial 2010 play The Break of Noon.... Read More
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Losing Your Humanity: Monkeys, Dogs and Robots in Ephemera
 There is an irony to actors' favorite roles being non-human ones. But who wouldn't relish playing creatures unshackled by socialized behavior, propelled by ego surpassing even the amorality of babies and cave-dwellers? How better for an artist to display their individual creativity?
Bryce Wissel's Ephemera, currently in production by the Polarity Ensemble, recounts the adventures aboard a space station, the inhabitants of which bond in.... Read More
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Theater on the Lake Announces 2011 Season
 The Chicago Park District's 59th annual Theater on the Lake season features reprisals of eight artistically diverse Chicago theater companies June 15 - Aug. 7, 2011. The season opens with The Improvised Shakespeare Company (June 15-19) and continues with popular productions by Infamous Commonwealth Theatre (June 22-26); At Play Productions in association with Chicago Dramatists (June 29-July 3); Griffin Theatre Company (July 6-10); Eclipse Theatre.... Read More
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I don't think you're ready for this Ele! with Eric and Andy
 This interview was one of our best. We were SUPPOSED to meet Ele Matelan, House Theatre Ensemble Member and member of the Jeff A/T Committee, in the Heart O' Chicago Hotel for a nice talk and maybe some sodas, but Eric had to try some Angel Dust our neighbor was throwing out. At least we THOUGHT he was throwing it out! After a brief scuffle, Eric was.... Read More
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Literate Lovers: All Those Books in Sex With Strangers
 Bibliophiles whose homes are filled with reading matter are accustomed to visitors asking, "Have you read all these books?"-as opposed to lining the rooms with them as a cheap source of building insulation, presumably. But the question inevitably raised when a stage setting incorporates floor-to-ceiling shelves of weighty tomes is "Are those books all real?"
Sex With Strangers, currently playing at Steppenwolf Theatre,.... Read More
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Talkin' Relationships! with Eric and Andy
 Sometimes, being an actor is hard on a relationship. You usually have a day job, and then add 40 hours a week of another job on top of it, and it can make things stressful for your love life, because you spend so much time apart. Eric and Andy decided to investigate how hard it is when BOTH partners are well-known actors in Chicago and ask how.... Read More
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Lookingglass Theatre Announces 2011-2012 Season
 Lookingglass Theatre Company has announced its 2011-2012 season, featuring three productions about three moments in American history-The Great Fire that razed Chicago, Jackie Robinson's game-changing signing with the Brooklyn Dodgers, and the 1915 Chicago tragedy of the sinking of The Eastland. This upcoming season, Lookingglass will tell the stories of those who, whether famous or forgotten, were caught in the crucible of the moment..... Read More
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La Cage Aux Folles comes to Chicago
 Broadway In Chicago has announced that three-time Tony Award - winner including the award for Best Musical Revival, La Cage Aux Folles, is coming to the Bank of America Theatre (18 W. Monroe) Dec. 20, 2011 - Jan. 1, 2012. This hilarious new production of La Cage Aux Folles was the biggest hit of the 2010 Broadway season, leaving audiences in stitches night after night!
La Cage.... Read More
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Spring 2011 Children's Theatre Round-Up
 Bringing young children to see live theatre is often a tricky proposition, for various and obvious reasons. In fact, I was just at a show the other night where I was somehow fortunate enough to sit directly in front of a family who decided to bring their (literally) infant child along with them. And no, he/she was not considerate enough to sleep through it all.
With that in.... Read More
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Don't Be A Lou, Sir! - Eric and Andy Interview
 Heroes move fast. We know this to be true, and one hero that moves the fastest is longtime Chicago storefront director Louis Contey. Winner of every Jeff Award over the last 15 years, this titan has brought his A-Game since day one. He now brings his prodigious talents to Strawdog Theatre's production of The Master and Margarita. We caught up with him at the Gas for.... Read More
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Hippies Hit Chicago with Hair
 If you have ever wanted to experience live hippieness up close and personal, and were either too young or too scared Back In The Day, then you will want to read further. Because for two weeks only starting March 8, the national touring production of Hair will be coming to the Ford Center for the Performing Arts Oriental Theatre. You won't want to miss this; the.... Read More
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A Brett Neveu From the Bridge with Eric and Andy
 Brett Neveu, important American playwright and father agreed to an interview with us. Neveu has 3 plays onstage in Chicago right now, so naturally we needed the big scoop. There was only one problem! He is in L.A. and we are here in Chicago! So we decided to split the difference and meet somewhere in the middle; a miniature golf course in Moline, Illinois.
.... Read More
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Theater Symposium set for Chicago
 How has Chicago theatre developed from a grassroots movement to a global phenomenon over the past 50 years? What is the current state of "the beating heart of American theatre," as British critic Michael Billington recently described Chicago? And what is the future of theatre in Chicago - in America and around the world - in a time of rapidly escalating technological innovation and globalization?
These are the.... Read More
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Perhaps you will Emjoy this interview with Eric and Andy!
 Working is a vital new musical based on the book by Pulitzer Prize-winning author and Chicago's own Studs Terkel. Adapted by Stephen Schwartz (Wicked, Pippin and Godspell) from the original adaptation by Stephen Schwartz and Nina Faso, Working is the working man's A Chorus Line. We caught up with hot, up-and-coming star of the Chicago Theatre Scene, Emjoy Gavino, in a burned down bodega on.... Read More
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Viva La "Les Miserables"
 Les Miserables, perhaps France's third best-loved export after champagne and Brigitte Bardot (or fourth, after champagne, Bardot, and the two paired together), is coming to Chicago's Cadillac Palace Theatre for four weeks only starting February 2 in a new 25th Anniversary touring production that the London press has been calling "a five-star hit" (London Times), "overwhelmingly moving" (Daily Telegraph), and "...the story in a stimulating.... Read More
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A Berry Special Interview with Eric and Andy
 Jonathan Berry has been one of Chicago storefront's leading directors for the last few years. After graduating from Northwestern University, he got his start at Mary Arrchie Theatre Company directing Nicky Silver's The Altruists. He has also worked with Steep Theatre and Remy Bumppo, each time receiving more praise than the last. He met with us at a T.G.I. Friday's in Elmhurst to discuss his career, his.... Read More
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The Merchant of Venice coming to Bank of America Theatre
 William Shakespeare's tragicomedy The Merchant of Venice from the acclaimed Theatre for a New Audience comes to Chicago for a limited two-week engagement at the Bank of America Theatre from March 15 - 27.
Starring Oscar winner F. Murray Abraham ("Amadeus," 1984) in his riveting portrayal of Shylock, and directed by Darko Tresnjak (former Artistic Director, Old Globe), the play has been.... Read More
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White Noise comes to Chicago
 White Noise, the new rock musical directed and choreographed by Broadway's Sergio Trujillo will play an 8-week limited engagement with previews beginning on April 1, 2011 and opening April 9, 2011. Featuring a cast of nineteen, the production will run at The Royal George Theatre, 1641 North Halsted Street. Tickets will be on sale in early February.
White Noise is a.... Read More
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John Leguizamo Warms Up in Chicago at Royal George Theatre
 John Leguizamo returns to Chicago next year for a limited two-week engagement with John Leguizamo Warms Up. Presented by WestBeth Entertainment, the pre-Broadway engagement will be performed at the Royal George Theatre, 1641 North Halsted Street, February 1 - 12, 2011.
Conceived and performed by Emmy and Obie Award winner John Leguizamo and directed by Academy Award winner Fisher Stevens, John Leguizamo.... Read More
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Play List 2010: Top Shows Of The Year
 TheatreInChicago presents its annual list of the top-rated plays that were produced in the Chicago area for 2010. The list was compiled objectively from critics' reviews, based on the Highly Recommended to Not Recommended scale. A few things to note...
There are 25 shows on the list, produced by 19 different theatre companies. There were four repeats: Marriott Theatre in Lincolnshire shows up three times, as does Steppenwolf..... Read More
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Profiles Theatre continues 22nd Season with reasons to be pretty
Profiles Theatre continues its 2010-2011 Season with reasons to be pretty by Neil LaBute, directed by Steppenwolf ensemble member Rick Snyder. Previews are January 21-26, 2011 and the production runs through March 13, 2011 at Profiles Theatre, 4147 N. Broadway in Chicago.
In reasons to be pretty, Greg's tight-knit social circle is thrown into turmoil when his offhand remarks about a female coworker's pretty.... Read More |
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Give Your Family Some Drama This Season
 It's cold, it's snowy, it's Christmas time, which means it's time to buy things. Now more than ever. And if you're stuck on a gift idea for that person on your list who has everything but culture, then might we suggest the gift of Theatre? Fortunately, you live in Chicago, where, from ridiculously enormous Broadway extravaganzas to actors-tripping-over-your-feet storefront drama, there is no shortage of options.
Broadway In.... Read More
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Something "Popular" This Way Comes...Again: Wicked Returns
 That screeching sound you hear from off in the distance could be flying monkeys, or it could be the unrestrained vocal delight of gaggles of young girls that one of their favorite musicals of the past decade is dropping its house on Chicago again. Yes Aunty Em, Wicked is back.
For eight weeks only, from December 1 through January 23, the latest national.... Read More
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High-Tech Production of Peter Pan Coming to Chicago
 Broadway In Chicago and threesixty° entertainment have announced the spectacular new threesixty° stage production of Peter Pan, J M Barrie's classic story performed in a state-of-the-art theater tent for a limited eight-week engagement beginning Friday, April 29, 2011. Conceived by an award-winning creative team and featuring 23 actors, stunning puppets, epic music, dazzling flying sequences and the world's first 360-degree CGI theater set, Peter Pan is.... Read More
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Glad Tidings of Great Theatre: The Annual List of Holiday Shows
 To your list of things to be thankful for this holiday season, you may add the following: Theatre In Chicago's annual Holiday Shows Round-up! To help place you in the correct festive spirit, Theatre In Chicago has again made a full list (and yes, checked it twice) of all of the holiday-themed live theatrical offerings playing over the next several weeks in the Chicago area. .... Read More
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The Hypocrites - Young in Spirit
 In 1997 Sean Graney, founder and Artistic Director of The Hypocrites, looked around Chicago and saw a theatrical scene dominated by naturalistic acting ensembles, and resolved to shake things up. In Graney's words, "I thought there were a lot of great theater companies in Chicago in the mid 90's and they were all embracing a specific style and sticking to it. I thought it would be.... Read More
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Joffrey Ballet's The Nutcracker returns for Holiday Season
 The Joffrey Ballet's 2010-2011 season, entitled Stars, continues with the 23rd anniversary of Chicago's most popular family holiday event, Robert Joffrey's The Nutcracker, once again transforming the Auditorium Theatre into a winter wonderland complete with magical toys, dancing snowflakes and exotic sweets. The Joffrey Ballet presents America's #1 Nutcracker at the Auditorium Theatre of Roosevelt University, 50 East Congress Parkway, Chicago, December 10 - 26,.... Read More
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Recipients of 42nd Annual Jeff Equity Awards
 At the 42nd Annual Jeff Equity Awards, "The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity," produced by Victory Gardens Theater in association with Teatro Vista...Theatre With a View, took top honors for a play with a total of 5 awards. An exciting world premiere by Kristoffer Diaz, the production uses professional wrestling to focus on the manipulation of American prejudices. After opening in Chicago, the play was a finalist.... Read More
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Profiles Theatre continues season with World Premiere of Kid Sister
Profiles Theatre continues its 2010-2011 Season with the World Premiere of Kid Sister by Will Kern, directed by Artistic Director Joe Jahraus. The production will run November 2 - December 19, 2010, at Profiles Theatre, 4147 N. Broadway.
Demi Williams, a sexy 19-year-old single mom and American Idol wannabe, believes only one thing stands between herself and singing superstardom-her stalker, ex-boyfriend, Kendall Fritch. To.... Read More |
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Bruised Orange Theater Company: Hypertension
 In Budapest in 2003, Clint Sheffer, then a guest artist at the Studio K Theatre, began hatching a plan for a new theater company back home in Chicago. The idea was to mix the progressive and esoteric theatrical ideas he was encountering in Europe with a more traditional American theater. What he found upon returning home however, was a surprise.
"I came to Chicago and found out,.... Read More
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The Paper Machete Keeps the News Alive
 The Paper Machete, which describes itself defiantly as a weekly "live magazine", is a theater company like the Huffington Post is a newspaper. On the one hand it's formally divergent and intrinsically modern, but on the other hand entirely familiar. "There's something really obvious about it," says founder and host Christopher Piatt. "I don't feel like I thought of it."
Indeed,.... Read More
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Marriott Theatre Announces 2011 season
The Marriott Theatre, Chicago's longest running musical theatre announces its 2011 season. The critically acclaimed theatre will present the high stakes musical comedy Guys And Dolls, previewing January 26, opening February 2, running through March 27; the song and tap extravaganza 42nd Street, previewing March 30, opening April 6, running through May 29; a new twist on the 60s hit parade Shout! previews June 15,.... Read More |
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The Side Project Gets A New Band Together
Not too long ago, Adam Webster, the founder and Artistic Director of The Side Project Theatre in Roger's Park, realized that despite the ironic name of his theater company, it had taken over his entire life. After nearly nine years of producing, directing, stage managing, prop gathering, and the million other tasks that come along with running a theater company, it was clear.... Read More |
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Bailiwick Chicago Announces 2010/11 Season
Bailiwick Chicago Executive Director Kevin Mayes has announced details of the theater company's 2010/11 Season. Planned productions include: Departure Lounge, a new musical by Dougal Irvine; Violet, music by Jeanine Tesori, book and lyrics by Brian Crawley; Passing Strange, book and lyrics by Stew, music by Stew and Heidi Rodewald, created in collaboration with.... Read More |
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Jeff Equity Award Nominees Announced
The Jeff Awards announced 162 nominations in 31 categories for Chicago Equity theatrical productions which opened between August 1, 2009, and July 31, 2010. The 42nd Annual Jeff Awards ceremony honoring excellence in professional theatre produced within the immediate Chicago area will be held on Monday, October 25, at Drury Lane Oakbrook, 100 Drury Lane, Oakbrook Terrace..... Read More |
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Broadway in Chicago Announces 2011 Spring Season
Broadway In Chicago is proud to announce the complete 2011 Broadway In Chicago Spring Season Series. This season will include Les Miserables, Working, Hair, The Merchant Of Venice, Wishful Drinking and Next To Normal. Off-Season Specials include Rain: A Tribute To The Beatles, Spring Awakening and Disney's Beauty And The Beast..
For a complete list of All Broadway In Chicago Shows Click Here
The 2011.... Read More |
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The Inconvenience at Home
In a sprawling loft on the north side of Chicago, a gaggle of young artists is sitting on a powder keg. For two years now, and for two months longer (their lease ends in November), these eleven actors, authors, dancers, directors, and artists have lived and worked here, inviting ever swelling audiences to their platformed living room for gallery shows, short play festivals, young Chicago bands and,.... Read More |
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Profiles Theatre opens its 22nd Season with Jailbait
Profiles Theatre opens its 2010-2011 Season with the Midwest Premiere of the acclaimed new play Jailbait by Deirdre O'Connor, directed by Artistic Director Joe Jahraus. The production runs August 27 - October 17, 2010, at Profiles Theatre, 4147 N. Broadway.
Through the course of one dizzying night at a club, Jailbait follows the parallel stories of two fifteen-year-old.... Read More |
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Stage Left Asks The Questions
In a political climate where pundits look for clues of liberal or conservative agendas in every leaf that falls, the name of Stage Left Theatre makes for pretty easy work. There's only one problem: this storefront company with twenty-eight years of experience in Chicago aims to fight any bias their moniker evokes. Rather, their hope is to offer fierce ambiguity, providing a forum and an inspiration for.... Read More |
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Northlight Theatre presents the new musical Daddy Long Legs
Northlight Theatre Artistic Director BJ Jones and Executive Director Timothy J. Evans are set for the new musical Daddy Long Legs, directed by John Caird, the Tony and Olivier Award-winning director of Les Miserables, with music and lyrics by Paul Gordon, composer of Jane Eyre. The world-premiere production features Megan McGinnis and Robert Adelman Hancock, with musical direction by Laura.... Read More |
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Drury Lane Oakbrook Announces 2011 Season
Drury Lane Theatre in Oakbrook Terrace, known for producing acclaimed, innovative and classic musicals and comedies, announces its exciting 2011 season featuring five highly anticipated productions. Aida, the Tony Award-winning Elton John and Tim Rice musical is directed by Jim Corti and previews March 17, opens March 23 and runs through May 29; Neil Simon's poignant comedy Broadway Bound is directed by David New and.... Read More |
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The Chicago Fringe Festival
The Chicago Fringe Festival has announced the complete lineup for its inaugural performing arts festival, slated for September 1st through the 5th in the Pilsen neighborhood. In the spirit of fringe festivals worldwide, 46 productions were selected by lottery from a total of 156 applicants. The final schedule will be released on August 1, 2010.
13 states will be represented at the.... Read More |
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Profiles Theatre Announces 2010-2011 Season
Artistic Directors Joe Jahraus and Darrell W. Cox announce Profiles Theatre's 2010-2011 Season. Profiles, one of Chicago's longest-running storefront theatres, is presenting its 22nd season of new and challenging works, beginning with the Midwest Premiere of the acclaimed new play Jailbait by Deirdre O'Connor.
The Profiles Theatre season also includes the Midwest Premiere of Neil LaBute's Broadway triumph, reasons to be pretty, directed by Steppenwolf.... Read More |
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It's all Greek To Dream Theatre
 Jeremy Menekseoglu seems genuinely surprised, "It's so much more heartbreaking than I thought it was going to be. Ending a trilogy...you really want a satisfying ending." Menekseoglu, as artistic director of Dream Theatre Company, is gearing up for the opening of Orestes, the final chapter of the "Agon Trilogy" a group of plays structured around the Ancient Greek triptych of Aeschylus' Oresteia. This final installment celebrates a.... Read More
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Rock of Ages set for Chicago
 Individual tickets to the Broadway production of Rock Of Ages will go on sale on Friday, July 16, 2010 at 10:00 a.m. The five time Tony Award nominated smash-hit musical Rock Of Ageswill play the Bank of America Theatre for a limited two week engagement September 21 - October 3, 2010. Tony Award Nominee and "American Idol" finalist, Constantine Maroulis, will.... Read More
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Billy Elliot to close in January
 After a successful 10-month run, Billy Elliot will play its final Chicago performance on January 15, 2011. This final block of performances runs from October 26, 2010 through January 15, 2011 and includes popular holiday performances.
Tickets for the final block of Billy Elliot The Musical in Chicago will go on sale Friday, July 16, 2010.
On stage now at the Ford Center for the Performing.... Read More |
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Steppenwolf Announces Garage Rep 2011 Companies
 Steppenwolf Theatre has announced the three Chicago companies selected for its 2nd annual GARAGE REP: Sideshow Theatre Company, The Strange Tree Group and UrbanTheater Company. These innovative, young companies will present three productions in rotating repertory for a ten-week run February 16 - April 24, 2011 in Steppenwolf's Merle Reskin Garage Theatre, 1624 N. Halsted St.
"These are three companies with wildly.... Read More |
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A Red Orchid Theatre Keeps Its Friends Close
Kirsten Fitzgerald, actress, ensemble member and Artistic Director of A Red Orchid Theatre, has a hard time defining what makes her company unique, "We tend to talk about it only in really pedestrian terms - 'intimate', 'edgy,' - the kind of thing everyone says about themselves."
A Red Orchid, however, is not a theatre like any other, and for them, facing their 18 th season "intimate" and.... Read More |
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Voice of America: Saluting American Popular Music During the Wartime Years
In preparation for the upcoming 4th of July weekend, the Skokie Theatre is presenting Voice of America: Saluting American Popular Music During the Wartime Years , a musical and historical journey through the major conflicts of the twentieth century, as both a salute to our military personnel and an exploration of the role popular music has played in our wartime politics. "The idea of the show evolved.... Read More |
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The New Colony Settles In
Not yet done with their second season, The New Colony has made an impressive ripple in the crowded pool of Chicago Theater. Having wrapped 10 productions, including 5 mainstage shows and 5 additional short form shows and festival appearances, The New Colony and artistic director Andrew Hobgood still have at least two more shows to go before starting it all over again.
But despite any exhaustion, or.... Read More |
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"Killer Joe" and "Chess" Garner Outstanding Production Awards
Chicago's nationally-renowned storefront and black box theatre community gathered at the Park West tonight for its annual celebration as the Jeff Awards Non-Equity Wing gave out 28 Awards in 24 categories. In addition, a Special Award for Outstanding Contribution to Chicago Theatre was given to Circle Theatre, celebrating its 25th year. The festive event, attended by over 500, was.... Read More |
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LiveWire Chicago Stays Current
 It was a dark and stormy night. Glenn Proud, today the artistic director of LiveWire Chicago Theatre, looked out the window of his parents' home in the southwest suburbs of Chicago. He heard a crash, "and I could just see a downed power cable and it was just sparking and dancing around. I was so struck by the electricity," Proud remembers. "Energy, current, voltage: that's where.... Read More
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Circle Theatre to Receive Special Award at Jeff Awards Ceremony
 The Jeff Awards has announced that Circle Theatre, celebrating its 25th Anniversary, will receive a Special Award at the 37th Annual Non-Equity Jeff Awards Ceremony on June 7, 2010, honoring its many contributions to Chicago theatre over the years.
In 1985, Karen Skinner, Wayne Buidens and Joseph Bass founded Circle Theatre with the mission of making.... Read More
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About Face Theatre - Looks Fresh
 One of America's most-produced plays of the past decade was a one-man show about an East German transvestite, Doug Wright's I Am My Own Wife. Like dozens of other adventurous plays engaged in ideas of gender and sexuality, I Am My Own Wife received a healthy dose of its early support from a resilient and passionate Chicago company called About Face Theatre.
"It's so interesting," says Artistic.... Read More |
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The Jeff Awards Announces 2010 Non-Equity Nominations
The Jeff Awards today announced 105 nominations in 24 categories for Non-Equity Jeff Awards, which honor excellence in Chicago theatres not under a union contract, for productions that opened between April 1, 2009, and March 31, 2010. The Jeff Awards judged the opening nights of 116 productions offered by 55 non-Equity producing organizations and recommended 51 shows for further judging,.... Read More |
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TheatreInChicago Goes To Washington
TheatreInChicago has already gone Hollywood, and now it's going political! Now, mixed in with your daily dose of all things theatrical, TheatreInChicago will be posting political soapbox rants from all of your favorite on-the-fringe bloggers and journalists! About all of your favorite "isn't-this-a-dead-horse-by-now topics!"
Don't worry, thankfully this is not what TheatreInChicago is doing at all. What TheatreInChicago is, in fact, doing is expanding yet again, this time.... Read More |
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Something's Developing at Chicago Dramatists
Two's company, three's a crowd, and 160 is the number of playwrights in the diverse roster of Chicago Dramatists' playwrights' network. But if you think they're worried about overdoing it you should guess again. Over the last year this group of playwrights received some 700 productions, awards, and honors around the world, and there's no sign of slowing down. Part support group,.... Read More |
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Victory Gardens Theater Announces 2010-11 Season
Victory Gardens Theater Artistic Director Dennis Zacek has announced exciting plans for the company's 38th season, promising "new and compelling stories that transform, entertain and reflect the human condition."
Edward Albee's At Home at the Zoo will receive its Chicago premiere, starring Peter Strauss, star of stage and screen, directed by Zacek, to launch Victory Gardens' 2010-2011 season followed by the Chicago premiere of Tree.... Read More |
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Babes With Blades Carve Out a Home
 Common thinking goes, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em, but in the case of Babes With Blades, when you fight 'em, you beat 'em. Frustrated at the lack of opportunity for female actors to use their stage combat skills, Babes With Blades was founded in 1997 originally purely as a showcase for the fight skills of a powerful all female band of.... Read More
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Theatre On The Lake Announces 2010 Season
The Chicago Park District's 58th annual Theater on the Lake season features reprisals of eight artistically diverse Chicago theater companies June 16 - Aug. 8, 2010. The season opens with The Second City's 50th Anniversary Revue (June 16-20) and continues with popular productions by Bohemian Theatre Ensemble (June 23-27), A Red Orchid Theatre (June 30-July 4), Baby Wants.... Read More |
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Broadway In Chicago Announces New Venue - The Broadway Playhouse at Water Tower Place
 Broadway In Chicago and Water Tower Place have announced the addition of a new venue, the Broadway Playhouse at Water Tower Place, 175 E. Chestnut Street to its family of theatres. Broadway In Chicago has entered into a long-term agreement with General Growth Properties (owner and manager of Water Tower Place) that will allow the theatre, formerly known as the Drury Lane at Water Tower Place, to.... Read More
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Goodman Theatre Announces World Premiere of Chinglish
Goodman Theatre Artistic Director Robert Falls has announced the addition of the world premiere of Chinglish by Tony Award winner and Pulitzer Prize finalist David Henry Hwang (M. Butterfly) in Goodman Theatre's upcoming 2010/2011 season with performances begining in June 2011. Produced in association with The Public Theater (Oskar Eustis, Artistic Director and Andrew D. Hamingson, Executive Director) of New York, Chinglish is.... Read More |
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Killer Joe moves to the Royal George
Profiles Theatre has announced the transfer of its hit production Killer Joe by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tracy Letts to Chicago’s Royal George Theatre, 1641 N. Halsted St. After 13 weeks at Profiles, the critically-acclaimed production will move to The Royal George Theatre's Cabaret space for an 8-week run April 15- June 6, 2010. The regular run at Profiles Theatre.... Read More |
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Theatre Seven Keeps it Close to Home
Some theater transports you to a distant time or place, and some theater holds up the mirror to the life you lead. Theatre Seven, a four-year-old company taking up residence in Lincoln Park's Greenhouse Theater Center later this spring, falls decidedly into the latter camp. The company has the surprisingly unique dedication to being "a company of Chicago, from Chicago, but...minus the corruption."
Or so says Artistic.... Read More |
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American Theater Company announces season
American Theater Company has announced their Season 26, which includes the 40th Anniversary revival of The Original Grease with restored, revised and R-rated book, music and lyrics by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey and directed by Artistic Director PJ Paparelli; Two David Mamet classics in rotating repertory: Oleanna directed by Rick Snyder and Speed-the-Plow directed by ATC Ensemble member Jaime Castañeda; and the World Premiere.... Read More |
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Chicago Shakespeare Theater Announces 2010/11 Season
 Chicago Shakespeare Theater (CST) Artistic Director Barbara Gaines and Executive Director Criss Henderson announced the lineup of productions for the 2010/11 Season. A three-play Subscription Series of classics, renowned artists from around the world and productions for the entire family set the stage for Chicago Shakespeare Theater's 24th season.
Inaugurating the 2010/11 Subscription Series, world-renowned Director Gale Edwards brings an exhilarating new production of.... Read More |
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Chicago Celebrates World Theatre Day on March 27
On March 27, Chicago theaters will join the world in celebrating World Theatre Day. A brainchild of the International Theatre Institute, World Theatre Day was created in June of 1961 and takes place every year on March 27. The mission is to "Promote international exchange of knowledge and practice in theatre arts (drama, dance, music theatre) in order to consolidate peace and solidarity between peoples, to deepen.... Read More |
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Oracle Productions Sees Into The Future
Yoga and Butoh classes, a traveling mimed staging of old radio shows in retirement homes, one of the scariest Halloween spectacles in town, and an aggressive and experimental incorporation all kinds of media into staged productions. This could easily sound like the work of at least four different young companies, but all of it comes out of the same little Lakeview storefront. Oracle Productions was established in.... Read More |
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9 To 5 and Rock of Ages part of Broadway In Chicago's season
Broadway In Chicago has announced the complete 2010/2011 Broadway In Chicago Season Series. The shows in the 2010/2011 Season Series include the Chicago premieres of Fuerza Bruta: Look Up, Rock Of Ages, Traces, God Of Carnage and 9 to 5: The Musical. Burn The Floor also makes a special return to Chicago as part of the Season Series. Smash-hits Wicked and The Lion King .... Read More |
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Lookingglass Theatre presents World Premiere of Trust
Lookingglass Theatre Company will present Trust, written by Founding Ensemble Member David Schwimmer and Andy Bellin, based on the screenplay by Andy Bellin and Rob Festinger and directed by Ensemble Members David Schwimmer and Heidi Stillman. The production runs from March 3 - April 25 at Lookingglass Theatre Company, located inside Chicago's historic Water Tower Water Works, 821 .... Read More |
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Charlie Newell directs The Illusion at Court Theatre
Court Theatre continues its 55th season with Pierre Corneille's The Illusion, freely adapted by Tony Kushner anddirected by Artistic Director Charles Newell. The production will run from March 11- April 11, 2010 at Court Theatre located at 5535 S. Ellis Avenue.
Tony Kushner brings his sophisticated style and breathtaking language to the French Baroque's most powerful romance. A father's attempt to find.... Read More |
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Profiles Theatre extends Killer Joe
 Profiles Theatre has announced the extension of its hit production Killer Joe by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tracy Letts, directed by Steppenwolf ensemble member Rick Snyder. All cast members are continuing in their roles, including Profiles ensemble members Darrell W. Cox and Somer Benson along with Kevin Bigley, Howie Johnson and Claire Wellin. The critically-acclaimed production has been extended for.... Read More
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Designers In Chicago: Debbie Baer
 To figure out which designer to interview for this piece, I solicited suggestions from a few friends with the following direction: "I want a rad lady designer." Costume Designer Debbie Baer came up more than once. After setting up our meeting, I mentioned it to a few theatre-industry friends - I couldn't believe how many of them knew and loved her -.... Read More
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Theatre In Chicago goes Hollywood
 Start spreading the news...wait, wrong coast. But a coast. In fact, TheatreInChicago is making like the three men Don McLean admires most and catching the last train for the Coast, with a capital "C". TheatreInChicago has decided that it's time to do what all the members of Steppenwolf do who get famous...go Hollywood! Not that we're leaving Chicago, mind you. Just...expanding our horizons...
TheatreInChicago.... Read More |
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Wicked to return to Chicago
 Broadway In Chicago has announced the return engagement of Wicked this fall, beginning Wednesday, December 1, 2010. The most successful show in Chicago history makes its triumphant return to the Cadillac Palace Theatre (151 W. Randolph) for eight weeks only, December 1, 2010 to January 23, 2011.
"We are thrilled to host the return of Wicked. The requests from our patrons for.... Read More |
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Backstage Theatre Company: A Family Affair
 A lot of theater companies think of themselves as a family, and many theater companies produce plays especially for families, but BackStage Theatre Company makes theater about families.
Of course, it's not a particularly small niche. A generous eye can see perhaps every play ever written as offering some insight or highlighting some aspect of the nature of family, but in a city.... Read More |
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Sideshow Seeks the Center Stage
 Jonathan L. Green is a busy man. Sure it's the holiday season, but if you're running a small storefront theater that just got a $25,000 grant and you have a Chicago premiere in the works for spring, suffice it to say, it's hard to get face time, and Green, artistic director and founding member of Sideshow Theatre Company, is in this precise position. We were able to.... Read More
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Play List 2009: In A Bah Year, So Much Great Theatre
 Are you sick of year-end round-up lists yet? You can't be, not until TheatreInChicago.com puts in their two pence. Hopefully it will put you back into a warm, fuzzy, vaguely inebriated feeling of year-is-over happiness, because whatever sideshow you were watching (economy, politics, weather, Cubs, Sox, Bears...), you must be sick of the year 2009 by now. Which, now that we.... Read More
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WNEP Theater - You Have Permission to Punch Don Hall in the Face
 Most Chicago actors work hard to one day join Actors' Equity, the union of professional actors and stage managers that guarantees safe working conditions, living wages and health insurance. The story of WNEP Theater, one of Chicago's older and most proudly "fringe" companies, is the reverse. Don Hall, founder and long-time executive director of the company, was working as an Equity Actor in town when he was.... Read More
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Silent Theatre Company Wants to Change Your Life
 Silent film. Vaudeville. Dance. Mime. Tom & Jerry cartoons. What do these seemingly divergent worlds have in common? Each informs and inspires the unique theatrical artistry of the Chicago's Silent Theatre Company.
Artistic Director Tonika Todorova founded the company in 2005 for the sake of remounting a single show, Lulu - a black and white theatrical piece inspired by a 1929 silent film, Pandora's Box. When.... Read More |
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Give the Gift of Theatre
If your friends and/or family are theatre-going types (or if they're not and you'd like them to be), you might consider giving them season tickets to a theatre company they like, or gift certificates for a specific show or shows this holiday season. And whether they prefer the big downtown musicals or the small storefront theatres scattered around town, there's something to be had for.... Read More |
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Remy Bumppo: Listen Up
 James Bohnen, artistic director of Remy Bumppo Theatre, is a nice guy. So nice he winces at even the blandest questions about what makes his award-winning theater company unique, "I don't want it to sound like we think we're better than other people."
So instead, I asked about the name. While Remy Bumppo has spent the last 12 years impressing audiences with its strong and stirring.... Read More |
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Chestnuts Playing On An Open Stage
 'Tis, once again, the season. Time for toys, time for cheer, as Alvin and the Chipmunks would say. 'Tis also, once again, time for all your favorite holiday-themed plays to start showing at theatres around Chicago: A Christmas Carol, The Christmas Schooner, It's A Wonderful Life, The Nutcracker, etc. (I'm assuming these are some of your favorite plays. If I'm wrong, sue me.) The good news is,.... Read More
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Designers In Chicago: Lindsay Jones
Lindsay Jones is not your typical...anything. As a Sound Designer and/or Composer for an average of 40 shows a year, he might be the busiest person in professional theatre. Although he technically lives in Los Angeles with his wife and children, Lindsay also considers Chicago and New York "home" - and has three addresses and local phone numbers to back it up. He started out as an.... Read More |
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The Mammals - Rehearsing the Dark Stuff
 "When I first started doing theater I realized that I was mostly interested in the really dark stuff, the out-there stuff: Pinter, Beckett, Classic Expressionism, Greek drama," Bob Fisher leans over his teacup when he gets excited, and he's excited now with good reason. He's talking about the founding of Chicago's longest running theater company dealing with horror, sci-fi, phantasmagoria: The Mammals.
While Fisher is content to.... Read More |
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The History Boys take top honors at Jeff Awards
At the 41st Annual Jeff Equity Awards TimeLine Theatre's much-extended production of "The History Boys" took top honors in the midsize theatre Play category and walked off with 5 statues, the most of any production honored at the festive ceremony held at the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts in Skokie. "Ruined," a searing cry against the systematic violation of.... Read More |
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Spotlight on Horror, WildClaw Theatre
 Some plays make you laugh, some plays make you cry, but WildCaw Theatre is a young company dedicated to scaring the hell out of you. Founded in 2007, WildClaw Theatre has produced three full-scale plays and two festivals of new ten-minute radio plays all united around the single, but deceptively multi-faceted, world of horror.
"Horror can mean all kinds of things," waxes Artistic Director Charley Sherman, "The.... Read More |
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Oh, the Horror!
 What are actors, really, but people who play dress-up for a living? (This is not an insult. Wouldn't you love to play dress-up for a living?) So it should come as a small surprise that actors, and theatre people in general, love Halloween. That campiest of holidays provides a good excuse to really cut loose and Put On A Show, one with lots.... Read More
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Special Jeff Award to Honor William Pullinsi's 50 Years in Theatre
 A Special Jeff Award will be presented to director/producer William Pullinsi at the Jeff Awards Ceremony, October 19th, in recognition of his 50 years in theatre. The Second City will receive a Tribute Award in honor of their 50th Anniversary. "Our ceremony will include highlights of Second City's unique brand of humor over the years and performances by the casts of "Studs Terkel's Not Working" and ".... Read More
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Caffeine Theatre Thinks You're Smart
In 2006 Caffeine Theatre's artistic director Jennifer Shook approached the board with a proposal. "I told them I wanted to do T.S. Eliot's The Cocktail Party and that it might be the last show we ever do. That I didn't think anyone would come, and that I wasn't even sure I understood it." The board looked at the financial state of the company.... Read More |
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Lookingglass Theatre presents premiere of Fedra: Queen of Haiti
 Lookingglass Theatre Company presents the wickedly dark comedy Fedra: Queen of Haiti, written by Ensemble Member J. Nicole Brooks and directed by Ensemble Member Laura Eason. The Lookingglass Original runs September 30 - November 15, 2009 at Lookingglass Theatre Company, located inside Chicago's historic Water Tower Water Works, 821 N. Michigan Ave. at Pearson.
The 22nd season opens.... Read More |
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Profiles Theatre opens its 21st Season with The Mercy Seat
 Profiles Theatre opens its 21st Anniversary Season with the Midwest premiere of the drama The Mercy Seat by Neil LaBute, directed by Artistic Director Joe Jahraus. The production runs September 25- November 15, 2009, at Profiles Theatre, 4147 N. Broadway.
In a time of national tragedy, the world changes overnight. On September 12, 2001, Ben Harcourt finds himself in the downtown apartment.... Read More |
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The Plagiarists Steal This Stage
 The Plagiarists are a theater group galvanized by an aesthetic; that they can't exactly agree on what it is, has never yet seemed particularly important. To try to get a better sense of what the Plagiarists are, I asked as many of the members as I could gather what the ideal Plagiarist show would be:
"A rock show." (Layne Manzer)
"A Chuck.... Read More |
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Cirque du Soleil announces brand new show - Banana Shpeel
 Cirque du Soleil and MSG Entertainment unveiled the brand new theatrical production, Banana Shpeel, at The Chicago Theatre. The show will perform for the first time ever at the theatre for a limited engagement from November 19, 2009 through January 3, 2010. Following Chicago, the show will premiere in New York at The Beacon Theatre in February 2010.
Banana Shpeel is a.... Read More |
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Oh, What A Run - Jersey Boys To Take Final Bow In Chicago
 The Chicago Company of Jersey Boys will say "Bye, Bye Baby" to the Windy City on January 10, 2010, after an incredible run of over two years at the Bank of America Theatre. Jersey Boys, the story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, premiered in Chicago initially as a limited engagement on October 5, 2007. After opening to rave reviews, adding.... Read More
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Animal Crackers coming to Goodman Theatre
 Goodman Theatre launches its new 2009/2010 Season with tap dancing, acrobatics, tumbling, guitar- and ukulele-playing in an original take on the rarely-produced Marx Brothers classic musical Animal Crackers, written by George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind, with music and lyrics by Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby. For the Goodman's revival of this family-friendly farce, Director Henry Wishcamper has restored a wealth.... Read More
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Broadway In Chicago Announces 2010 Season Series
Broadway In Chicago has announced the complete 2010 Broadway In Chicago Season Series. The shows included in the 2010 Season Series are Billy Elliot the Musical, Shrek The Musical, August: Osage County, Disney's Beauty and the Beast, and The 39 Steps; the selection of shows continue to emphasize Broadway In Chicago's long-standing commitment to bringing the best of Broadway to Chicago.
.... Read More |
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South Pacific heading to Rosemont Theatre
Lincoln Center Theater will present a new production of Richard Rodgers & Oscar Hammerstein's prize-winning musical South Pacific which will premiere in Chicago November 24 - 29, 2009 at the Rosemont Theatre, 5400 N. River Road.
Rodgers & Hammerstein's South Pacific swept the 2008 Tony Awards, winning seven honors including Best Musical Revival and Best Director for Bartlett Sher. This breathtaking new production has created a.... Read More |
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New Leaf Theatre Begins Again, and Again...
When you sit in the theater and watch a New Leaf show, the sounds you hear are likely thanks to resident artist and sound designer Nick Keenan, the lights were probably designed by resident artist Jared Moore, and the person calling the shots in the back of the house could be either of the company's two resident artist stage managers Marni Keenan and Michelle Lilly O'Brien.... Read More |
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Nominees for the 41st Annual Jeff Awards Announced
The Jeff Awards announced 179 nominations in 35 categories for Chicago Equity theatrical productions which opened between August 1, 2008, and July 31, 2009. The Jeff Awards sent judges to the opening nights of 141 productions offered by 57 producing organizations. From these openings,
98 Equity productions were "Jeff Recommended," which made them eligible for
award nominations.
The 41st Annual Jeff Awards.... Read More |
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Dael Orlandersmith Brings Eleven Characters from the Stoop to the Stage
Dael Orlandersmith takes Chicago audiences on an electrifying journey through the spirit and soul of Harlem in her explosive solo piece Stoop Stories at Goodman Theatre. Hailed a "triumph" in its world premiere at Washington, D.C.'s Studio Theatre this past spring, Stoop Stories comes to Chicago directed by Obie Award-winner Jo Bonney. Orlandersmith transforms with mesmerizing ease into a range of .... Read More |
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Chicago Shakespeare Theater opens season with Richard III
Chicago Shakespeare Theater (CST) kicks off the 2009/10 Subscription Series with Richard III, William Shakespeare's tale of a brilliant, scheming hunchback who murders and seduces his way to the English throne. The production will be staged by Chicago Shakespeare Theater Artistic Director Barbara Gaines with Helen Hayes Award-winner Wallace Acton in the title role.
Shakespeare's first great stage success, and one of his most enduring, Richard.... Read More |
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Mamma Mia Returns to Chicago
Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus' Mamma Mia!, the smash hit musical based on the songs of ABBA, returns to Chicagoland in 2010! Performances begin on January 19, 2010 and run through January 24, 2010 at the Rosemont Theatre.
Seen by over 40 million people around the world, Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus' global smash hit musical Mamma Mia! is celebrating 7 sold-out.... Read More |
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Oscar nominee Michael Shannon returns to A Red Orchid for premiere of Mistakes Were Made
A Red Orchid Theatre opens its 2009-10 Season with the World Premiere of Mistakes Were Made by the Emmy-nominated writer of Six Feet Under Craig Wright and directed by Dexter Bullard. This electrifying performance will mark A Red Orchid Theatre Co-founder and Ensemble Member Michael Shannon's first appearance on their stage since his 2009 Academy Award Best Supporting Actor Nomination for Revolutionary Road..... Read More |
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Northlight Theatre opens its 35th Season with the hit musical The Marvelous Wonderettes
Northlight Theatre, under the direction of Artistic Director BJ Jones and Executive Director Timothy J. Evans, will open its 35th Season with the hit musical The Marvelous Wonderettes, written and directed by Roger Bean with music direction by Brian Baker and choreography by Janet Miller. The Chicago premiere runs September 17-October 25, 2009, at Northlight Theatre, 9501 Skokie Blvd in Skokie..... Read More |
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Drury Lane Oakbrook Announces 2010 Season
Drury Lane Theatre Oakbrook Terrace, known for producing acclaimed, innovative and classic musicals, announced its exciting 2010 season, featuring five smash hit productions. Following a successful 2009 season, Drury Lane Oakbrook has given five well known and highly creative theatrical directors the ability to choose their favorite Broadway musicals, and has given them the license to go beyond the expected and introduce audiences to their vision..... Read More |
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Red Tape Theatre Plans for the Future
In a cavernous church Gymnasium in Lakeview a little theater company is planning for the future. Minutes from six years old, Red Tape Theatre boasts impressive programming for a theater of any size: a dedicated space, a new play development series, an education program, a fourteen member ensemble, and a role as host in a progressive bid for more collaboration among Chicago's small theaters.
How exactly did.... Read More |
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The 21st Annual Mary-Arrchie Abbie Hoffman Died For Our Sins Theater Festival
Mary-Arrchie Theatre Co. is wrapping up its last 22 seasons by inviting any and all theater groups and performing individuals into its performing space at Angel Island, 735 W. Sheridan to celebrate the anniversary of the Woodstock Music and Art Fair of 1969. Abbie Hoffman Died For Our Sins was inspired by the need to do something to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Woodstock . Now it.... Read More |
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Second City celebrates 50th Anniversary Season
The Second City - the timeless producer of improvisational based comedy - celebrates its milestone 50th Anniversary this fall with a series of events and happenings that will bring together alumni, recreate renowned sketches and characters, and bring the history of the theatre to life. During the weekend of December 11-13, the theatre's home on Wells Street in Chicago will serve as an historic backdrop for.... Read More |
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Teatro Vista's World with a View
In Artistic Director Eddie Torres' words, Teatro Vista exists to "give an opportunity to actors to reflect voices that are seeking to be heard." It is a fundamental understanding of the creative exchange between author and actor that composes theater—an exchange that forms the backbone of Teatro Vista.
Teatro Vista co-founders Eddie Torres and Henry Godinez lamented an absence of Latino voices.... Read More |
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Billy Elliot to launch U.S. National Tour in Chicago
Broadway In Chicago has announced that the 2009 Tony Award-winning Best Musical Billy Elliot the Musical will launch a U.S. national tour with an extended run in Chicago in the spring of 2010. Featuring music by Elton John, book and lyrics by Lee Hall, choreography by Peter Darling and direction by Stephen Daldry, performances will begin March 2010 at the Ford.... Read More |
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Profiles Theatre announces new season
Artistic Directors Joe Jahraus and Darrell W. Cox announced Profiles Theatre's 2009-2010 Season. Profiles Theatre, one of Chicago's longest-running ensemble theatres, is presenting its 21st season of new and challenging works, beginning with an extended run of the hit production of Graceland by Ellen Fairey.
The Profiles Theatre season also includes the Midwest premiere of The Mercy Seat by Neil LaBute; the Midwest premiere of Body.... Read More |
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Old Soul, Long Road, New Company: Route 66
"Ok, we have a theater company: what do you want to do now?" This was the question Stef Tovar, founder and Artistic Director of Route 66 Theatre Company was faced with in September of 2008. Needless to say, Route 66 has had an unlikely road to the present.
It started innocently enough. One day while working as the interim Artistic Director of American Theatre Company, Tovar received.... Read More |
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Audition Listings Now On Theatre In Chicago
 With day jobs, classes, schedule conflicts, and tech week, it would seem that working actors have enough to deal with without having to try to track down and decipher cryptic audition notices. "WNTD: 3M2FNETYPE 4 MLTIETH PRD OF BFT N TH PK CT: KEN." What?
To the rescue: TheatreInChicago.com is pleased to announce the launch of their Read More |
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Theater Oobleck Brings Risk to the People
Named for a new type of weather created for a demanding monarch in Dr. Seuss' Bartholomew and the Oobleck, Theater Oobleck has been raining down some of the most unique theater in Chicago for over twenty years.
A Theater Oobleck show, like the loose and heady Strauss at Midnight—a comic nightmare of The Odd Couple in an alternate past, where only Leo Strauss and Saul Bellow.... Read More |
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High Fidelity to make Chicago Premiere at Pipers Alley Theater
After 17 years, Tony n' Tina are heading on their honeymoon. The Route 66 Theatre Company will present the Chicago premiere of High Fidelity...The Musical, in its first major production since its Broadway run in 2006. The show will preview August 7, 2009; open Monday, August 17 at 7 p.m.; and run through October 4, 2009 at the Tony n' Tina's Wedding space at Pipers Alley.... Read More |
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Lookingglass Theatre Celebrates Daniel Burnham Plan Centennial
Lookingglass Theatre announced the limited run of Our Future Metropolis: Mr. D.H. Burnham Presents a Plain Talk for the Development of Chicago, adapted and directed by Ensemble Member John Musial, featuring Ensemble Member Raymond Fox. The production will play at Lookingglass Theatre Company, located inside Chicago's historic Water Tower Water Works, 821 N. Michigan Ave. at Pearson on Monday, July 13, Monday, July 20 and.... Read More |
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Chicago Shakespeare Theater Takes Audiences for a Magic Carpet Ride
Chicago Shakespeare Theater (CST) brings Disney's Aladdin, an enchanting adaptation of the 1992 animated film, to the stage continuing CST's tradition of bringing family-friendly theater to Navy Pier all summer long. The production features Alan Menken, Howard Ashman and Tim Rice's award-winning songs, including "A Whole New World" and "Friend Like Me." Previously performing as Scar and Zazu in the national.... Read More |
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Strawdog Stands the Test of Time
When Nic Dimond, current Artistic Director of Strawdog Theatre, first saw a show at this tiny Lakeview Storefront in 1993 he was startled by what he saw as a low production standard surrounding a strong acting ensemble, and he decided to do something about it. With a background in set design, Dimond offered his services as resident set designer and changed the course of the company, "I.... Read More |
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Steep Theatre Closes 2008-2009 Season with Midwest Premiere of The Hollow Lands
Steep Theatre Company's historic 2008-2009 season, which has already featured the opening of their new space and the most Jeff nominations in the company's history, closes with a bang this month with the Midwest Premiere of Howard Korder's The Hollow Lands, an ambitious 14 actor, 30 character historical epic. The production, which opens Thursday, June 25th , reunites Steep with acclaimed director Jonathan Berry, who helmed the.... Read More |
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Jeff Awards Commitee Presents Non-Equity Awards for 08-09 Season
Chicago's nationally-renowned storefront and black box theatre community gathered at the Park West for its annual celebration as the Jeff Awards Committee gave out 26 Non-Equity Jeff Awards in 24 categories. In addition, a Special Award was given to Pegasus Players' founder Arlene Crewdson for her lifelong contributions to Chicago theatre. The festive event was emceed by actor-composer Jon.... Read More |
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Internationally acclaimed Cavalia premieres in Chicago
Cavalia, the spectacular equestrian odyssey will make its Chicago debut beginning Tuesday, July 14 and run through July 26. This multimedia extravaganza brings together more than 100 two and four-legged artists. The mix of horses, acrobats, aerialists, dancers, riders and musicians transports spectators to dream-like settings while celebrating the timeless bond between horses and humans. Cavalia will be presented under its towering White Big Top, which will.... Read More |
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The Strange, Full Dream of Dog & Pony
 Since 2003, Dog & Pony Theatre Co.'s lyrical, thoroughly conceived productions have earned them steadily more recognition and audiences around Chicago. The company, dedicated to Chicago premieres of new plays, is marked by a desire to create what Artistic Director Krissy Vanderwarker describes as "full evenings of theater"—plays that remind audiences of the intimacy of live theater and that include the entire environment of playgoing. So, while.... Read More
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Goodman Theatre concludes season with Boleros for the Disenchanted
Goodman Theatre concludes its 2008/2009 season with José Rivera's newest play, Boleros for the Disenchanted. A true love story inspired by Rivera's parents' courtship and eventual migration from Puerto Rico to Alabama, Boleros for the Disenchanted makes its Chicago premiere directed by Henry Godinez- the Goodman's Resident Artistic Associate who was named 2008 Latino of the Year by the Chicago Latino.... Read More |
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ShawChicago Announces 2009-2010 Season
Following a successful presentation of Henrik Ibsen's Ghosts at Selcuk University in Konya, Turkey for World Theatre Day 2009, ShawChicago Artistic Director Robert Scogin has announced the company's 2009-2010 season. ShawChicago's 16th season of concert readings will open with Votes for Women!, the politically driven play by Elizabeth Robins that examines early feminist views, October 17 - November 19; followed by ShawChicago's annual holiday musical tradition, Mid-Winter's.... Read More |
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The Hypocrites close season with Sean Graney's new adaptation of Oedipus
Artistic Director Sean Graney's original adaptation of Sophocles' Oedipus will close The Hypocrites' spectacular 12th season. In reference to his passion for adapting and directing Oedipus, Graney explains: "By highlighting commonly overlooked aspects of the original, this new adaptation tells the story of a compassionate, albeit arrogant, leader whose zealous desire to heal his people brings about his own demise."
Featuring a cast of three in.... Read More |
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Steppenwolf's Superior Donuts To Open on Broadway
Steppenwolf Theatre Company has announced its new American play Superior Donuts, by Pulitzer and Tony Award-winning ensemble member Tracy Letts and directed by ensemble member Tina Landau, will open on Broadway October 1, 2009 (at a Shubert Theatre to be announced). Superior Donuts makes its Broadway debut direct from its sold-out world premiere at Steppenwolf last summer. Casting for the Broadway engagement will be announced shortly.
Arthur.... Read More |
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Chicago DCA Theater Announces Fall 2009 Season
The Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs announced a 2009 fall season full of events at the Chicago DCA Theaters- the Storefront Theater, located at 66 E. Randolph Street and the Studio Theater in the Chicago Cultural Center, 77 E. Randolph Street.
Chicago DCA Theater offers downtown audiences an off-Loop theater experience with an exciting look at the vibrant emerging theater companies that call Chicago home. An anchor of.... Read More |
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Pegasus Players Founder Arlene Crewdson to Receive Special Award at Jeff Awards Ceremony
The Jeff Awards announced that Arlene Crewdson, Founding Executive/Artistic Director and Global Voices Director of Pegasus Players, will receive a Special Award at the 36th Annual Non-Equity Jeff Awards Ceremony on June 8, 2009, honoring her outstanding contributions to Chicago theatre.
Arlene Crewdson founded Pegasus Players in 1978 and has directed many productions there. She taught classic theatre on PBS station Channel 11 in Chicago, published “A.... Read More |
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Nathan Lane and Bebe Neuwirth to Star in The Addams Family
Two-time Tony Award winners Nathan Lane (The Producers, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum) and Bebe Neuwirth (Chicago, Sweet Charity) will star as Gomez and Morticia in The Addams Family, a new musical based on the bizarre and beloved family of characters created by legendary cartoonist Charles Addams, beginning performances Friday, November 13, 2009 at the Ford Center for the Performing Arts,.... Read More |
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The Crowd You're In With makes Chicago premiere at Goodman Theatre
Life and love are not so simple, as three couples with six different perspectives discover in the Chicago premiere of Rebecca Gilman's The Crowd You're In With at Goodman Theatre. Wendy C. Goldberg, a frequent Gilman collaborator and artistic director of the acclaimed National Playwrights Conference at The Eugene O'Neill Theater Center- where The Crowd You're In With was developed- directs this.... Read More |
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Neo-Futurists Announce 8th Annual Staged Readings of Truly Terrible Films
They're so bad, they couldn't get any better. The Neo-Futurists will proudly present their renditions of the best worst films ever made. With a shoe-string budget and some special guest artists, their eighth-annual series tackles urban rebels, lounge singers, demons, assassins, fairies and the gays. It Came From the Neo-Futurarium VIII: Legend of The Neo-Futurarium runs June 25 through July 30, Thursdays at 8:00 p.m. at 5153.... Read More |
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Profiles Theatre Presents World Premiere of Graceland
Profiles Theatre concludes its 20th Anniversary Season with the World premiere of the comedy/drama Graceland by Ellen Fairey, directed by Matt Miller. The production runs May 22- June 28, 2009, at Profiles Theatre, 4147 N. Broadway.
Chicago's oldest cemetery is the backdrop for Graceland, the story of four lonely Chicagoans whose lives collide one August weekend while the Blue.... Read More |
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New Cirque du Soleil Show Launching in Chicago
Cirque du Soleil and MSG Entertainment have announced a brand new theatrical touring show that will be making a stop in the Windy City. The show is set to open first at The Chicago Theatre for a limited engagement from November 19, 2009 through January 3, 2010. Following Chicago, the show will premiere in New York in 2010 and then tour additional cities.
Directed by David.... Read More |
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Jeff Awards Announce 2009 Non-Equity Nominations
The Jeff Awards announced 114 nominations in 24 categories for
Non-Equity Jeff Awards, which honor excellence in Chicago theatres not under a union
contract, for productions that opened between April 1, 2008, and March 31, 2009. The
Jeff Awards judged the opening nights of 130 productions offered by 57 non-Equity
producing organizations and recommended 54 of them.... Read More |
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The Color Purple Returns to Chicago
The producers of The Color Purple have announced that American Idol Season 3 winner Fantasia Barrino will reprise her starring role of Celie for the Chicago Engagement. Returning to its debut home of Chicago, The Color Purple will make its home at The Arie Crown Theater for two weeks, September 2 -13, 2009.
Fantasia made her Broadway debut in The Color Purple on April 10, 2007..... Read More |
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Northlight Theatre presents Chicago premiere of The Lieutenant of Inishmore
Northlight Theatre Artistic Director BJ Jones and Executive Director Timothy J. Evans prepare for the Chicago Premiere of The Lieutenant of Inishmore by Martin McDonagh, directed by BJ Jones. The production will run April 29-June 7, 2009 at Northlight Theatre, 9501 Skokie Blvd in Skokie.
"Wee Thomas" the cat has been killed. What's worse, he was the beloved pet of Padraic, a.... Read More |
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Shrek The Musical To Launch The National Tour In Chicago
DreamWorks Theatricals and Neal Street Productions, Ltd. Have announced that the 'big fat hit' Broadway production of Shrek The Musical with book and lyrics by David Lindsay-Abaire and music by Jeanine Tesori, directed by Jason Moore, will launch a National Tour in Chicago. Shrek The Musical will play the Ford Center for the Performing Arts, Oriental Theatre (24 W. Randolph St.) for a limited engagement.... Read More |
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Court Theatre presents August Wilson's The Piano Lesson
Court Theatre will conclude its 54th season with August Wilson's beloved classic The Piano Lesson, directed by Resident Artist Ron OJ Parson. The fourth play in Wilson's Century Cycle will run at Court Theatre, 5535 S Ellis Avenue, May 5 - June 7, 2009.
Master playwright August Wilson's Pulitzer Prize-winning play is the 1930s entry in his monumental 20th Century play cycle. A rich family history.... Read More |
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'Talk Like Shakespeare Day' Coming to Chicago
Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley announced that April 23, Shakespeare's 445th Birthday, will be Talk Like Shakespeare Day, an occasion for Chicagoans to bring the spoken words of Shakespeare into their daily lives. "On his 445th birthday, Shakespeare still speaks to the people of Chicago through timeless words and works," said Mayor Daley in his formal city proclamation. "On April 23, I encourage citizens to celebrate Shakespeare.... Read More |
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Broadway's Tony Award-Winning Musical Comedy Set To Compete At Marriott Theatre
Get out your dictionaries! Celebrating 35 years of producing award-winning musical theater in Chicagoland, The Marriott Theatre will present this side-splitting production of the Tony Award-winning musical comedy The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee previews May 13th, opens May 20th, and runs through July 19th at the Marriott Theatre, 10 Marriott .... Read More |
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The Stones roll in, Russia tanks roll out...but love remains in Rock 'N' Roll
Two countries, three generations, 22 turbulent years-and a dynamic soundtrack ranging from Syd Barrett to The Plastic People of the Universe to U2-are at the heart of Rock 'n' Roll, a sweeping and passionate drama about love, music and revolution from Academy Award and four-time Tony Award-winner Tom Stoppard. For the play's Chicago premiere at Goodman Theatre, Artistic Director.... Read More |
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TimeLine to Stage Chicago Premiere of "The Farnsworth Invention"
TimeLine Theatre Company, dedicated to presenting plays inspired by history that connect to today's social and political issues, announces three of the four plays of its 2009-10 season, including the Chicago premiere of Aaron Sorkin's The Farnsworth Invention. A fourth play and the season's schedule are still to be announced.
"We have put together a season filled with bold ideas and tremendous.... Read More |
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Next Theatre Company Announces Season of Premieres
New Artistic Director Jason Southerland has announced his first full-season's roster of plays at Evanston's Next Theatre, Chicago's destination for socially provocative, artistically adventurous work. In the offering, theater-goers will find the highly-anticipated world premiere of Jason Loewith's latest adaptation War With The Newts, Israeli playwright Boaz Gaon's poignant drama Return to Haifa, and Peter Sinn.... Read More |
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Collaboraction Presents 9th Annual Sketchbook Festival
During its extraordinary eight years, Collaboraction's annual Sketchbook Festival has received more than 5,000 short plays submissions and has presented 138 world premiere short plays for more than 30,000 audience members. This year, Sketchbook expands its scope and scale, making the versatile Building Stage, 412 N. Carpenter St., its new creative home, from April 16 - May 10,.... Read More |
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Theater On The Lake Announces 2009 Season
The Chicago Park District's 57th annual Theater on the Lake season features reprisals of eight artistically diverse Chicago theater companies June 17 - Aug. 9, 2009. The season opens with Collaboraction Theater Company's production of Jon (June 17-21) and continues with popular productions by Redmoon Theater (June 24-28), Blindfaith Theatre Company (July 1-5), Theo Ubique Theater Company (July 8-12), Rivendell Theatre Ensemble (July 15-19), Barrel of.... Read More |
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Fiddler on the Roof Starring Legendary Performer Topol Comes to Chicago
 Fiddler On The Roof will be making a stop in Chicago as legendary and original Broadway star Topol reprises his role of Tevye to bring this time honored story to audiences in Chicago June 10 - 28 at the Ford Center for the Performing Arts, Oriental Theatre ( 24 W. Randolph St ).
"Without our traditions, our lives would be as shaky as...as a Fiddler On The.... Read More |
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Porchlight Music Theatre Announces 15th Anniversary Season
 Porchlight Music Theatre is growing-up. In celebration of its15th anniversary Porchlight Music Theatre announced a season of musicals exploring the challenges of growing-up: The Fantasticks, Miracle on 34th Street and Into the Woods. The season opens with the romantic charmer The Fantasticks, previewing September 11, 2009, opening September 13 at 2:30 p.m. and running through November 8, 2009. The holidays will glow brightly with Miracle on.... Read More
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Chicago Shakespeare Theater Announces New Season
Chicago Shakespeare Theater (CST) Artistic Director Barbara Gaines and Executive Director Criss Henderson announced the series lineup of productions, with new affordable access opportunities, for the 2009/10 Season. "Villains and lovers make for compelling storytelling, and this year- from Shakespeare's beguiling hunchback and fiery fiancées, to Chekhov’s restless lovers and Coward’s dueling divorcées' they're out in force," said Barbara Gaines..... Read More |
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Steep Theatre to present Midwest Premiere of Parlour Song
 Steep Theatre continues its 2008-2009 season of Midwest Premieres with Jez Butterworth's Parlour Song, directed by Robin Witt. This production, by the playwright of Mojo and The Night Heron, will feature many of the artists behind Steep's 2008 smash hit Breathing Corpses, also directed by Robin Witt. Witt will be reunited with Corpses Scenic Designer Marcus Stephens, Sound.... Read More
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Ensemble members announce departure from American Theater Company
Twenty-three members of American Theater Company ensemble announced that they are no longer a part of the American Theater Company organization. Chicago's second oldest ensemble based company is continuing on as American Blues Theatre, which was founded in 1985. The newly formed organization will present two productions in 2010 in celebration of their 25th season as an ensemble.
"Over 25 years, we have produced over 75 award.... Read More |
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Victory Gardens Announces 2009-2010 Season
 Victory Gardens Theater, Chicago's #1 producer of new work, is ramping things up next season with an ambitious seven play line-up, launching with one of the company's most daring new play development projects in 36 years - the next phase of its Ignition Festival.
Last Spring, 120 new works were submitted from around the U.S. by playwrights of color, under 40 years old, to Victory Gardens'.... Read More |
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A Chorus Line comes to Chicago
 Broadway In Chicago will present Michael Bennett's masterpiece, A Chorus Line, for a limited 3-week engagement April 14 to May 3, 2009. The award-winning show will play Chicago's Ford Center for the Performing Arts, Oriental Theatre at 24 W. Randolph St.
A Chorus Line recouped its entire $8 million investment after only 157 performances (19 weeks) on.... Read More |
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Northlight welcomes back Tony Award winners John Mahoney and Rondi Reed for it's 35th Season
 Artistic Director BJ Jones and Executive Director Timothy J. Evans have announced the 2009-2010 Northlight Theatre Season, which includes Roger Bean's pop musical, The Marvelous Wonderettes; Stephen Temperley's comedic musical tribute, Souvenir directed by David Bell; Clifford Odets' Depression-era classic Awake and Sing directed by Amy Morton and featuring Rondi Reed and Mike Nussbaum; Hugh Leonard's Irish drama, A Life directed.... Read More
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Theatre Tidbits
 Silk Road Theatre Project begins its 2009 season with the Midwest Premiere of Pangs of the Messiah by renowned Israeli playwright Motti Lerner. The production, directed by Piven Theatre Workshop Artistic Director Jennifer Green, will run March 19 - May 10, 2009, in Pierce Hall at The Historic Chicago Temple Building, 77 W. Washington St, Chicago.
Set in 2012 amidst.... Read More |
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Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Brian Dennehy part of Goodman's 09/10 Season
Goodman Theatre has announced a diverse line-up - from musical hilarity and classic yarns, to memory pieces and family dramas, to stories with ethnic roots that reflect today's world- in Goodman Theatre's new 2009/2010 season.
The madcap Marx Brothers musical Animal Crackers, directed by Henry Wishcamper, launches the season in the Albert Theatre. Next, Artistic Director Robert Falls and Brian Dennehy team up again for a.... Read More |
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Mary Poppins Extends Stay In Chicago
 Broadway In Chicago has announced that Mary Poppins will be extending its stay at the Cadillac Palace Theatre through July 12, 2009. Tickets for newly announced performances from May 20 to July 12, 2009 will go on sale March 13, 2009 at 10:00am. Individual tickets for performances are available for as low as $23. In addition, Mary Poppins will have special Sunday.... Read More
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Rent Returns to Chicago
 Rent returns to Chicago for a limited engagement March 31 to April 12, 2009. Adam Pascal, Anthony Rapp, and Gwen Stewart will reprise the roles they originated on Broadway in Rent at the Ford Center for the Performing Arts, Oriental Theatre.
Pascal, Rapp, and Stewart originated the roles of Roger Davis, Mark Cohen, and "Seasons of Love" soloist, respectively, at New York.... Read More |
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Writers' Theatre Announces Their 18th Season
 Writers' Theatre Artistic Director Michael Halberstam and Executive Director Kathryn M. Lipuma announced the company's 18th season, which includes Tom Stoppard's comedic masterpiece Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, directed by Michael Halberstam; Noel Coward's musical revue, Oh Coward! to be performed in Writers' most intimate venue; The Old Settler by John Henry Redwood, directed by Ron OJ Parson; and Tennessee Williams'.... Read More
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Lookingglass Theatre Announces 2009-2010 Season
 Lookingglass Theatre has announced its 2009-2010 season, featuring the world premieres of three Lookingglass Original productions by Ensemble Members
J. Nicole Brooks, David Catlin and David Schwimmer.
Lookingglass' 22nd season opens with Fedra: Queen of Haiti, an explosive retelling of Phaedra that would make Euripides, Seneca and Jean Racine blush. In a re-imagined Haiti, the world's greatest superpower,.... Read More |
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Profiles Theatre presents American Premiere of The Wonderful World of Dissocia
 Profiles Theatre continues its 20th Anniversary Season with the acclaimed new dark comedy The Wonderful World of Dissocia by Anthony Neilson, directed by Profiles Associate Artistic Director Darrell W. Cox. The production runs March 26 - May 10, 2009, at Profiles Theatre, 4147 N. Broadway.
The Wonderful World of Dissocia is a colorful and exciting off-kilter trip that follows Lisa Jones in.... Read More |
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Chicago Goes Blonde! Tickets on sale March 6
 Broadway In Chicago will present the Chicago debut of Legally Blonde The Musical for a four week engagement. Elle, Bruiser, and friends will "Bend and Snap" May 12 to June 7, 2009 at the Ford Center for the Performing Arts, Oriental Theatre (24 W. Randolph St.). Individual tickets will go on sale Friday, March 6, 2009 at 10:00am.
Sorority star Elle Woods.... Read More |
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Comedy and Chaos Flood Navy Pier with Twelfth Night
 Chicago Shakespeare Theater will conclude its 2008/09 subscription season with Twelfth Night, William Shakespeare's rollicking comedy of disorder and revelry staged by London's Bush Theatre Artistic Director Josie Rourke. CST's Courtyard Theater stage will be flooded with water to create the coast of the imaginary world in which the play is set.
Josie Rourke, a celebrated director of both classical and.... Read More |
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Court Theatre presents Knott's classic thriller Wait Until Dark
 Court Theatre continues its 2008-2009 season with Frederick Knott's classic psychological thriller Wait Until Dark, directed by Resident Artist Ron OJ Parson. The production will run at Court Theatre, 5535 S Ellis Avenue, March 5 - April 5, 2009
A cool-as-ice psychopath smooth talks his way into the home of an unsuspecting blind woman. Unbeknownst to Susie, she's harboring a dangerous prize,.... Read More |
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Help Circle Theatre choose their next World Premiere play
 In an effort to find the right show, Circle Theatre, located at 7300 West Madison Street in Forest Park, is presenting a 3 night series of staged readings, all of which have the potential to be part of the Circle's 2009-2010 season. Audience members of the staged readings will help Circle Theatre choose its next season with their reaction and discussions.... Read More
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A Bronx Tale Comes to Chicago
 A Bronx Tale, written by and starring Academy Award-nominated actor Chazz Palminteri, will be making a stop in Chicago. This funny and touching memoir about a young man's experiences growing up in the Bronx during the 1960s will play at the Ford Center for the Performing Arts, Oriental Theatre for a limited engagement March 10 - 22, 2009.
Academy Award-nominated actor Chazz Palminteri returns to the.... Read More |
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Northlight Theatre presents the Chicago Premiere of Mauritius
 Artistic Director BJ Jones and Executive Director Timothy J. Evans prepare for the Chicago Premiere of Mauritius by Theresa Rebeck and directed by Rick Snyder. The production, featuring Anne Adams, Lance Baker, Gary Houston, Dan Kuhlman and Suzanne Lang will run February 25- April 5, 2009 at Northlight Theatre, 9501 Skokie Blvd in Skokie.
The stakes are high when half-sisters inherit a.... Read More |
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Steppenwolf Theatre Announces 2009-2010 Season
Steppenwolf Theatre has announced its 2009-2010 Subscription Season, exploring the theme of belief. Steppenwolf ensemble members currently confirmed for the 2009-2010 Season include: Alana Arenas, Kate Arrington, Ian Barford, Frank Galati, Jon Michael Hill, Francis Guinan, Tina Landau, Tracy Letts, Amy Morton, William Petersen, Rondi Reed, Anna D. Shapiro, Eric Simonson and Alan Wilder.
"Steppenwolf dedicates its 2009-2010 season to the power of belief.... Read More |
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High School Musical Dances Its Way To Marriott Theatre
 High School Musical, the theatrical version of Disney's Emmy Award-winning mega-hit, sings and dances its way onto Marriott Theatre for Young Audiences' stage from March 10th through May 9th and is expected to be the hottest ticket in the Chicago-land area for families and young audiences. High School Musical is directed and choreographed by Marriott Theatre for Young Audiences favorite, Rachel.... Read More
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Chicago The Musical, Featuring Charlotte d'Amboise and John O'Hurley Comes to The Windy City
 Now celebrating ten glorious years of girls, glitz and glamour across the country, the record-breaking smash hit musical Chicago is returning to the Windy City for a limited run February 25 - March 8, 2009 at the Ford Center for the Performing Arts, Oriental Theatre (24 W.Randolph St). Charlotte d'Amboise will star as Roxie Hart in a limited engagement of the.... Read More
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Chicago Shakespeare Theater's World Stage Series Presents Sweet William
 Chicago Shakespeare Theater's (CST) international programming initiative, the World's Stage Series, brings to Chicago Michael Pennington's Sweet William, a one-man show melding biography with performance of the life and works of Shakespeare for 20 performances only February 3 - 22, 2009 Upstairs at Chicago Shakespeare.
Building on the facts that are known about Shakespeare's life, and drawing on the plays themselves, Pennington creates a portrait of.... Read More |
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Theatre for Little Ones: Bob The Builder Set To Play the Chicago Theatre
 Presented locally by Madison Square Garden Entertainment, Bob the Builder Live! Spud's Big Mess will be making a stop in Chicago, Saturday, Feb. 7 for two performances at 2 and 5 p.m. at the legendary Chicago Theatre, 175 N. State St. It is Bob the Builder's first touring stage show in the United States in five years.
"Bob the Builder has become one of the biggest.... Read More |
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August: Osage County Returns to Chicago
 Broadway In Chicago has announced the return Chicago engagement of August: Osage County, the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning play that tells the bitingly funny and sensationally entertaining tale of the Weston family of Pawhuska, Oklahoma. Academy Award-winning actress Estelle Parsons will star as the family matriarch, Violet Weston. August: Osage County comes to Chicago's Ford Center for the Performing Arts, Oriental Theatre for a limited.... Read More
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Hamlet: 1 Man; 18 Characters; 90 Minutes
 The Prague Shakespeare Festival, Prague's only professional English-language classical theatre company, and the Mermaid Theatre Company will present the American premiere of a new one man presentation of William Shakespeare's Hamlet by PSF Artistic Director Guy Roberts in Chicago at the Gorilla Tango Theatre February 6th-15th, 2009 in preparation for a May 2009 European premiere
One man. Eighteen Characters. Ninety Minutes. In.... Read More |
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Steppenwolf Theatre Company's MaTEENee Series
Steppenwolf Theatre presents the MaTEENée Series: an affordable way for high school students to see Steppenwolf productions, meet Chicago's most celebrated artists and connect with other teens who are passionate about theatre.
MaTEENée tickets cost $15 and include: a Steppenwolf performance, lunch and a post-show discussion with actors featured in the production - hosted by Steppenwolf’s Young Adults Council. The 2008-2009 MaTEENée.... Read More |
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Writers' Theatre Presents the World Premiere of Brett Neveu's Old Glory
 Writers' Theatre Artistic Director Michael Halberstam and Executive Director Kathryn M. Lipuma announce Brett Neveu's Old Glory, a world premiere production commissioned through Writers' Theatre Literary Development Initiative. The production, directed by William Brown, will run February 3-March 29, 2009, at Writers' Theatre, 325 Tudor Court in Glencoe.
Shrouded in mystery, the circumstances surrounding six ordinary people grappling with the.... Read More |
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Tickets for Our Town starring David Schwimmer go on sale
 Tickets for Lookingglass Theatre Company's production of Our Town by Thornton Wilder and directed by 2008 Tony Award-winning Steppenwolf Ensemble Member Anna D. Shapiro and Steppenwolf Artistic Associate Jessica Thebus, will be on sale to the public beginning at 10:00am on Friday, January 16, 2009.
The production will run February 11 - April 5, 2009, at Lookingglass Theatre Company's home inside.... Read More |
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Xanadu Makes Its Chicago Premiere
 Broadway's surprise hit musical Xanadu is coming to Chicago's Drury Lane Theatre Water Tower Place beginning Friday, January 16, 2009. Xanadu opened at Broadway's Helen Hayes Theatre to critical acclaim on July 10, 2007 as the first new musical of the 2007/2008 season. Since the 2007 opening, the award-winning musical garnered the best reviews of the season, with critics and audiences leaping.... Read More
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Timeline Theatre Presents The World Premiere of Not Enough Air
 TimeLine Theatre Company will present the world premiere of Not Enough Air by Masha Obolensky and directed by Nick Bowling. This world premiere drama follows famed journalist-turned-playwright Sophie Treadwell as she is drawn into the real-life tragedy of Ruth Snyder's famous 1928 murder trial. Treadwell is haunted by Ruth's story and finds herself compelled to bring it to the stage in.... Read More
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ATC presents True West and topdog/underdog in Rotating Repertory
American Theater Company (ATC) continues its ambitious Season 24 with the inauguration of American Classic Repertory featuring Sam Shepard's True West directed by ATC Artistic Director PJ Paparelli and Suzan-Lori Parks' topdog/underdog directed by Congo Square Theatre Company Artistic Director Derrick Sanders. American Classic Repertory will run at American Theatre Company, 1909 W Byron St, Chicago.
American Classic Repertory.... Read More |
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Monty Python's Spamalot Comes to Chicago
 Broadway In Chicago will soon present the Tony Award-winning Best Musical of 2005, Monty Python's Spamalot, at the Auditorium Theatre of Roosevelt University. Starring Richard Chamberlain as King Arthur, Monty Python's Spamalot will run for a limited engagement January 20 to February 1, 2009.
The Tony and Grammy Award winning Monty Python's Spamalot continues to taunt cities across the nation. "A.... Read More |
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Chicago Shakespeare Theater Introduces Theater to Young Audiences
 Chicago Shakespeare Theater (CST) continues its 2008-09 CST Family Series with Short Shakespeare! A Midsummer Night's Dream, a 75-minute abridged production of Shakespeare's classic comedy, adapted and directed by Amanda Dehnert. CST's Short Shakespeare! Series is designed for parents, grandparents, teachers-and all adults with children in their lives-to introduce young people to theater. The production will run for seven.... Read More
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Clunie's Living Green pays homage to A Raisin in the Sun
 If you get out, are you obligated to give back? Living Green, a world premiere drama by Victory Gardens Playwrights Ensemble member Gloria Bond Clunie (North Star, Shoes), explores this and other thorny questions in its story of a well-to-do African American family "living green" in a mostly white Chicago suburb, who are contemplating a move back to the old neighborhood.Read More
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Northlight Theatre presents the World Premiere of Po Boy Tango
 Northlight Theatre continues its 2008-2009 Season with the World Premiere of Po Boy Tango by Kenneth Lin, directed by Chay Yew. The production, featuring Ken Narasaki, Jeanne Sakata and Jacqueline Williams, runs January 7-February 15, 2009 at Northlight Theatre, 9501 Skokie Blvd in Skokie.
A celebration of the human spirit and the joy of cooking, Po Boy Tango tells the.... Read More |
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Chicago Shakespeare's World Stage Presents The Investigation
 Chicago Shakespeare Theater's international programming initiative, the World's Stage Series, brings to Chicago world-renowned playwright Peter Weiss's The Investigation, based on transcripts of the 1964 Frankfurt World War II crimes trials. Urwintore Artistic Director Dorcy Rugamba's 80-minute abridgement of Weiss's five-hour script will be performed by the Rwandan company in French with projected English translation for 10 performances only Upstairs.... Read More
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Charles Newell Directs Premiere Translation of Ibsen's The Wild Duck
 Court Theatre continues its 2008-09 season with the World Premiere translation of Henrik Ibsen's modernist classic The Wild Duck, directed by Artistic Director Charles Newell. The production will run at the MCA Stage at the Museum of Contemporary Art, 220 East Chicago Avenue, January 15 - February 15, 2009
Fresh from his smash hit production of Caroline, or Change, Charles.... Read More |
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Profiles Theatre Hosts An Evening with Neil LaBute: Live and In-Person
 Profiles Theatre, currently celebrating its 20th Anniversary Season, will host a benefit evening with acclaimed playwright and filmmaker Neil LaBute on Saturday, January 3, at Profiles Theatre, 4147 N. Broadway. The event will include a pre-show reception at 6:30 p.m., selected readings of LaBute's work at 7:30 p.m. and a post-show audience talkback and discussion with LaBute. Proceeds from the evening.... Read More
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Rain - A Tribute to the Beatles Makes Its Chicago Premiere At The Auditorium Theatre
 The award-winning Beatles concert, Rain - A Tribute To The Beatles, makes its Chicago debut at the Auditorium Theatre of Roosevelt University (50 E. Congress Pkwy.) for a limited engagement March 3 - 8, 2009. Individual tickets for Rain will go on sale to the public Friday, December 19, 2008 at 10 a.m. and are only available through the Broadway In.... Read More
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Wicked Enters Final Weeks of Performances in Chicago
 Audiences have just six weeks to catch the magic that has entranced the Windy City for three and a half years. The Chicago company of Wicked will take its final bow after the 2 p.m. performance on Sunday, January 25, 2009, following a record-breaking open run at the Ford Center for the Performing Arts, Oriental Theatre. To honor Wicked.... Read More
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Pegasus Players Presents 23rd Annual Young Playwrights Festival
 Pegasus Players will kick off the New Year with its 23rd Annual Young Playwrights Festival, a professional production of three selected one-act plays written by Chicago teenagers. This year marks the program's twenty-third annual showcase at Pegasus Players, at 1145 W. Wilson Avenue in the O'Rourke Center at Truman College, Chicago, which will be performed January 8 -.... Read More
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O'Neill in the 21st Century
 Goodman Theatre rings in the New Year with an eight-play landmark theatrical event, A Global Exploration: Eugene O'Neill in the 21st Century curated by Artistic Director Robert Falls, January 7 through March 8, 2009. Over 100 artists from six theater companies around the world bring their highly contemporary, inventive interpretations of O'Neill's dramas for the Goodman's Exploration-viewing the.... Read More
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Rob Roy The Musical Set To Play Arie Crown Theater
 Rob Roy The Musical, a new musical based on the legendary Scottish hero from the late 17th and early 18th centuries will receive its world premiere in Chicago, Feb. 3 - Mar 15. Rob Roy The Musical will be presented at the Arie Crown Theater, located in Lakeside Center at McCormick Place, 2301 S. Lake Shore Drive, Chicago. .... Read More
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William Petersen Joins The Steppenwolf Theatre Ensemble
 Steppenwolf Theatre Company has announced its newest ensemble member: William Petersen. The Steppenwolf ensemble, the longest-existing theater ensemble in the United States, now totals 42 members.
"We are delighted to welcome our long-time friend, William Petersen, into the Steppenwolf ensemble," comments Steppenwolf Artistic Director Martha Lavey. "Billy was one of the founding members of Chicago's Remains Theatre, an ensemble theater.... Read More |
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Giving Thanks for Chicago Theatre
 Every fall you are likely to hear critics and award judges groaning about the over abundance of theatrical openings. But in the true spirit of the season, Theatre in Chicago decided to give you ten reasons to be thankful for our many theatrical blessings in the Windy City. Here is our top ten list in descending order.
10. The Awards
Chicago leads the country in award-winning regional.... Read More |
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The Screwtape Letters Will Celebrate C.S. Lewis' 110th Birthday At The Mercury Theater
 The Screwtape Letters, the hit drama based on C.S. Lewis' classic novel, now playing at The Mercury Theater, 3745 N. Southport Avenue, will host a birthday celebration in honor of C.S. Lewis' 110th birthday on Thursday, December 4. Following the 8 p.m. performance, a panel of leading C.S. Lewis experts will discuss his influence as one of the most provocative theologians.... Read More
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The Bowery Boys to Make World Premiere at the Marriott Theatre
 The Bowery Boys, a new musical, will make its highly anticipated world premiere at the Marriott Theatre, 10 Marriott Drive; previewing December 10th, opening December 17th, and running through February 15th. Inspired by the works of Horatio Alger Jr. and George M. Cohan, The Bowery Boys' book and lyrics are by David H. Bell, with music by Jeremy Cohen.
Set in 1876, New.... Read More |
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Win a Walk-On Role in Wicked
 Wicked enthusiasts have a rare chance to appear on stage in costume during a performance before the hit musical flies out of Chicago this January. Patrons can make a $20 donation to Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS (BC/EFA) for a chance to win a walk-on role in Chicago's longest running Broadway musical. Wicked Chicago company members will make available a limited number.... Read More
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Mary Poppins Tickets Go On Sale
Tickets for the long-awaited production of Mary Poppins will go on sale to the public Friday, November 14, 2008 with a special public pre-sale at 8 a.m. at the Cadillac Palace Theatre box office. Telephone ticketing lines, internet, and other box office outlets will have tickets available to the public beginning at 10 a.m. The eagerly anticipated North American National Tour will.... Read More |
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Chicago Theatres Bring Holiday Cheers
 Haul out the holly, it's that time of year Chicago theatres are trotting out their holiday shows, some familiar and others not so. Theatre in Chicago lists around forty holiday themed shows this year, meaning that between Thanksgiving and Christmas area theatergoers could get a daily dose of holiday cheer if they have a hankering. And that's not counting the many non-holiday plays.... Read More
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Cut To The Quick - A Festival of Short Works
One acts from Chicagoans Sean Graney, Brett Neveu, Laura Jacqmin and Mark Young are among those lined up for the side project theatre company's fall one-act festival, Cut to the Quick which will premiere November 16, 2008 and run through December 21.
The festival launches the company's 9th season, which will focus solely on a celebration of short works. Among the works in.... Read More |
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Director Berry Stages Retro Figaro for Remy Bumppo
 At the dawn of the French Revolution, when the ruling class made extravagant displays of their wealth and power, Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais wrote The Marriage of Figaro, one of France's most controversial plays about lower classes striving for freedom and women breaking from traditional roles. In order to resonate with contemporary audiences, director Jonathan Berry sets Ranjit Bolt's adaptation of.... Read More
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Lillian Hellmania! To Play Three Chicago Theatres
 Lillian Hellmania!, a moveable feast of a festival celebrating the work of one of the most talented and controversial American writers of the twentieth century, will play a broken run this fall and winter as three of her best known works are staged by Eclipse Theatre Company, Shattered Globe Theatre and City Lit Theater Company. A festival pass will enable audience members to.... Read More
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'Addams Family' to Make World Premiere in Chicago
 Broadway In Chicago has announced they will host the world premiere of The Addams Family, a new musical based on the bizarre and beloved family of characters created by legendary cartoonist Charles Addams, beginning performances Friday, November 13, 2009 at the Ford Center for the Performing Arts, Oriental Theatre (24 W. Randolph St., Chicago). Produced by Elephant Eye Theatrical (Stuart Oken,.... Read More
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Jeff Awards Exhibit Celebrates Four Decades of Chicago Theatre
 As part of its 40th Anniversary Celebration, the Jeff Awards Committee is presenting an exhibition Celebrating Four Decades of Chicago Theatre, now through November 30, at 72 East Randolph. The exhibit is free and open to the public Tuesday-Saturday from 10am-6pm and Sunday from 11am-4pm.
A special reception will be held on Monday, November 10 from 4pm-6pm with guests from the city, theatre community.... Read More |
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Timeline Theatre Presents Chicago Premiere Of 'A House With No Walls'
 Philadelphia wants to build its new American Museum of Liberty on the grounds of George Washington's home and slave quarters. Soon a conservative academic star and a liberal political activist are confronting each other with polarizing questions of African-American identity and legacy. Elegantly juxtaposed with this contemporary conflict is the true story of one of Washington's slaves as she contemplates.... Read More
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Theatre Involvement
 Wicked enthusiasts looking to make their night on the town very Ozmopolitan are invited to dine with cast members on Wednesday, October 29 and November 5, 2008. For $30, in addition to the price of a ticket, fans and cast members will dine prior to the show at 5:30 p.m. at Hotel Monaco (225 N. Wabash Ave.), followed by a 7:30 performance.... Read More
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Chicago Shakespeare Theater and Chicago Dramatists Top List at Jeff Awards
On Monday, October 20, at a star-studded gala celebrating 40 years of the Jeff Awards, The Joseph Jefferson Awards Committee presented 37 awards to celebrate excellence in Chicago-area Equity theatre. Over 700 gathered at the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts in Skokie to honor 150 nominees from Equity theatrical productions that opened between August 1, 2007, and July.... Read More |
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Goodman Theatre to Present World Premiere of 'Ruined'
 Goodman Theatre opens its "Strong Women, Strong Voices" Owen Theatre Series with the world premiere of Lynn Nottage's Ruined, directed by Kate Whoriskey and co-produced with Manhattan Theatre Club. Commissioned by the Goodman and first seen in the 2007 New Stages Series, Ruined was developed through Nottage and Whoriskey's pilgrimage to Uganda-where countless interviews and interactions resulted in a portrait of.... Read More
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Changing of the Guards at Stage Left
 This season there's a whole lot of moving and shaking going on around some of Chicago's most reputable Off-Loop theatres. After eight years, Stage Left Theatre's Artistic Director Kevin Heckman is now the Managing Director for Evanston's Next Theatre, where it has just been announced that Bostonian Jason Southerland will succeed the highly esteemed Jason Loewith as A.D. Taking Heckman's place.... Read More
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Steep Christens New Space With 'Seven Days'
 Steep Theatre, the small but critically-respected storefront company known for its productions of The Last Days Of Judas Iscariot in 2006 and Brecht's The Resistible Rise Of Arturo Ui last season, is moving. Formerly located at the corner of Sheffield and Sheridan Road (where Sheridan ends its short jaunt west and turns back north again), the company has built out a brand new.... Read More
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Chicago Returns to Chicago
 Now celebrating ten glorious years of girls, glitz and glamour across the country, the record-breaking smash hit musical Chicago will be returning to the Windy City for a limited run February 25 - March 8, 2009 at the Ford Center for the Performing Arts, Oriental Theatre (24 W.Randolph St.).
Murder. Greed. Corruption. Violence. Exploitation. Adultery. Treachery. Set amidst the razzle-dazzle.... Read More |
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First Folio offers a unique experience with or without Shakespeare
 Chicago boasts a slew of award winning, multi-million dollar theatre edifices built of brick, glass, concrete and cement, but few can match the unique environment that First Folio Theatre has called home since 1996. This small Equity company, which has now dropped Shakespeare from its title to more accurately reflect the range of work it offers, is handsomely situated on the.... Read More
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Apple Tree Theatre's Eileen Boevers to Receive Special Jeff Award
 Eileen Boevers, founder and recently retired Executive Artistic Director of Apple Tree Theatre in Highland Park, will receive a Special Jeff Award at this year's Jeff Awards Ceremony on October 20, 2008. Mrs. Boevers has produced, directed, taught, performed and written for Apple Tree Theatre since its founding in 1983. During her tenure Apple Tree Theatre garnered 112 Jeff nominations and 28 Jeff.... Read More
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Parents Watch the Show, Victory Gardens Watches Your Kids
Parents, when was the last time you and your spouse enjoyed an evening of live theater - without worrying about the high cost and hassle of finding someone to watch your kids? Probably not since before you had them!
It's time to act like adults again, and Victory Gardens Theater's Family
Saturday series makes it easy.
Victory Gardens Theater is.... Read More |
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30 Years of New Plays and Playwrights
In terms of organization and real estate, Chicago Dramatists is a relatively small operation, but it is a giant in its ongoing pursuit of introducing new plays and playwrights to the theatre world. Where some companies focus on an ensemble of actors such as Steppenwolf, others specialize in daring directorial innovations. At Chicago Dramatists, the star is the playwright. As Managing.... Read More |
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Preserving Our Past, Fostering Our Future
 Archive, gallery, library, study center, museum... however you picture the place, Chicago's performing arts community needs somewhere to celebrate its past, anchor its present and envision its future. Richard Christiansen, former Chief Critic for the Chicago Tribune, was the first to articulate this need in an essay published in the Tribune last March. In an interview on this week's Talk Theatre in.... Read More
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Turn of the Century Kicks Off Goodman Theatre's 2008/2009 Season
 Goodman Theatre starts its 2008/2009 season on a high note with the greatest music of the 20th century in Turn of the Century, a star-studded romantic tour through time and the American songbook, directed by the nine-time Tony Award-winning director/ choreographer Tommy Tune. The latest work from Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice- the Tony Award-winning team who co-authored the smash sensation.... Read More
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Amelia Earhart Charts Course for New Colony
 Amelia Earhart was much more than a historical figure or the subject of an unexplainable mystery, she was an American original whose spirit still fascinates today. And as the title character in a brand new theatrical work by a young and emerging group of Chicago artists, her legend inspires a new generation over 70 years after her disappearance. The title of.... Read More
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Rent to Return to Chicago
Broadway In Chicago has announced the new national tour of Rent, starring original Broadway cast members Adam Pascal and Anthony Rapp, will play a limited engagement at Chicago's Ford Center for the Performing Arts, Oriental Theatre (24 W. Randolph St.) March 31 - April 12, 2009.
Adam Pascal and Anthony Rapp originated the roles of Roger Davis and Mark Cohen at.... Read More |
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Treasures from the Attic
 One of the best kept secrets on the North Shore may be the Attic Playhouse, now beginning its eleventh season above an Indian restaurant in downtown Highwood. It's the kind of charming and intimate venue where everyone knows your name and goes out of their way to make you feel like a member of the family. Maybe that's because the.... Read More
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American Theater Company Presents The Chicago Premiere Of 'The People's Temple'
American Theater Company (ATC) kicks off its Season 24 with The People's Temple about Jonestown and the followers of Jim Jones' People Temple movement. The production, directed by co-creator of The Laramie Project Leigh Fondakowski, will run September 4 - September 28, 2008 at American Theater Company, 1909 W Byron St, Chicago.
The play centers around Jonestown, Guyana in 1978 where an interracial religious group,.... Read More |
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Theatre Under the Stars
 Where do some of Chicago's best actors and directors spend their summers? For a growing number of them, it's Spring Green, Wisconsin, known as the summer home of architect Frank Lloyd Wright called Taliesin, and also for one of the finest classical repertory companies in the country, the American Players Theatre. Nestled in a quaint and beautiful outdoor amphitheater built into the.... Read More
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Jeff Awards Announce Nominations for Chicago Equity Theatrical Productions
Continuing a tradition of recognizing achievement in Chicago's diverse theatre scene, The Jeff Awards announced 150 nominations in 35 categories for Chicago Equity theatrical productions which opened between August 1, 2007 and July 31, 2008. The Jeff Awards sent judges to the opening nights of 123 openings offered by 52 producing organizations. From these openings, 88 Equity productions were "Jeff.... Read More |
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Circle Theatre Hunts for Another Hit with 'Escanaba In Love'
 As a native of the great state of Michigan, I can speak to a certain wry affection for the habits of the denizens of that northernmost one-third of my home state known as the Upper Peninsula. Cold, isolated, and often neglected (it once tried to secede from Michigan and form its own State of Superior), it covers an area larger than.... Read More
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Learning to Play at Piven Theatre Workshop
 This year, the Piven Theatre Workshop celebrates 35 years of training actors how to play. Byrne and Joyce Piven founded the Piven Theatre Workshop in 1973 to teach then-revolutionary techniques growing out of the improvisational theatre games and story theatre of Viola Spolin and her son, Paul Sills. The technique uses what Joyce Piven calls "disciplined play" - games, improvisation, storytelling.... Read More
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The Hypocrites Open Season With 'The Threepenny Opera'
 The Hypocrites prepare for the opening of their 2008 - 2009 Season with Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill's The Threepenny Opera, directed by Sean Graney. The Hypocrites are taking their singular theatrical style and applying it for the first time to a musical. Performances of The Threepenny Opera will run August 30 - October 12 at the Steppenwolf Merle Reskin Garage .... Read More
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Mary-Arrchie prepares for annual Abbie Hoffman Died For Our Sins
 Mary-Arrchie Theatre Co. has been wrapping up its last 19 seasons by inviting theater groups and performing individuals into its performance space at Angel Island, 735 W. Sheridan to celebrate the anniversary of the Woodstock Music and Art Fair of 1969. Abbie Hoffman Died For Our Sins was inspired by the need to do something to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Woodstock..... Read More
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Eclipse Theatre Announces 2009 Season
 Eclipse Theatre Company of Chicago announced that their 2009 season, including four full productions, will be the second and final year of celebrating their past ten years focusing on one playwright per season. Eclipse Theatre's 2009 Season: Celebration Series Part II will showcase some of Eclipse's past featured playwrights, including works by Rebecca Gilman, Pearl Cleage, John Guare and Romulus Linney. Eclipse will.... Read More
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Dirty Dancing Prepares for Chicago
Nobody puts Baby in a corner, but come September 28 they'll certainly put her on stage, along with 39 other actors and actresses who make up the cast of the U.S. Premiere of Dirty Dancing, opening at the Cadillac Palace Theatre in downtown Chicago. Already rehearsals are underway for what could prove to be the biggest theatrical event in Chicago .... Read More |
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On Theatre Reviewing
 Theatre reviewers make personal, un-testable and necessarily fallible judgments that have enormous impact on the careers of artists. Former New York Times critic Frank Rich could once single-handedly make or break a Broadway show. He was rewarded with the moniker "the Butcher of Broadway." The relationship between reviewer and reviewed can get pretty cranky.
But most critics sincerely love the theatre, admire theatre artists.... Read More |
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Xanadu Premieres in Chicago
 Broadway In Chicago has announced the surprise hit Broadway musical Xanadu will premiere in Chicago at the Drury Lane Theatre Water Tower Place beginning January 16, 2009. Tickets will go on-sale at a later date to be announced.
Xanadu opened at Broadway's Helen Hayes Theatre to critical acclaim on July 10, 2007 as the first new musical of the 2007-2008 season. Since the 2007.... Read More |
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Profiles Theatre Announces 20th Season
Artistic Directors Joe Jahraus and Darrell W. Cox announce Profiles Theatre's 20th Anniversary Season, to include five new plays- two by acclaimed Chicago playwrights Jason Wells and Ellen Fairey. Profiles' 2008-2009 Season is the most ambitious offering in its distinguished twenty-year history and includes a world premiere, a U.S. premiere and two Midwest premieres.
Profiles Theatre will present the first full Chicago.... Read More |
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Chicago Theater Happenings
 Due to high demand for tickets, Cirque du Soleil has added the final 18 performances to the Chicago engagement of Kooza. The final Kooza performance in Chicago will now be August 24, 2008, under the blue and yellow Grand Chapiteau at the United Center (parking lot K).
Kooza is a return to the origins of Cirque du Soleil that combines two circus.... Read More |
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Chicago Leading Lady Back Where She Belongs
 Two years ago, Chicago actress and singer Alene Robertson suffered a life-threatening brain aneurysm that sent shock waves through the theatre community. When Theatre in Chicago reported the news, we were inundated with e-mails from friends and fans of the plucky musical theatre star, who was in the midst of starring in a 30th Anniversary Tour of Annie in a role she.... Read More
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Theatre Building Chicago Presents the 15th Annual Stages
 Theatre Building Chicago will present Stages 2008, a festival of 4 new musicals in progress and 4 panel discussions of musical theatre in America on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, August 15-17, 2008. The three-day musical extravaganza performs each new work twice in concert style formats. Now in its fifteenth season, Stages focuses on the development of the material, the craft of writing and.... Read More
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Chicago DCA Theater Announces New Incubator Program
Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs Theater introduces the Incubator Series, a program designed to support the creation of new work by emerging Chicago theater companies. Utilizing Chicago DCA Theater resources and rehearsal space in the Chicago Cultural Center, participants will explore new projects, develop and refine styles, and share their process with the public during a special showcase event..... Read More |
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New Block of Jersey Boys Tickets and other Theater Happenings
 Jersey Boys, the story of Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons, will soon place a new block of tickets on-sale. Audiences may plan for the season ahead as tickets for the holiday block of performances October 14, 2008 - January 11, 2009 go on-sale to the public Friday, July 25 at 10 a.m.
Directed by two-time Tony Award-winner Des McAnuff, Jersey Boys.... Read More |
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Sheldon Patinkin Knows His History
 The vibrant history of the American musical is explored in Chicago author Sheldon Patinkin’s encyclopedic and opinionated new book, "No Legs, No Jokes, No Chance" : A History of American Musical Theater. Patinkin guides readers through the evolution of the American musical from its roots in 19th Century burlesque, revue and operettato the phenomenon of modern-day extravaganzas such as Wicked and Rent. .... Read More
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Australia's Strange Fruit Coming To Chicago
 Coming to Millennium Park this summer for five days as part of the Family Fun Festival is Australia's Strange Fruit, the Melbourne-based performing arts company that fuses dance, circus and spectacle theater in their work. Perched atop fourteen-foot flexible poles that bend and sway in the air, Australia's Strange Fruit can be found outdoors in the Chase Promenade Central from July.... Read More
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New Seasons Announced
 Raven Theatre has announced their 2008/2009 Season, which includes Stephen Adly Guirgis' searing Jesus Hopped the 'A' Train, the world premiere of Tom Patrick's darkly comic Misamerica, and Jon Robin Baitz's adaptation of Henrik Ibsen's classic Hedda Gabler.
Jesus Hopped the 'A' Train
October 7 – December
Raven begins its 26th season with the playwright responsible for The Last Days of Judas.... Read More |
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Dirty Dancing Principal Cast Announced
The U.S touring production of the international hit Dirty Dancing – The Classic Story On Stage has announced principal casting for the upcoming pre-Broadway U.S. premiere. Josef Brown will re-create the role of Johnny Castle direct from the London production and Amanda Leigh Cobb will play Frances "Baby" Houseman. Chicago's own Britta Lazenga - member of the Joffrey Ballet -.... Read More |
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Chicago Theater Happenings
 Artistic Director Jamil Khoury and Executive Director Malik Gillani announced Silk Road Theatre Project's collaboration with San Francisco's Golden Thread Productions and New York City's Lark Play Development Center in New York to form Middle East America: A National New Plays Initiative. This tri-coastal initiative represents the first-ever national effort to actively cultivate and support development of Middle Eastern American.... Read More
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Flying Solo
 Every year Live Bait Theater produces stellar solo performance, presenting world premiere shows on a wide variety of themes during the Fillet of Solo Festival. This year's lineup for the festival, now in it's 13th year, kicks off in July and will have solo performances exploring spirituality, woodland creatures and suburban sprawl.
The 2008 Fillet of Solo Festival Schedule is:
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Theater On The Lake
 Each summer, the Chicago Park District's Theater on the Lake remounts eight shows from the previous off-Loop theatre season. Eight weeks, eight shows, eight chances to sample some of the best of what Chicago's flourishing off-Loop theatre scene has to offer; it's a kind of Taste of Chicago for theatre-goers.
The venerable open-air building, located on the lakefront at.... Read More |
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Jeff Award-Winning Actor Stef Tovar Launches The Route 66 Theatre Company
 Stef Tovar, Jeff Award-winning actor, American Theater Company ensemble member and former resident of Los Angeles, has announced that he has launched The Route 66 Theatre Company. Its mission is to cultivate dynamic, relevant and provocative stories that bridge the 2,448 miles of cultural divide, seeking to be the leading arts organization for both national artists and audiences along the historic.... Read More
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Theatre Tidbits
 Theater Oobleck's The Strangerer will be the latest Chicago show heading out to New York. The show, which is currently running at the Chopin Theatre through June 29th and has received rave reviews, will be opening on July 9th for a run at the 199 seat Barrow Street Theatre located at 27 Barrow Street in New York.
.... Read More
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Victory Gardens Theater Announces Winners of Ignition
Victory Gardens Theater has announced the six plays selected for Ignition: Emerging Writers of Color, a summer festival with a goal to introduce exceptional new writers under the age of 40 to Victory Gardens and to jump start future productions of the winning plays around the country. The six plays were selected out of 120 submissions from throughout the U.S. .... Read More |
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Spring Awakening Coming To Chicago
 Broadway In Chicago has announced the premiere of Broadway's most talked about new musical and the biggest Tony Award-winner in years! Spring Awakening, the eight-time Tony Award winning Broadway musical, will play a limited engagement in Chicago next summer, August 4 - 16, 2009. Chicagoans can get a free "taste" of the production when Spring Awakening cast members perform at.... Read More
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Steppenwolf's August: Osage County Wins Big at The Tony Awards
 Steppenwolf Theatre Company's critically-acclaimed American play August: Osage County by Steppenwolf ensemble member Tracy Letts and directed by ensemble member Anna D. Shapiro, won big at the 2008 Tony Awards garnering 5 awards including:
Best Play - Tracy Letts
Best Leading Actress - Deanna Dunagan
Best Direction - Anna D. Shapiro
Best Featured Actress - Rondi Reed
Best Scenic Design -.... Read More |
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DCA Theater Announces Fall 2008 Season
Chicago DCA Theater offers downtown audiences a great opportunity to experience Chicago's vibrant off-Loop theater scene with an innovative and exciting look at the many diverse theater companies that call Chicago home. The Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs continues 2008 with a full roster of events at the DCA Theaters which include the Storefront Theater, located at 66 East Randolph.... Read More |
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M*A*S*H Star In Chicago Premiere Of 'Church Basement Ladies'
 The hilarious new musical comedy Church Basement Ladies will make its Chicago premiere at The North Shore Center for Performing Arts in Skokie, beginning September 10, 2008. William Christopher, the Evanston native who played “Father Mulcahy” for 11 years on the show that many consider to be the best TV sitcom of all time, M*A*S*H, is coming home to headline.... Read More
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Theatre Happenings
 Looking to see glimpses of the top shows in town...for free? Broadway In Chicago, along with the City of Chicago, have announced the Broadway In Chicago Concert In The Park, a free event featuring Broadway's hottest shows during the city's legendary Taste of Chicago festival.
Performers will include the Chicago casts of Jersey Boys, Wicked, and SHOUT! The Mod Musical. Other.... Read More |
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Lifeline Theatre and Theo Ubique Receive Highest Number of Jeff Awards
 At its typically festive and buoyant Non-Equity Awards Ceremony at the Park West, the Jeff Awards Committee gave out 27 Non-Equity Jeff Awards in 23 categories, in addition to a Special Award honoring Michael Menendian and JoAnn Montemurro of Raven Theatre for their lifelong contributions to Chicago theatre, in an event emceed by composer - actor Jon Steinhagen.
Top honors for Outstanding Production.... Read More |
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New Grown-Ups on the Block
 Theatre Mir's remarkably assured production of David Edgar's The Prisoner's Dilemma launches a promising new company onto the Chicago theatre scene. But this is not a scrappy company of 20-somethings fresh out of theatre school. Artistic Director Rob Chambers, currently a faculty member at DePaul, has been directing for 30 years while pursuing a parallel 25-year career in arts administration, including.... Read More
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Theatre Tidbits
 This week is the last chance for Chicago audiences to catch Russian On The Side before it is taken to Broadway. The Broadway producer, Michael Alden, wanted to open the show in Chicago before taking it to Broadway because "Chicago audiences are diverse, smart and discerning. From downtown musicals to daring new dramas, Chicago has fast become the city where new.... Read More
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David Schwimmer To Star In 'Our Town' at Lookingglass Theatre
 Lookingglass Theatre Company announced casting for its 21st season, including participation from more than 20 company members including former star of the TV sitcom "Friends" David Schwimmer who will play the lead in the production of Our Town. Other ensemble members include Eva Barr, Mara Blumenfeld, Thomas Cox, Christine Dunford, Laura Eason, Raymond Fox, Doug Hara, David Kersnar, John Musial, Dan Ostling, Joey.... Read More
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Million Dollar Quartet To Make Midwest Premiere at Goodman Theatre
 Million Dollar Quartet, a new musical inspired by a famed 1956 recording session that brought together four of the most legendary figures in the history of music - Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and Elvis Presley - will make its Midwest debut at Goodman Theatre and be directed by Eric Schaeffer and Floyd Mutrux.
On December 4, 1956, an auspicious twist.... Read More |
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Chicago Goes Blonde and Wicked Changes
 The musical Legally Blonde, based on the hit film by the same title, will be coming to Chicago's Ford Center for the Performing Arts, Oriental Theatre for a short-run May 12 - 31, 2009.
The musical - highly popular with the 'tween crowd, thanks in part to its television debut on the MTV network last fall centers on sorority star Elle Woods.... Read More |
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Take The Leap Into Theatre
 The fifth consecutive year of LeapFest begins soon with LeapFest 5 and will bring audiences "what’s next" in Chicago theatre. The five new plays will all be performed at the Stage Left Theatre at 3408 N. Sheffield in Chicago and promise to be entertaining, compelling stories about our world today.
LeapFest is an annual series of emerging plays with socio-political themes, presented as workshop.... Read More |
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Strawdog Theatre Company Announces 21st Season: Coping With Disaster
Strawdog Theatre Company of Chicago announced their 21st anniversary season of presenting "the whole wide world in a little black box," with the three mainstage plays, including Karel Capek's R.U.R.-Rossum's Universal Robots, Arthur Miller's All My Sons, and Peter Barnes' Red Noses. These productions, plus on-going late night offerings, will be held at Strawdog's space in the heart of Chicago's Lakeview.... Read More |
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Steppenwolf Concludes Season with Superior Donuts By Tracy Letts
Steppenwolf Theatre Company concludes its 32nd season with the world premiere Superior Donuts by ensemble member and Pulitzer Prize winner Tracy Letts and directed by ensemble member Tina Landau. The production will run June 19 - August 17, 2008 in Steppenwolf's Downstairs Theatre.
Ensemble member Tracy Letts received the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his critically-acclaimed play August: Osage County,.... Read More |
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Relatively Close At Victory Gardens and Other Theatre Tidbits
 Victory Gardens Theater wraps up its 2007-2008 season with Relatively Close, running June 6 through July 13. Relatively Close is a new work by James Sherman and tells the story of three Chicago sisters, now grown, who return to the family's old vacation home on Lake Michigan where they spent their childhood summers. One sister wants to keep the old place,.... Read More
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Goodman Theatre Prepares For Their 4th Latino Theatre Festival
 Goodman Theatre prepares for its 4th biennial Latino Theatre Festival, curated by Resident Artistic Associate Henry Godinez, which will run August 8 - 24, 2008. Chicago companies participating in the festival include Albany Park Theater Project, Teatro Luna, Teatro Vista and Aguijon Theater Company. Tickets go on sale May 29.
"This summer's Latino Theatre Festival unites old and new friends of.... Read More |
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The Chicago Company of Wicked Will Take Its Final Bow
The Chicago company of Wicked will play its final performance on Sunday, January 25, 2009, at the Ford Center for the Performing Arts, Oriental Theatre. Upon closing, the record-breaking production will have played exactly 1,500 performances and grossed over $200 million at the box office.
Wicked /Chicago started performances on Friday, June 24, 2005. During the course of its open-ended.... Read More |
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Raven Theatre Founders to Receive Special Award at Jeff Awards Ceremony
 Michael Menendian, Producing Artistic Director, and JoAnn Montemurro, Co-Artistic Director, of the 25-year-old Raven Theatre will receive a Special Award at the 35th Annual Non-Equity Jeff Awards Ceremony on June 9, 2008, honoring their contributions to Chicago theatre.
Michael Menendian and JoAnn Montemurro founded Raven Theatre in 1983 with a mission to establish itself as an important voice in regional theatre focusing.... Read More |
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The Lincoln Park Theater To Open in Chicago Landmark Building
 In a major announcement expanding the landscape of Chicago’s theater scene, Theater Producer Walter Stearns announced plans to open The Lincoln Park Theater, 1425 W. Fullerton Ave., in the fall of 2009. The venue, formerly the Fullerton State Bank Building, will undergo a multi million dollar renovation and will include a 299-seat state-of-the-art proscenium theatre and gallery space. Porchlight .... Read More
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Theater War Garden and More
 Walkabout Theater Company and NeighborSpace announced the world premiere of War Garden, a comic and historic theater production and event celebrating Chicago's history of community gardening. Beginning June 13 in Grant Park, the production features larger-than-life historical figures, patriotic songs, vegetable warfare and audience participation and travels to five additional community gardens in Chicago before returning to Grant Park for its final.... Read More
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Theatre Chat
 Love Chicago theatre and can't stop talking about it? Or perhaps new in town and want a valuable insider's perspective on the scene? The Sun-Times is there for you. Hedy Weiss, theatre and dance critic for the Chicago Sun-Times, is host of a new video web chat session direct from the Sun-Times newsroom. "Stage Right With Hedy Weiss" airs Thursdays at 3:30pm, and.... Read More
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August: Osage County and Chicago Shakespeare Theater Garner Tony Award Spotlight
Steppenwolf Theatre Company's critically-acclaimed American play August: Osage County by Steppenwolf ensemble member Tracy Letts, directed by ensemble member Anna D. Shapiro, was nominated for seven 2008 Tony Awards including:
Best Play—Tracy Letts
Best Direction—Anna D. Shapiro
Best Leading Actress—Deanna Dunagan & Amy Morton
Best Featured Actress—Rondi Reed
Best Scenic Design—Todd Rosenthal
Best Lighting Design—Ann G. Wrightson
"Steppenwolf is enormously.... Read More |
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New Wicked Tickets and other Theatre Happenings
As it approaches its third anniversary of residence in the Downtown Theatre District, the record-breaking Chicago company of Wicked will enable a new block of tickets for purchase. Tickets for performances July 29 - November 2, 2008 will go on-sale to the public on Friday, May 9 at 10 a.m.
Breaking multiple box office records since opening, Wicked .... Read More |
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Mamma Mia! Returns to Chicago
 Broadway In Chicago has announced the return of Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus' Mamma Mia!, the smash hit musical based on the songs of ABBA, to Chicago for a limited engagement this September. Performances begin on September 17 and run through September 28 at the Auditorium Theatre of Roosevelt University, 50 E Congress Pkwy, Chicago.
Seen by over 30 million people.... Read More |
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Theatre In Chicago Launches Opening Night Calendar
 If you've been looking for an easy way to find all of the official opening nights for plays in Chicago, look no further. TheatreInChicago.com has launched a dynamic new Chicago Theatre Opening Night Calendar.
Besides providing theatergoers with convenient, regularly updated listings of.... Read More |
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Island of Dr. Moreau and Cabaret Lead The Joseph Jefferson Award Nominees
 The Jeff Awards Committee has announced 113 nominations for Non-Equity Jeff Awards in 23 categories for productions that opened during the 2007-08 season (April 1, 2007 - March 31, 2008). The Committee judged the opening nights of 143 productions offered by 61 non-Equity producing organizations, and recommended 66 of them for further judging, which made these 66 eligible for Non-Equity Jeff Award.... Read More
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Theatre Tidbits
Oh, What A Night the Windy City has in store with not one but Two rockin' reasons to plan a night on the town on Tuesday evenings in May. The Chicago Architecture Foundation (CAF) River Cruise is teaming up the Chicago's own company of Jersey Boys - the legendary blockbuster musical celebrating a record-breaking open-ended run at the LaSalle Bank Theatre.... Read More |
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Pegasus Players' 30th Anniversary Season Announced
 Pegasus Players Founder and Executive Director Arlene Crewdson and Artistic Director Alex Levy have announced the Company’s 30th Anniversary 2008-2009 season, featuring two Chicago Premieres: the politically-charged two-play cycle Continental Divide: Mothers Against & Daughters of the Revolution, October 6 - November 9, 2008, and the one-women show, The Shape of a Girl, March 2 - April 12, 2009: as well as.... Read More
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Steppenwolf Announces Lineup for 4th Annual First Look Repertory of New Work
Steppenwolf Theatre Company has announced the lineup for First Look Repertory of New Work, the 4th annual program featuring three developmental productions of new plays presented in rotation and accompanied by a series of readings, lectures and events around the development of new work. First Look Repertory of New Work runs in The Merle Reskin Garage Theatre, 1624 N. Halsted St.,.... Read More |
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The Kid From Brooklyn Comes To The Mercury Theater
 The Kid From Brooklyn: The Danny Kaye Musical, the critically-acclaimed new musical based on the life of entertainment legend Danny Kaye, is coming to the Mercury Theater, 3745 N. Southport Avenue, Chicago, for a limited engagement previewing May 28, opening June 7 and running through August 24, before making its way to New York City in the spring of.... Read More
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Chicago Shakespeare Theater Stages The Comedy of Errors
 Chicago Shakespeare Theater (CST) concludes its 21st Season with The Comedy of Errors staged by CST Artistic Director Barbara Gaines, whose collaboration with Second City veteran Ron West brings an additional comedic twist to the production. Set in 1940, during the golden age of film, Shakespeare’s comedic classic unfolds as an eccentric group of stage and screen actors gather.... Read More
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Theatre Comes To Taylor Street
 Onesti Entertainment Corporation and Gipeti Entertainment announced the critically acclaimed production of Hizzoner: Daley the First has found a home at the new Frank Sinatra Performing Arts Center, 1431 W. Taylor St. The open-ended run begins Sunday, May 18 at 2 p.m. in "The Upstairs Room," in the National Italian American Sports Hall of Fame, a temporary space until the Frank Sinatra.... Read More
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Broadway In Chicago Announces 2009 Season
 Broadway In Chicago has announced the complete 2009 Broadway In Chicago Season Series. The anticipated Chicago premiere of Mary Poppins, will be joined in the season by Grease, A Chorus Line, A Bronx Tale and Xanadu.
The complete 2009 season lineup includes:
Grease
January 6 - 18, 2009
The one that you want is back! Grease, Time Magazine’s 2007 pick.... Read More |
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Theater on the Lake Revives Productions from Eight Companies for the 56th Season
 The Chicago Park District's 56th annual Theater on the Lake season features reprisals of eight artistically diverse Chicago theater companies June 11 - Aug. 3, 2008. Each production will be performed for five evenings only at the theater at Fullerton Avenue and Lake Michigan.
Hallie Gordon, Artistic Director of Theater on the Lake, comments, "Theater on the Lake is one of Chicago's .... Read More |
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When It Rains, You Save
 April showers mean discounts to A Steady Rain, Chicago Dramatists' hit production now playing through June 8 at the Royal George Theatre, 1641 N. Halsted. On any rainy day through April 30, you can get $10 off tickets to all performances. For tickets, call the box office at 312-988-9000 and mention the code STEADY. This offer is subject to availability and.... Read More
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Steppenwolf Ensemble Member Tracy Letts' August: Osage County Wins 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Drama
 The Pulitzer Prize Board has awarded the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Drama to Steppenwolf Theatre ensemble member Tracy Letts' critically-acclaimed American play August: Osage County.
August: Osage County, a "darkly funny family drama" directed by Steppenwolf ensemble member Anna D. Shapiro, is currently enjoying an open engagement on Broadway, following its sold-out run at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre Company in 2007.
When their.... Read More |
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Celeb Playwrights For Chicago Stories Gala Benefit Announced
 Comedian Jeff Garlin, author Stuart Dybek and community leader Allen Turner are this year's celebrity playwrights for Victory Gardens Theater's Chicago Stories gala, Friday, May 9, 2008, 6pm at the Four Seasons Hotel, 120 E. Delaware in Chicago.
With its annual one-night-only presentation of three 10-minute, celeb-authored plays, Chicago Stories is always the city's most dramatic spring gala, plus a wonderful.... Read More |
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Goodman Theatre to Present World Premiere Of 'The Ballad Of Emmet Till'
 Through countless interviews over the past decade with Emmett Till's family, teachers, classmates and eye-witnesses to the boy's brutal 1955 murder, emerging Chicago playwright Ifa Bayeza has penned a new dramatic work, part history and part mystery: The Ballad of Emmett Till. Oz Scott, who directed for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf by Bayeza's sister.... Read More
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'Dirty Dancing' Dances Into Chicago
Tickets for the U.S. premiere of the international stage hit Dirty Dancing – The Classic Story On Stage will go onsale to the general public Friday, April 4. The National Tour of Dirty Dancing – The Classic Story On Stage will open during a limited engagement in Chicago at the Cadillac Palace Theatre (151 W. Randolph St.) with a.... Read More |
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Theater So Close, It Touches You
Victory Gardens Theater, Chicago's #1 presenter of new work, announced an exciting line-up of two world premieres, a Chicago premiere, a major revival, the return of its smash hit holiday musical The Snow Queen, and a TBA project starring William L. Petersen, to complete its 2008/09 season of "theater so close, it touches you."
The season kicks off.... Read More |
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Lookingglass Theatre Announces 2008/2009 Season
 Lookingglass Theatre Company proudly announces the company's 21st season, to include the World Premiere of The Brother’s Karamazov adapted and directed for Lookingglass by Ensemble Member Heidi Stillman; Thornton Wilder’s Our Town co-directed by Anna D. Shapiro and Jessica Thebus; and The Arabian Nights adapted and directed by Ensemble Member and Tony Award winner Mary Zimmerman. The 2008-2009 Season will.... Read More
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Fools and Foes Share the Stage in Chicago Shakespeare Theater's 2008/09 Season
 Chicago Shakespeare Theater Artistic Director Barbara Gaines and Executive Director Criss Henderson have announced CST's 2008/09 Season. In 10 newly-imagined and classic works throughout the coming year, fierce rivals and witty fools collide on stage in the Theater's ninth season on Navy Pier.
The 2008/09 season of rivalry and revelry begins in June 2008 and runs through June 2009 as follows:
Much Ado About.... Read More |
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Shout! The Mod Musical Swings Into Chicago
 Producers Victoria Lang, Pier Paolo Piccoli, Mark Schwartz and Robert Dragotta have announced the groovilicious Chicago premiere of Shout! The Mod Musical this spring with a limited engagement at the Drury Lane Theatre Water Tower Place (175 E. Chestnut St.) from April 30 – June 22, 2008.
Shout! is a fast-paced journey through the infectious and soulful pop anthems and ballads that.... Read More |
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'Rock N Roll' and 'The Crowd You're In With' Added To Goodman Theatre's Season
Artistic Director Robert Falls announces two more plays to Goodman Theatre's upcoming 2008/2009 season: Rock 'N' Roll by four-time Tony Award winner Tom Stoppard, directed by Charles Newell, artistic director of Chicago's Court Theatre; and The Crowd You're In With by Rebecca Gilman, directed by Wendy C. Goldberg, artistic director of the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center's National Playwrights Conference in.... Read More |
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Profiles Theatre Concludes Season of LaBute With 'In a Dark Dark House'
 Profiles Theatre concludes its 2007-2008 Season devoted to the works of acclaimed playwright and filmmaker Neil LaBute with the Midwest Premiere of In a Dark Dark House, directed by Profiles' Artistic Director Joe Jahraus. The production will run March 21-May 11, 2008, at Profiles Theatre, 4147 N. Broadway.
On the grounds of a private psychiatric facility, two brothers find themselves face-to-face.... Read More |
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Behind the Scenes at Boho's Butterfly
 Over the last couple of seasons, one up-and-coming Chicago theatre troupe that has stood out among the crowd is the Bohemian Theatre Ensemble, or just "Boho" if you're on familiar terms. The word that often comes to mind in describing this gutsy non-Equity company is ambitious, and this season covers everything from musicals like the .... Read More
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Northlight Theatre To Present World Premiere of Better Late
 Northlight Theatre continues its record-setting 33rd season, celebrating Artistic Director BJ Jones' 10th Anniversary, with the world premiere commission of Better Late, by Larry Gelbart and Craig Wright. The production, featuring Chicago favorites John Mahoney and Mike Nussbaum, and directed by BJ Jones, runs March 28-May 11, 2008, at Northlight Theatre, 9501 Skokie Blvd in Skokie.
This world premiere production, commissioned by.... Read More |
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Torch Song Sings for Season of Concern
 The PEOPLE*S Theater of Chicago announces a unique collaboration with Season of Concern to present a special two night concert reading of Harvey Fierstein’s Tony Award winning play Torch Song Trilogy. The performances are Monday, May 5 and Tuesday, May 6 at 7:00 p.m. at the Leather Archives and Museum, 6418 N Greenview Ave in Chicago. A suggested donation of $30 per.... Read More
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Theatre at the Center To Present Premiere Of Knute Rockne All-American
 Theatre at the Center will present the World Premiere of the new musical Knute Rockne All-American, which celebrates the life of the man who created American College football. The ragtime rhythms of the turn of the last century and the wild jazz of the 1920’s punctuate this moving story of the "winningest" coach in the history of American sport. The musical will.... Read More
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Picture The Play
 Theatre in Chicago has launched a new Photo Gallery feature which allows users to browse production photos from many of the plays on stage in Chicago. In addition to the information that you can already access on TheatreInChicago.com (see what is playing, read theatre reviews, watch video previews, listen to podcast interviews, find nearby restaurants, search an interactive map for.... Read More
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Chow Down for 'Will Act for Food'
 Some theatre companies start with a distinct mission, while others are built around themes or the talents of core members often known as ensembles. Corri Feurstein built hers around a name. The dynamic, fast-talking Chicagoan came up with the name 'Will Act for Food' that christened her company in 1997. "Like three quarters of the theatres in the city, Will Act.... Read More
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Jersey Boys Makes Chicago Home
Jersey Boys is borrowing a question from their own infamous lyric, "Oh, won’t you stay just a little bit longer?" and answering for Chicago with a resounding YES. Broadway In Chicago and the producers of Jersey Boys have announced that in response to overwhelming demand and critical acclaim, the record-breaking Jersey Boys will be staying for a lot longer by taking.... Read More |
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Sweeney Todd Slices Its Way to Chicago's Cadillac Palace Theatre
 The Demon Barber of Fleet Street will soon find Randolph Street when Broadway In Chicago presents the new national touring production of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street at the Cadillac Palace Theatre from April 23 – May 4. Tickets go on sale to the public Friday, February 29th at 10:00am by calling 312-902-1400, or going to Read More
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Joffrey Ballet Announces The 2008-2009 Season
 The Joffrey Ballet has announced its 2008-2009 Season, opening with The Fall Program featuring the World Premiere of a new work by New York City Ballet soloist Edwaard Liang, Jerome Robbins’ In the Night, and Robert Joffrey’s Postcards. The entire season will feature live orchestral accompaniment by the Chicago Sinfonietta under the baton of Joffrey Music Director and Principal Conductor Dr. Leslie.... Read More
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Court Theatre Continues 53rd Season With Carousel
 Court Theatre continues its 53rd season with Rodgers and Hammerstein's musical, Carousel, directed by Artisitc Director Charles Newell with musical direction by Doug Peck. The co-production with Long Wharf Theatre runs March 6 – April 13, 2008, at Court Theatre, 5535 S. Ellis Ave.
This Rodgers and Hammerstein masterpiece reinvented musical theatre in its day with its lush score and seamless integration of.... Read More |
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Veteran Actor Lois Smith Stars In The Trip To Bountiful
 Goodman Theatre welcomes director Harris Yulin and actor Lois Smith as they team up for The Trip to Bountiful, Horton Foote's beloved 1953 play featuring Hallie Foote and Devon Abner—Foote's eldest daughter and son-in-law, respectively-and Meghan Andrews. The Trip to Bountiful caps the Goodman's landmark 10-week festival honoring Horton Foote, "[one of the] strongest, most individual and most abidingly relevant voices.... Read More
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Oscar Winner Combines Jazz and History for Steppenwolf Premiere
 Eric Simonson enjoys traveling and exploring the different cities he visits. He also loves history, and that combination led to his latest production at Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Carter's Way. The Oscar-winning ensemble member originally developed the play for the Kansas City Repertory, calling upon that city’s rich history of jazz and politics. Simonson came up with an interracial love story .... Read More
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An Old-Fashioned Diva Comes To Rosemont
 Diva lovers who are too young to have seen Judy Garland on stage and not wealthy enough to have seen Barbra Streisand should make it a point to experience Linda Eder’s concert performance at the Rosemont Theatre February 23. And if you are still among those who ask, "Linda Who?" this week’s Talk Theatre in Chicago interview podcast.... Read More
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Shakespeare For Young Audiences
 Chicago Shakespeare Theater (CST) announced another exciting series of popular weekend family performances, Short Shakespeare! Romeo and Juliet. A 75-minute abridged production in CST’s Courtyard Theater, Short Shakespeare! Romeo and Juliet offers parents, grandparents, teachers, and all adults with children in their lives, an opportunity to introduce young people to the theater—with affordable ticket prices. Short Shakespeare! Romeo and Juliet.... Read More
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A New Way To Find the 'Best Seats'
Broadway In Chicago has announced the creation of a page on its website dedicated to providing the most current and up-to-date information on future ticket availability to all of their productions - including the successful long-running engagements of Wicked and Jersey Boys.
The new webpage – located at www.broadwayinchicago.com/bestseats or by linking directly from the Broadway In Chicago homepage -.... Read More |
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Love Is In The Air
 As Sean Hargadon says, love never goes out of season, and what better time or season to point that out to Chicagoland audiences than Valentine’s Day. Hargadon is an actor, director and founder of Janus Theatre, which will celebrate its 10th anniversary in August 2009. The company is currently completing the third play in a trilogy by French playwright Pierre Marivaux called Read More
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TimeLine Theatre Company To Have Chicago Premiere of The History Boys
 TimeLine Theatre Company announces that it will present the Tony and Olivier award-winning play The History Boys by Alan Bennett in its Chicago premiere. Directed by TimeLine Company member Nick Bowling, The History Boys is projected to open in April 2009, with a specific schedule to be determined.
The recipient of more than 30 major awards, including Tony and Olivier awards for Best.... Read More |
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Musical Muse
 Many of us have had teachers who demanded or inspired us to reach greater personal potential. David Katz had such a muse in the legendary classical music conductor and teacher Charles Bruck. Katz trained under Bruck at the Pierre Monteux School for Conductors and Orchestral Musicians and received his undergraduate degree from the Hartt School in Hartford, Connecticut, and the experiences (some hilarious, some horrifying and .... Read More
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New Block of Tickets for Chicago's Wicked Go On-Sale Friday, February 8
The record-breaking Chicago company of Wicked – now the longest running Broadway show in Chicago history – will soon enable a new block of tickets for purchase. Tickets for performances April 29 – July 27, 2008 will go on-sale to the public on Friday, February 8 at 10 a.m.
Tickets for Wicked range in price from $25 - $90.... Read More |
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Sing for Your Supper
 Attention all aspiring Chicago vocalists! Looking to try out that new material, get some free publicity for the fabulous show you are appearing in, or just want to have some fun singing live for a warm and responsive audience? Look no further than Petterino's, the popular restaurant adjacent to the Goodman Theatre, where every Monday night producer and talent specialist extraordinaire Denise.... Read More
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Goodman Theatre's Horton Foote Festival Continues with Blind Date and The Actor
 Goodman Theatre's 10-week celebration of Academy Award-winning American playwright Horton Foote continues with two seldom seen one-act plays, Blind Date and The Actor, presented in-the-round in repertory with Talking Pictures in the Goodman's Owen Theatre. Two Chicago-based directors helm the one-acts: Steve Scott, Goodman Theatre Artistic Collective member and Associate Producer, directs Blind Date, and award-winning director Rick Snyder.... Read More
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Steppenwolf Theatre Continues Season With Carter's Way
 Steppenwolf Theatre Company continues its 2007–2008 Season with Carter's Way, written and directed by Oscar-winning ensemble member Eric Simonson, with original jazz music by Darrell Leonard. The production, featuring ensemble members Robert Breuler, K. Todd Freeman, Ora Jones and James Vincent Meredith, with Anne Adams, Calvin Dutton, Curtis M. Jackson, Keith Kupferer, Danny McCarthy and Michael Pogue, runs February 28 –.... Read More
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Porchlight Music Theatre Presents The Maury Yeston Songbook
 Porchlight Music Theatre will present a musical tribute to Tony-Award winning composer and lyricist, Maury Yeston. This magical night of music from the creator of Grand Hotel, Phantom, Nine The Musical and Titanic starring some of Chicago’s musical theatre and cabaret stars, will take place on Monday, February 11 at 7:30 p.m. at the Lakeshore Theater, 3175 N. Broadway, Chicago. The evening.... Read More
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American Theater Company Announces 2008-2009 Season
 American Theater Company’s (ATC) new Artistic Director PJ Paparelli has to announced Season 24, which includes the Chicago Premiere of Yeast Nation: The Triumph of Life by Mark Hollmann and Greg Kotis; and the Chicago Premiere of The People's Temple, written and directed by Leigh Fondakowski. The Pulitzer Prize winning Topdog/Underdog by Suzan-Lori Parks and the Tony nominated True West by.... Read More
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Victory Gardens Greenhouse To Host Free Pre-Valentine's "Speed Theater" Open House
 Want to forge a fresh new relationship full of drama in 2008? Then head over to the Victory Gardens Greenhouse Theater and meet Chicago's hottest Off-Loop theater companies, Wednesday, February 13 from 6 pm to 8 pm, at a free Open House.
In a nod to Valentine's Day, this year's Greenhouse Open House will boast a fast, fun "Speed Theater" format, to give guests.... Read More |
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Les Miserables to Make Its Anticipated Marriott Theatre Premiere
 The legendary musical Les Miserables will make its highly anticipated premiere at The Marriott Theatre in Lincolnshire. Preview performances begin February 13th, and the show will run through May 11th, 2008. Having established a national reputation for launching Broadway musicals into the regional market, The Marriott Theatre is one of only five theatres chosen to produce this epic musical post-Broadway.
Marriott’s Executive Producer, Terry.... Read More |
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Northlight Theatre Presents The Midwest Premiere Gospel Music Play Gee's Bend
 Northlight Theatre continues its 33rd season and its celebration of Artistic Director BJ Jones’ 10th Anniversary season with the Midwest premiere of Gee’s Bend, by Elyzabeth Gregory Wilder. The production will run January 30 to March 9, 2008 at the Northlight Theatre, 9501 Skokie Blvd in Skokie.
This epic yet intimate play spans more than sixty years, following the.... Read More |
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World Premiere Play a Spiritual Journey
 Madrid St. Angelo is a pretty spiritual person, which may come as a surprise given his often controversial political, social and theatrical activism. But talking with the Chicago-based actor/director/playwright for even a short time, one understands how these diverse facets come to feed one another. “I really see theatre as a ministry and a means for outreach,” he says. “If.... Read More
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Signal Presents its First Musical: Tony-winning 1776
 Signal Ensemble Theatre culminates its fifth season, comprised of 20th-century American works, with 1776, the Tony Award-winning musical by Sherman Edwards and Peter Stone. Directed by Ronan Marra with musical direction by Andra Velis Simon and featuring a 26-member award-winning ensemble, the production runs January 25 through March 1, 2008 at the Chopin Theatre, 1543 W. Division.
Set during a.... Read More |
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Rent to Play the Cadillac Palace Theatre
 Broadway in Chicago presents the national touring production of the Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning Rent, featuring Heinz Winckler as Roger Davis and Anwar Robinson as Tom Collins, for a limited one-week engagement at the Cadillac Palace Theatre (151 W. Randolph St.) from February 12 - 17, 2008.
Heinz Winckler was the winner of the first South African Idol in.... Read More |
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Patty Duke To Perform At Theatre of Western Springs Benefit
 The Theatre of Western Springs annual winter benefit will feature Academy Award winner Patty Duke, returning to the TWS stage, along with eight actors from the TWS family in Kate Aspengren's highly acclaimed Blue Yonder February 1 – 3.
Blue Yonder features a series of fascinating monologues, and Patty Duke will perform three of them while the rest are performed by Actives of the Theatre.... Read More |
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Robert Falls Brings His Acclaimed Broadway Staging of Shining City To Goodman Theatre
 Goodman Theatre rings in 2008 with intrigue and mystery with the arrival of the acclaimed Broadway hit, Shining City by Conor McPherson. Artistic Director Robert Falls, whom McPherson hand-picked to direct his play's Broadway premiere last season, directs the Goodman production with four noted Chicago actors: Jay Whittaker (Frank's Home); Nicole Wiesner (Passion Play: a cycle in three parts) and.... Read More
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Talk Theatre In Chicago Podcast Hits 100th Episode
 The Talk Theatre In Chicago podcast hit a milestone with its 100th Episode! The first episode "aired" on February 13, 2006, with an interview with Dorothy Milne, the Artistic Director of Lifeline Theatre. Since then the popular podcast has put out a new episode with a new guest every Monday for 100 consecutive weeks.
Over the course of 100 weekly episodes, Talk Theatre In Chicago has interviewed.... Read More |
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Victory Gardens Theater Premieres Carlyle Brown's A Big Blue Nail
 Victory Gardens Theater's ongoing exploration of crucial moments in African-American history continues with A Big Blue Nail, the company's first world premiere of 2008. Written by acclaimed playwright and adventurer Carlyle Brown, with direction and scenic design by award-winning theater artist Loy Arcenas, A Big Blue Nail is a phantasmagorical tale examining explorer Robert Peary's fame as the first man.... Read More
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Hephaestus Returns To Lookingglass Theatre
 Lookingglass Theatre Company continues its 20th Anniversary Season with the triumphant return of the previously sold-out hit, Hephaestus: A Greek Mythology Circus Tale. The world’s elite circus performers, including veteran members of the Wallenda Family, Ringling Bros. and Cirque du Soleil, return to Chicago’s Water Tower Works for Hephaestus. A world premiere hit for Lookingglass in 2005, Hephaestus is a.... Read More
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Raven Theatre Presents Chicago Premiere of columbinus
 Raven Theatre continues its Silver Anniversary Season with the Chicago premiere of the United States Theatre Project’s columbinus, written by Stephen Karam and PJ Paparelli, recently appointed the new Artistic Director of American Theatre Company. Multiple Jeff Citation and After Dark Award winner Greg Kolack directs.
Artists with the United States Theatre Project conducted exhaustive interviews and research in order.... Read More |
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Silk Road Theatre Project Announces its 2008 Season
 Silk Road Theatre Project Artistic Director Jamil Khoury and Executive Director Malik Gillani announce the company’s sixth season, which includes the world premiere of Our Enemies: Lively Scenes of Love and Combat by Yussef El Guindi, directed by Patrizia Acerra; the Midwest premiere of Durango by Julia Cho, directed by Carlos Murillo; and the Midwest premiere of Philip Kan Gotanda’s Yohen, produced.... Read More
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Profiles Theatre continues its Neil LaBute Season with the Midwest Premiere of This is How it Goes
 Profiles Theatre continues its 2007-2008 Season devoted to the works of acclaimed playwright and filmmaker Neil LaBute with the Midwest Premiere (and American Premiere of this version) of This is How it Goes, directed by Profiles’ Associate Artistic Director Darrell W. Cox. The production runs January 14- March 2, 2008, at Profiles Theatre, 4147 N. Broadway.
Belinda and Cody Phipps.... Read More |
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Pegasus Players Presents 22nd Annual Young Playwrights Festival
Pegasus Players will kick off the New Year with its 22nd Annual Young Playwrights Festival, a professional production of four selected one-act plays written by Chicago teenagers. This year marks the program’s twenty-second annual showcase at Pegasus Players, 1145 W. Wilson Avenue in the O’Rourke Center at Truman College, Chicago which will be performed January 4-27, 2008.
A.... Read More |
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Phantom Of The Opera Celebrates Its 15th Anniversary During Its 5th Chicago Engagement
 The National Touring Company of the Cameron Mackintosh/Really Useful Theatre Company, Inc. production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom Of The Opera, directed by Harold Prince, celebrates its 15th anniversary on December 13, 2007 when it reaches performance number 6,139 during its 5th Chicago engagement at the Cadillac Palace Theatre. This National Tour opened at the 5th Avenue Theatre in.... Read More
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The Christmas Schooner Will Set Sail For Two Special Benefit Concert Presentations
 The Christmas Schooner, John Reeger and Julie Shannon's much-beloved musical will set sail for two special benefit concert presentations in the Bailiwick Repertory Mainstage, 1229 W Belmont Avenue on December 18 and 19, 2007 at 7:30 PM. This humorous, poignant musical was inspired by the historical story of the German and Swiss immigrants who sailed on ships like the Rouse Simmons, "The.... Read More
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Steppenwolf Presents the World Premiere of Good Boys and True
 Steppenwolf Theatre Company continues its 32nd season with the world premiere of Good Boys and True by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, directed by Pam MacKinnon. The production, featuring ensemble member Martha Lavey with Stephen Louis Grush, Nick Horst, Mark Minton, Kelly O'Sullivan, John Procaccino, Tim Rock and Kelli Simpkins, will run December 12, 2007- February 16, 2008, in the Steppenwolf Downstairs Theatre, 1650.... Read More
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Theatre In Chicago Rolls Out New Interactive Theatre Map
 Chicagoans benefit from living in one of the nation’s largest theatre markets. With hundreds of theatres in the Chicago area, it is easy to overlook smaller venues and storefront theatres located around the city, even those that may be right in your own neighborhood!
To help you discover some of these hidden gems, TheatreInChicago.com has launched an interactive Theatre Map.... Read More |
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Jesus Christ Superstar to Play Cadillac Palace Theatre
 Broadway In Chicago has announced the National Tour of Jesus Christ Superstar, the groundbreaking theatrical masterpiece by legendary writing team Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice and starring Ted Neeley, is coming to Chicago for a limited one-week engagement at the Cadillac Palace Theatre (151 W. Randolph St.) from February 19 – 24, 2008.
The first collaboration between Andrew Lloyd Webber.... Read More |
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Northlight Theatre Present's The Chicago Premiere of Ella
 Northlight Theatre continues its 33rd season, celebrating Artistic Director BJ Jones’ 10th Anniversary season, with the Midwest premiere of Ella, book by Jeffrey Hatcher, conceived by Rob Ruggiero and Dyke Garrison. The production will run from November 28, 2007 to January 6, 2008, at Northlight Theatre, 9501 Skokie Blvd in Skokie.
Northlight has a tradition of producing musicals about th American.... Read More |
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An Altar Boyz Christmas To Feature Cast Of Jersey Boys and Wicked
 The Chicago cast of the hit musical Altar Boyz will host "An Altar Boyz Christmas," a one-night-only holiday concert, at 200 East on Chestnut, located in the landmark Seneca Hotel at 200 East Chestnut St. in Chicago, Monday, December 17 at 7 p.m. This star-studded event will feature cast members from Jersey Boys and Wicked, with all proceeds benefiting.... Read More
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A Christmas Carol Celebrates 30 Years At Goodman Theatre
 For 30 years, Goodman Theatre has proudly made A Christmas Carol a Chicago holiday institution-host of seven Scrooges, 27 Tiny Tims, over 17,000 "Bah Humbug!"s, and featured such notables as Del Close, Harry J. Lennix, Felicia P. Fields, Raul Esparza, Sally Murphy and Frank Galati. Returning for his second season as director, William Brown taps his longtime friend, collaborator and.... Read More
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Victory Gardens' Smash Hit Holiday Musical The Snow Queen Returns to the Biograph
 Chicago has a new holiday tradition to look forward to this season, with the much-anticipated return of Hans Christian Andersen's beloved winter tale The Snow Queen, November 30-December 23, 2007 at the Victory Gardens Biograph Theater, 2433 N. Lincoln Avenue in Chicago.
Conceived by Chicago folk music legend Michael Smith, Tony Award-winning director Frank Galati, and .... Read More
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The Black Ensemble Theater Presents The 3rd Annual Black Playwrights Festival
 Black Ensemble Theater Founder and Executive Director Jackie Taylor announced the Third Annual Black Playwrights Festival, presented by the Black Ensemble Theater of Chicago, November 15-18, 2007. The Black Playwrights Festival, produced by Ms. Taylor and award-winning actor and writer David Barr III, presents a weekend of new works by both up-and-coming as well as established African American writers. The Black Playwrights.... Read More
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Chicago's Wicked Celebrates 1,000 Performances on November 14
 On Wednesday, November 14 at 7:30 p.m., Chicago’s record-breaking Wicked will mark a new milestone as the curtain goes up on its 1,000th performance. Breaking multiple box office records since opening, Wicked is the top grossing and longest running Broadway show in Chicago history and continually casts spell on Chicagoans and visitors from around the world night after night. With 189.... Read More
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Profiles Theatre Continues its Neil LaBute Season with Things We Said Today
 Profiles Theatre continues its 2007-2008 Season devoted to the works of acclaimed playwright and filmmaker Neil LaBute, with LaBute’s new collection of six short plays entitled, Things We Said Today. The production will run November 12- December 16 at Profiles Theatre, 4147 N. Broadway.
Neil LaBute said this about the collection, "Things We Said Today is an evening of shorter works that I’m.... Read More |
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Victory Gardens Welcomes Nilo Cruz, Joel Drake Johnson To Its Playwrights Ensemble
Victory Gardens Theater Artistic Director Dennis Zacek has announced the addition of two new playwrights to the Victory Gardens Playwrights Ensemble, plus two new play commissions and a December workshop designed to fuel the theater's new play mission.
"I'm thrilled to share fantastic news - Nilo Cruz, the only Latino ever to win the Pulitzer Prize for drama.... Read More |
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Steppenwolf's "August: Osage County" and Porchlight's "Ragtime" Garner Top Jeff Awards
 At a star-studded gala on Monday, October 29, The Joseph Jefferson Awards Committee presented 32 awards to celebrate excellence in Chicago-area Equity theatre. Over 700 gathered at the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts in Skokie to honor 122 nominees from Equity theatrical productions which opened between August 1, 2006, and July 31, 2007.
Steppenwolf Theatre led all Play recipients.... Read More |
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Writers' Theatre To Present 'The Turn Of The Screw'
 Writers’ Theatre Artistic Director Michael Halberstam and Executive Director Kathryn M. Lipuma prepare for The Turn of the Screw adapted by Jeffery Hatcher from the classic story of Henry James. The production, directed by Jessica Thebus, will run from November 13 – March 30, 2008 at the Writers’ Theatre at 664 Vernon Avenie in Glencoe.
Part ghost story and part psychological thriller, this.... Read More |
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The Neo-Futurists Bring Fluxus Into The 21st Century
 The Neo-Futurists prepare to give audiences a chance to explore a fascinating 1960's anti-art movement in Mr. Fluxus, conceived and directed by Greg Allen, opening Saturday, November 3 at 7:30 p.m. at The Neo-Futurarium, 5153 N. Ashland.
Enter. Climb. Listen. Hammer. Saw. Compose. Twist. Mail. Spy into. Squeeze out of. Neo-Futurists Founder Greg Allen’s latest endeavor embodies the life, work, spirit.... Read More |
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Northwestern University 2007-08 Theatre Season Begins With Jose Rivera Drama
 The curtain will rise on Northwestern University’s 2007-08 Mainstage theatre season Oct. 26 with Obie Award-winning playwright José Rivera’s drama Marisol. It is the first of nine stage productions this season and marks Northwestern’s commitment to reaching out to the Latino community.
David Kersnar, founding ensemble member of Lookingglass Theatre Company in Chicago, will direct the production. Kersnar is a master.... Read More |
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Jersey Boys Offers $25 'Rush Tickets' On Day Of Performance
Beginning at 10:00 a.m. on the day of every performance of Jersey Boys, ten front row seats and as many as forty additional seats subject to availability at select performances will be available for just $25 each at the LaSalle Bank Theatre Box Office (18 W. Monroe). This special rush ticket offer begins Tuesday, October 16, 2007.
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Goodman Theatre Serves Up The Chicago Premiere of The Cook
 Kicking off the 2007/2008 season in the Goodman's Owen Theatre is Eduardo Machado's The Cook, a sweeping look at four decades of Cuban history refracted through one woman's perspective. Resident Artistic Associate Henry Godinez directs a cast of noted Chicago actors including Karen Aldridge (Proof), Edward F. Torres (Massacre) and Phillip James Brannon (Oedipus Complex). In addition, on October 18, Machado.... Read More
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Halloween Shows Haunt Chicago
 With Halloween almost here, what better way to get into the Halloween spirit this season than see one of these three shows that will haunt some of the Chicago area theatres.
Ghost Stories: Crucible the Musible!
A wickedly whimsical and delightfully deadly Halloween treat concocted by two of Chicago’s most mischievous performing arts groups. Ghost Stories: Crucible the Musible! features the outstanding aerial choreography of Aloft.... Read More |
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Steppenwolf's 'Traffic' Announces the 2008 Season
Executive Director David Hawkanson, Artistic Director Martha Lavey and Producer of Cultural Intersections Sylvia Ewing have announced the roster for Steppenwolf’s annual Traffic Series. Traffic will feature a season of eclectic artists and personalities on the Steppenwolf stage, kicking-off with David Sedaris on January 18, 2008.
“Traffic continues Steppenwolf’s season-long conversation about what it means to be an American - this time.... Read More |
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A Red Orchid Theatre Begins 15th Season With Weapon of Mass Impact
 Ensemble member Brett Neveu kicks off A Red Orchid Theatre’s 15th anniversary season with the world premiere of his newest drama, Weapon of Mass Impact, on Monday, October 22nd. The play serves as the second installment of trilogy that began with TimeLine Theatre Company’s critically-acclaimed production of Harmless last January.
“Weapon of Mass Impact examines both the effects of terrorism from unseen.... Read More |
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Drury Lane Oakbrook Terrace Theatre Announces 2008 Season
 Drury Lane Oakbrook Terrace Theatre, known for bringing timeless classics into the Chicagoland spotlight, has announced its 2008 season. The charming musical comedy Sweet Charity, previews March 13, opens March 16 and runs through May 18, the fun musical celebration of America’s rock n’ roll icon, Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story, previews May 22, opens May 29 and runs through July 27,.... Read More
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The Altar Boyz Return To Chicago
 The award-winning Off-Broadway musical comedy, Altar Boyz, returns to Chicago in an all-new production at Drury Lane Water Tower Place, 175 E. Chestnut Street, in a limited engagement with previews beginning on September 28 and opening October 7 with performances through November 25.
Armed with catchy melodies, divine moves and gobs of hair product, Altar Boyz is a.... Read More |
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Northlight Theatre Begins Its 33rd Season with The Miser
 Northlight Theatre begins its 33rd season, celebrating BJ Jones’ 10th year as Artistic Director, with Moliere’s The Miser, a classic French farce with a contemporary twist. The production, directed by Mark E. Lococo, runs October 3 – November 11 at the Northlight Theatre, 9501 Skokie Blvd in Skokie.
A classic costume comedy gets a fresh, contemporary twist. When an old widower.... Read More |
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A Must Attend Event For Creative Students
 College-bound high school students interested in pursuing undergraduate and graduate studies in the areas of music, dance, theater, visual arts, graphic design, and other related disciplines can attend the National Association for College Admission Counseling’s (NACAC) Chicago Performing and Visual Arts College Fair.
The Chicago Performing and Visual Arts College Fair will be held on Saturday, October 13, 2007 at Northwestern .... Read More |
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The Rocky Horror Show Hits Chicago
 The biggest and baddest rock n’ roll musical, The Rocky Horror Show, will be whipping Chicago audiences into a frenzy when the production previews Friday, October 12th, and opens Wednesday, October 17th at the Mercury Theatre, 3745 N. Southport Ave., Chicago, it was recently announced. The musical, written by Richard O’Brien, will be presented by CreatiVision Entertainment, a newly formed.... Read More
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Lookingglass Theatre Opens Its 20th Season With Midwest Premiere Of No Child...
 Lookingglass Theatre Company kicks off its 20th Anniversary Season with the Midwest premiere of Nilaja Sun’s solo show No Child…, written and performed by Sun and directed by Hal Brooks. The production will run October 3 – November 11, 2007 at the Lookingglass Theatre Company located inside Chicago’s historic Water Tower Water Works.
Acclaimed actress and writer Nilaja Sun embodies multiple .... Read More |
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Gary Griffin To Direct Passion at Chicago Shakespeare Theater
 Returning to Chicago Shakespeare Theater (CST) after directing The Color Purple on Broadway, Associate Artistic Director Gary Griffin stages the Tony Award-winning musical Passion, music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and book by James Lapine. For Sondheim’s hymn to romantic obsession, Griffin has assembled a stellar cast led by Ana Gasteyer as Fosca, Adam Brazier as Giorgio, and Kathy Voytko.... Read More
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Jeff Awards Committee Announces Equity Nominees for 2006-2007 Season
Continuing a tradition of support for Chicago's diverse theatre community in main stage theatres, small off-Loop houses, and suburban venues, The Joseph Jefferson Awards Committee announced 119 nominations in 30 categories for Chicago Equity theatrical productions which opened between August 1, 2006 and July 31, 2007. The Jeff Awards Committee sent judges to the opening nights of .... Read More |
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Theatre In Chicago Partners With The Stage Channel To Offer Video Previews
 Theatre In Chicago is pleased to announce that they have partnered with The Stage Channel, the premiere source for video play previews. Through the partnership, Chicago theatre fans will now easily be able to see previews of some of the most popular shows on TheatreInChicago.com.
For Theatre In Chicago, The Stage Channel is giving theatre goers yet another resource to use when deciding on.... Read More |
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Passion Play Opens Goodman Theatre's New Season
 Goodman Theatre launches its 2007/2008 season with Passion Play: a cycle in three parts, a “startlingly original” theatrical event by Pulitzer Prize-nominated playwright Sarah Ruhl. British director, actor and teacher Mark Wing-Davey helms this triptych that addresses the thorny relationship between politics and religion, lust and dogma—and perception and reality—over 425 years and three controversial, politically-charged eras.
“With Sarah Ruhl’s Passion.... Read More |
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The Drowsy Chaperone and Sweeney Todd Round Out Broadway In Chicago's 2008 Season
 Broadway In Chicago has announced their complete 2008 Season Series which emphasizes Broadway In Chicago’s long-standing commitment to bringing the best of Broadway to the stages of the LaSalle Bank Theatre, the Cadillac Palace Theatre, the Ford Center for the Performing Arts, Oriental Theatre and The Auditorium Theatre of Roosevelt University.
The Season Includes:
My Fair Lady
January 22 –.... Read More |
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The Sparrow Returns in a New Production at the Apollo Theater
 Broadway In Chicago and The House Theatre of Chicago have announced the next flight of The Sparrow – one of the most original and acclaimed new works to emerge from the local theatre scene in decades – returning to the stage by popular demand in a new production at the Apollo Theater (2540 N. Lincoln Ave). Following the unprecedented success of two.... Read More
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Porchlight Music Theatre To Present Phantom
 Porchlight Music Theatre will present Phantom, by Arthur Kopit with music and lyrics by Maury Yeston. This internationally acclaimed musical is based on the Gaston Leroux 1910 novel, The Phantom of the Opera. This version transforms Leroux’ novel into a mystery that enraptures audiences with beautiful songs and an expertly crafted book. Phantom goes behind the mask of the great opera ghost and.... Read More
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The House Theatre Opens Its 5th Season With The Magnificents
 The House Theatre of Chicago opens its 5th season with The Magnificents, an original show by Company Member and magician Dennis Watkins. The world premiere production, directed by Molly Brennan, runs September 13 – November 3, 2007, at The Viaduct Theatre, 3111 N. Western Avenue.
The Magnificents is a magical clown show written by and starring Dennis Watkins, an award-winning magician who learned.... Read More |
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Dirty Dancing Will Have U.S. Premiere in Chicago
 The U.S. premiere of the international stage hit Dirty Dancing - The Classic Story On Stage by Eleanor Bergstein, writer of the iconic blockbuster movie, will premiere in Chicago at the Cadillac Palace Theatre for a limited engagement beginning September 2, 2008. Tickets will be available to subscribers of the soon-to-be-announced 2008 Broadway In Chicago Season Series
Following its record.... Read More |
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Theatre In Chicago Partners With Everyzing
 Theatre In Chicago has partnered with EveryZing, the world’s most powerful multimedia search and merchandising platform. Through the partnership, Chicago theatre fans everywhere will now easily be able to search inside of, and uncover, the specific content that is directly related to their individual theatrical interests.
.... Read More |
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Tony Award-Winning Best Musical Avenue Q Coming To Chicago
 Broadway In Chicago has announced Avenue Q – the Tony Award-winning smash-hit musical about trying to make it in New York with big dreams and a tiny bank account – will hold its Chicago premiere this coming spring with a limited two-week engagement from May 27 – June 7, 2008 at the Cadillac Palace Theatre (151 W. Randolph St) as part of.... Read More
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Cymbeline Kicks Off the 21st Chicago Shakespeare Theater Season
 Chicago Shakespeare Theater Artistic Director Barbara Gaines kicks off the Theater’s 21st Season with her staging of Cymbeline, Shakespeare’s fairytale about love, fidelity and deception. Performed in Chicago Shakespeare’s Courtyard Theater, Cymbeline inaugurates the Theater’s three-play subscription series and begins previews September 1, 2007 and runs through November 11, 2007
A magical fairytale adventure, Cymbeline features one of Shakespeare’s most resourceful female.... Read More |
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New Block of Tickets for Chicago's Wicked Go On-Sale Friday, Aug 10
The record-breaking Chicago company of Wicked – now the longest running Broadway show in Chicago history – will soon enable a new block of tickets for purchase. Tickets for performances November 6, 2007 – January 27, 2008 will go on-sale to the public on Friday, August 10 at 10 a.m.
Tickets for Wicked range in price from $25 - $90 and.... Read More |
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Reasons For Moving, A Celebration of Cross-Disciplinary Art Forms, Begins August 9
 Starting August 9, Striding Lion InterArts Workshop will bring together an array of choreographers, dancers, theatre practitioners and musicians for its two-week festival, Reasons for Moving. Striding Lion’s Sixth Annual InterArts Festival, consisting of three multi-disciplinary pieces nightly, will also feature a workshop with Goat Island, a performance from the company’s apprentice program, and a Storytellers musician event.
"All of the pieces.... Read More |
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The Cast And The Audience Are All In The Buff When Bailiwick's Barenaked Lads Host a Naked Night
 With the audience as well as the cast in the buff, Bailiwick's Barenaked Lads will perform naked for a special ‘naked night’ audience on Friday, September 7 at 10:00pm, with a portion of $30 ticket price supporting the Great Lakes Area Natural Tans Society (GLANTS).
The audience for this performance is co-ed, and each brings a towel and gym.... Read More
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Victory Gardens Biograph Theater to Host Free Open House
Join Victory Gardens Theater as Chicago's #1 presenter of new plays throws open the doors to its recently renovated Biograph Theater mainstage for its second annual Open House celebration, Saturday, August 11th from noon to 5pm.
Enjoy a free day of family fun, backstage tours, sneak peek performances from the company's upcoming 2007-2008 season productions, theater class demonstrations,.... Read More |
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City Lit Theater Presents Its First Festival Of Literary Adaptations
 City Lit Theater will present its first festival of literary adaptations, The Art of Adaptation, August 17-19, 2007, Artistic Director Terry McCabe announced. The festival will feature seven world premieres of stage adaptations of six pieces of fiction and one ancient mythic poem, chosen from 43 submissions to the festival.
"It's a fascinating assortment of voices," McCabe added. "A comic tour de force.... Read More |
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My Fair Lady Will Play Chicago's Cadillac Palace Theatre For A Limited Run
 Broadway In Chicago has announced Cameron Mackintosh and the National Theatre of Great Britain’s acclaimed new production of Lerner & Loewe’s My Fair Lady will premiere in Chicago in a limited two-week engagement at the Cadillac Palace Theatre from January 22 – February 3, 2008.
Christopher Cazenove, one of England’s most respected stage and screen actors best known to U.S. audiences.... Read More |
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Forbidden Broadway: Special Victims Unit Extends Run At Royal George Theatre
 After receiving rave reviews and overwhelmingly favorable feedback from Chicago audiences, Off-Broadway’s longest running and most popular musical comedy revue, Forbidden Broadway: Special Victims Unit,
has extended its Chicago run for a third time at the Royal George Cabaret Theatre,
1641 N. Halsted Street, through Sunday, November 4.
In 2006, Forbidden Broadway and its creator Gerard.... Read More |
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Theatre in Chicago Talks To CASF Fellows About Their Experiences at the Stratford Festival of Ontario
 Brendan Averett and Ian Novak are two of the 33 Chicago actors who have spent a year or more under the auspices of the Chicago Associates of the Stratford Festival (CASF), learning the craft of the classical actor at the renowned Stratford Festival in Ontario. This week on Talk Theatre in Chicago, Averett and Novak talk about what that experience has meant to them. Read More
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A Red Orchid Theate Announces Its 15th Anniversary Season
 Famous for intense, emotionally searing performances that highlight the poetry of life on the edge, A Red Orchid Theatre is celebrating its landmark 15th year in Chicago’s Old Town neighborhood. This year, they have incorporated the theme “the decay of democracy” into their programming. They will examine three of humanity’s motivating forces that insidiously work toward the decay of democracy in.... Read More
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Four Final Weeks Added To The Color Purple
 Due to popular demand, the first North American Tour of the Broadway smash hit The Color Purple will add four final weeks to its Chicago engagement at the Cadillac Palace Theatre before moving to San Francisco. Tickets for a new block of performances from September 5 – 30, 2007 will go on sale Friday, July 20 at 10 am. The Color Purple‘s final Chicago performance.... Read More
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Fools Open The Neo-Futurists Season
 The Neo-Futurists open their 2007/08 season with The Fool (Returns To His Chair), conceived by John Pierson, opening Saturday, August 25 at 8:00pm at The Neo-Futurarium. Expect the unexpected… and 300 milk crates.
In The Fool, an ensemble cast presents a history of fools through the ages with physical performance, comedy, rhythm and music... and with almost no text or spoken word. The.... Read More |
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Theatre Building Chicago Continues 30th Anniversary Season With STAGES 2007
 Theatre Building Chicago will present STAGES 2007, a festival of eight new musicals in progress on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, August 10-12, 2007. The three-day musical extravaganza performs each new work twice in concert style formats. Now in its fourteenth season, STAGES focuses on the development of the material, the craft of writing and the talent of the performers. Located in the heart of.... Read More
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The Men And Their Music to Play Extended Run At Chicago's Mercury Theatre
 The Windy City will be "swinging" all summer long as Chicago’s Entertainer, Ron Hawking, announces plans to extend his new show The Men and Their Music by popular demand at Chicago’s Mercury Theatre (3745 N. Southport). The show is currently playing a limited four-week engagement June 21 through July 15, 2007. After a brief two-week hiatus, The Men and Their Music.... Read More
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Bohemian Theatre Ensemble To Present Gross Indecency
 The company that brought you the 5-time Jeff-citation winning Side Show is now turning its vision on one of the wittiest writers in history: Oscar Wilde, with the production Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde.
BoHo's own Stephen M. Genovese (Jeff-citation award winner for directing Side Show) brings this show to audiences with sensitivity and insight into Oscar Wilde and the.... Read More |
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Wicked Celebrates 2nd Anniversary and is the Longest Running Broadway Musical in Chicago Theater History
 On the occasion of celebrating the second anniversary of smash hit performances and the longest day of the year, the Chicago company of Wicked announced it has become the longest running Broadway musical in Chicago theater history. Since opening in Chicago, the musical phenomenon has grossed over $125 million at the box office, routinely setting new records. Wicked is.... Read More
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Profiles Theatre To Have A Season Of LaBute
 Profiles Theatre announces its 2007-2008 Season, entirely devoted to the works of acclaimed playwright and filmmaker Neil LaBute. Profiles, located at 4147 N. Broadway, will present four Midwest Premieres of works by LaBute, including an evening of new short plays. LaBute will work closely with Profiles throughout the season and will be participating in talkbacks and special events in conjunction with each.... Read More
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Signal Announces 5th Season
 Signal Ensemble Theatre artistic directors Ronan Marra, Christopher Prentice and Joseph Stearns have announced the line-up for its 2007-08 Season in residence at the Chopin Theatre. The company's fifth year, featuring a 20th-Century American playbill, includes an iconic American drama, a Pulitzer Prize finalist and the company's first musical.
The season opens in August in the studio with Sam Shepard's Obie Award-winning story.... Read More |
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Chicago HER-RAH 2007 To Begin June 21
 The International Centre for Women Playwrights (ICWP) and Around the Coyote (ATC) prepare for their Chicago HER-RAH 2007: A Festival of The World’s Best Women Playwrights And Their New Plays, on June 21-24, 2007 at Around the Coyote Gallery Arts Complex, 1935-1/2 W. North Ave.
Chicago HER-RAH 2007 will present staged readings of new, production-ready plays by women from all over the world. .... Read More |
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House Theatre Triumphs With 8 Jeff Awards, Eclipse and Bohemian Theatre Receive 5
At its annual celebration of Chicago's dynamic and growing non-union theatre scene at the Park West on June 11, The Joseph Jefferson Awards Committee presented 38 Citations for excellence in Chicago productions during the 2006 – 2007 Season (April 1 to March 31). In addition, Lifeline Theatre and Stage Left Theatre received Special Awards for the body of their.... Read More |
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Tickets To The Phantom of the Opera To Go On Sale June 17th
Individual tickets for the limited holiday engagement of The Phantom of the Opera in Chicago will go on-sale to the general public on Sunday, June 17 at 10 a.m. The Phantom Of The Opera, directed by Harold Prince, will return to Chicago at the Cadillac Palace Theatre this fall for a limited ten-week holiday engagement running Wednesday, October 31 through Saturday,.... Read More |
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Raven Theatre Announces 25th Anniversary Season
Michael Menendian announces Raven Theatre’s Silver Anniversary Season, which includes classic works by Tennessee Williams and Neil Simon, as well as the Chicago premiere of a play exploring the tragic events at Columbine High School. Raven kicks-off the season with a Silver Celebration gala event on Saturday, July 21.
Founded in 1983, Raven Theatre is dedicated to breathing new life.... Read More |
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Mary Zimmerman's Mirror Of The Invisible World Caps Goodman Theatre's Season
 Concluding Artistic Director Robert Falls’ 20th anniversary season at Goodman Theatre is Mirror of the Invisible World, adapted and directed by Manilow Resident Director Mary Zimmerman from the core of the 12th century Persian epic, the Haft Paykar. At the heart of this epic are seven romantic, adventurous and funny stories about seven princesses from China (Lisa Tejero), Greece (Atley .... Read More
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Black Ensemble Theater Celebrates "Those Sensuous Seductive 70s"
 Chicago’s very own Black Ensemble Theater Company celebrates Those Sensuous Seductive ‘70s with a sizzling new musical revue written, produced and directed by Black Ensemble Theater Founder and Artistic Director Jackie Taylor. Those Sensuous Seductive ‘70s will run in repertory with the company’s smash hit Memphis Soul (The Story of Stax Records) at the Black Ensemble Theater, 4520 N. Beacon Street. Those Sensuous.... Read More
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Theatre On The Lake Prepares for 55th Season
 With productions ranging from comedy to circus shows and musicals, the Chicago Park District prepares for the 55th annual Theater on the Lake season featuring nine artistically diverse Chicago theater companies June 13 – Aug. 12, 2007. The season opens with the world premiere of Apparently Heaven Can’t Wait … The Best of Jim Zulevic at The Second City and continues with reprisals.... Read More
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Audiences: The Other Half
 The great British music hall comedian Max Wall used to say at the end of every performance: “Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. You have been half.” Which means that the quality of theater in Chicago depends not only on the vision and talent and sweat of the theatre artists involved, but also -- equally -- on the quality of our participation.... Read More
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The Neo-Futurists Announce The Sixth Annual "It Came From The Neo-Futurarium!"
 Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the theater...! The Neo-Futurists proudly present their sixth-annual series of staged readings of some of the most obscure, trashy, goofy, bizarre, cheesy, and all-around terrible film scripts of all time! These immensely popular one-night-only readings feature some of the best worst films ever made, brought to life on a shoestring.... Read More
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Dirty Rotten Scoundrels Cons Its Way Into Chicago
 The National Tour of the scamming, scheming, double-crossing hit Broadway musical, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, will play Chicago’s Auditorium Theatre of Roosevelt University, 50 E. Congress Parkway, July 31 through August 12, 2007. Tickets go on sale Friday, June 1 at 10 am.
The cast of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels includes Tony-nominated actor Tom Hewitt as suave and sophisticated con man Lawrence Jameson. He’s.... Read More |
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The Documentary Film “ShowBusiness: The Road To Broadway” To Make Chicago Premiere
 “ShowBusiness: The Road To Broadway,” a new film by Dori Berinstein featuring the Broadway casts and creators of Wicked, Avenue Q, Taboo, and Caroline, or Change, will have its Chicago premiere at the Music Box Theatre, 3733 N. Southport, on Friday, June 8, 2007. Among those featured in the film are Rosie O’Donnell, Boy George, Alan Cumming, Sarah Jessica Parker, John Lithgow,.... Read More
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New Block of Tickets for Chicago's Wicked Go On-Sale Friday, May 11
Now entering its third year of sold-out performances at the Ford Center for the Performing Arts, Oriental Theatre, the record-breaking Chicago company of Wicked will soon enable a new block of tickets for purchase. Tickets for performances July 31 – November 4, 2007 will go on-sale to the public on Friday, May 11 at 10 a.m.
Tickets for Wicked range in price.... Read More |
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Fire On The Mountain Ignites Northlight Theatre
 Northlight Theatre, under the direction of Artistic Director BJ Jones and Executive Director Timothy J. Evans, continues its 32nd season with Fire on the Mountain, a poignant musical with authentic dancing and live fiddles and banjo, about the lives of coal miners in the Appalachian Mountains. The production, co-created by Randal Myler and Dan Wheetman and directed by Myler, runs May.... Read More
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Joseph Jefferson Awards Committee Announces Citations Nominations
The Joseph Jefferson Awards Committee announced 109 nominations in 26 categories for Chicago's non-Equity theatrical productions that opened during the 2006-07 season (April 1, 2006 - March 31, 2007). The Jeff Awards Committee judged the opening nights of 127 productions offered by 55 non-Equity producing organizations, and recommended 55 productions for further judging, that made these 55 eligible for Jeff Citations.... Read More |
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Timeline Theatre Company Announces 2007-08 Season
 TimeLine Theatre Company, dedicated to presenting plays inspired by history that connect to today’s social and political issues, has announced its four-play 2007-08 season, which will include a great American playwright’s favorite work, two Chicago premieres by award-winning contemporary playwrights, and a remount of one of the company’s most acclaimed productions.
“As a company devoted to exploring history we’re often drawn to stories.... Read More |
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Auction Offers Chance for Walk-On Role in 'Camelot'
 One Windy City “knight” will have the good fortune of joining the new, vibrant touring production of Lerner and Loewe’s Camelot for one-night only while the show is in Chicago, May 1 -13, at the LaSalle Bank Theatre. The cast and crew of Camelot will auction off a walk-on role to benefit Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS as part of the Broadway community’s.... Read More
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Chicago's Own Puppetmaster
 Michael Montenegro has been making extraordinary puppet theater in Chicago for more than 15 years, but only recently has his work been turning up on the stages of some of Chicago’s major companies. Two seasons ago he created what the Chicago Sun-Times called the “heart-breakingly tender” puppet-children in the back seat of the car for Next Theatre’s 2005 production of Paula Vogel’s.... Read More
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The Light In The Piazza Returns To Chicago
 Direct from Broadway, the romantic new musical The Light In The Piazza returns to Chicago for a limited, two-week engagement at the Auditorium Theatre of Roosevelt University, 50 E. Congress Parkway, July 10 through 22, 2007. Tickets go on sale Friday, May 11 at 10 am.
Principal casting for the North American Tour of The Light In The Piazza includes Christine Andreas.... Read More |
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Hats!, The Red Hat Society Musical to Make Chicago Premiere
 Hats! The Red Hat Society Musical, starring Grammy Award-winner Melissa Manchester in the role of MaryAnne and featuring the songs of a variety of acclaimed composers and lyricists, will receive its Chicago premiere at the Royal George Theatre, 1641 N. Halsted, Sunday, April 29 at 7 p.m.
Inspired by The Red Hat Society, Hats! is an original musical about a 49.999-year-old.... Read More |
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Hollywood Marketing for "Indie Theater"
 A new generation of Chicago theater producers is reaching out to younger audiences with a combination of Hollywood-style marketing formats and low-cost internet distribution channels. This past January, for instance, Riddlemark Theatre adopted “The Making of” genre to market its original King Arthur epic, Pendragon. Its three-minute documentary, The Pendragon Fight Week, intersperses footage of clanging swords, sweaty armored actors rehearsing the .... Read More
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Victory Gardens Brings Movies Back To The Biograph Tied to the Themes of Their Live Theater Productions
 Victory Gardens Theater is bringing movies back to Chicago's legendary Biograph Theater with the launch of Movie Night at the Biograph, a series of occasional movies tied to the themes of Victory Gardens' live theater productions.
Movie Night at the Biograph launches on Earth Day, Sunday, April 22 with Al Gore's Academy Award-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth. Show time is.... Read More |
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Writers' Theatre Announces 2007/08 Season
 Writers’ Theatre Artistic Director Michael Halberstam and Executive Director Kathryn M. Lipuma announced the company’s sixteenth season, which includes the world premiere of The Savannah Disputation by Evan Smith, author of Writers’ Theatre’s hit production of The Uneasy Chair, directed by Michael Halberstam; The Turn of the Screw adapted by Jeffrey Hatcher from the story by Henry James, directed by Jessica Thebus;.... Read More
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Unleash Your Child's Imagination With Emerald City Theatre's 2007/08 Season
 Pirates...fairy tales...flying carpet rides...an oversized peach...and a certain famous snowman. Believing in each can make a child's imagination soar. Combine them, and you have the exciting ingredients for Emerald City Theatre Company's 2007/08 season.
Chicago's largest professional theater devoted entirely to families, Emerald City's 12th season boasts another creative line-up of five wildly innovative, interactive and affordable live theater experiences dedicated to.... Read More |
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Jersey Boys Adds 14 Weeks To Chicago Engagement
Due to overwhelming demand, Broadway In Chicago and TheatreDreams announced Broadway’s Tony Award-winning Best Musical Jersey Boys will add an additional 14 weeks of performances, extending its Chicago engagement to six months. Edward Strong, a partner in Dodger Theatricals, the lead producer of Jersey Boys said, “We hope to be here for as long as the Chicago public demands.” Tickets for the.... Read More |
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Signal Ensemble Theatre Wraps Up 4th Season With Hamlet
 Signal Ensemble Theatre wraps up its fourth season with a grand-scale, classically themed staging of Shakespeare's seminal revenge tragedy, Hamlet, directed by Ronan Marra, running at the Chopin Theatre, 1543 W. Division, April 19 – May 26, 2007.
Following the death of his father, Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, returns home to find his uncle now occupies the throne and the queen’s bed. Spurred.... Read More |
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Victory Gardens Theater Announces Chicago Stories 2007 Celeb Playwrights
CBS2 entertainment reporter, film critic and Chicago Sun-Times columnist Bill Zwecker, retired Chicago Tribune chief theater critic Richard Christiansen, and the husband/wife duo Lisa Madigan, Illinois Attorney General, and Pat Byrnes, cartoonist for The New Yorker, are this year's celebrity playwrights for Victory Gardens Theater's Chicago Stories gala, Friday, May 4, 2007 at the Four Seasons Hotel, 120 E. Delaware in Chicago.
.... Read More |
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Disney's High School Musical To Play LaSalle Bank Theatre
 Broadway In Chicago has announced a new touring stage version of High School Musical will play Chicago’s LaSalle Bank Theatre (18 W. Monroe), July 25 - September 2, 2007. Presented by Disney Theatrical Productions, the division responsible for such smash Broadway hits as The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast and Mary Poppins, High School Musical is based on the 2006 Emmy Award-winning.... Read More
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Chicago's Spelling Bee To Continue Through The Summer
 Yes, it’s staying!… Chicago’s company of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee has formally announced it will continue performances at the Drury Lane Theatre Water Tower Place through the summer. The widely acclaimed and Tony award-winning Broadway musical comedy will extend in a limited engagement from April 18 – September 2.
Jim Jensen, producer for the Drury Lane Theatre.... Read More |
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Profiles Theatre Presents The American Premiere of Apple
 Profiles Theatre will present the American Premiere of the award-winning drama Apple by Vern Thiessen, for a limited seven-week engagement from April 20, 2007 through June 3, 2007 at the Profiles Theatre, 4147 N. Broadway, Chicago.
Apple is a haunting tale of sex, secrets and second chances. Andy has just lost his job and finds his sixteen-year old marriage to Lyn in.... Read More |
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The Phantom of the Opera Returns To Chicago
Broadway In Chicago has announced Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera, directed by Harold Prince, will return to Chicago at the Cadillac Palace Theatre (151 W. Randolph St.) this fall for a limited eight-week holiday engagement running Wednesday, October 31 through Saturday, January 5, 2008. Tickets are currently on sale to groups of 20 or more by calling (312) 977-1710. .... Read More |
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Tom Amandes Back In Chicago To Star In Victory Gardens' Cynical Weathers
 Chicago actor-done-good Tom Amandes, a veteran of the city's Off-Loop stage scene lured away to play roles like Eliot Ness in TV's The Untouchables and Dr. Harold Abbott on the hit series Everwood, is coming home to star in Cynical Weathers, a new political drama by Douglas Post, and Victory Gardens Theater's next world premiere in its beautiful new home at the Biograph.
.... Read More |
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Best "Stella!" Yell Wins Round-Trip Airfare & More At Metropolis' "Stella! Contest"
 It's one of the most famous cries that have echoed in theaters for decades. And now, Arlington Heights' Metropolis Performing Arts Centre is sponsoring a "Stella!!!" yelling contest to kick off the run of its new production of Tennessee Williams' famous play A Streetcar Named Desire.
Metropolis is inviting guys - and gals - 21 and over to.... Read More
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Riverdance Returns To Chicago
 Few shows have touched audiences like Riverdance, the Original International Phenomenon, now in its 12th phenomenal year. This thunderous celebration of joyful music, song and dance that has thrilled millions of people around the world returns to Chicago for a limited two-week engagement from April 3 – 15, 2007 at the Auditorium Theatre of Roosevelt University (50 E. Congress.... Read More
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Casting Announced For Chicago Premiere of The Color Purple
Oprah Winfrey, Scott Sanders and the producing team of the Broadway smash hit The Color Purple, along with Broadway In Chicago, have announced casting for the North American Tour, set to premiere at Chicago’s Cadillac Palace Theatre (151 W. Randolph). Stars of the Broadway production, Jeannette Bayardelle and Felicia P. Fields and Destiny’s Child’s Michelle Williams will premiere in Chicago April 17.... Read More |
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Remy Bumppo Launches New thinkTank Project and Presents Premiere Of An Immigrant Class
Remy Bumppo Theatre Company prepares for the launch of Remy Bumppo's thinkTank, an annual theatrical exploration of an issue vital to Chicagoans. This year thinkTank explores the volatile issue of immigration and the project will include a world premiere play, a children’s show, three staged readings and moderated discussions nightly. thinkTank is presented this year in collaboration with Silk Road.... Read More |
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Broadway Sensation Linda Eder To Play Cadillac Palace Theatre One Night Only
Recording artist, concert star and Broadway sensation Linda Eder returns to Chicago for one night only, Saturday, March 3, 2007 at 8 p.m. at the Cadillac Palace Theatre (151 W. Randolph St.). Ms. Eder will perform an eclectic evening of Broadway, jazz, pop hits and standards – including selections from her newest CD By Myself: The Songs of Judy Garland.
Since her.... Read More |
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Raven Theatre To Present Chekhov's The Sea Gull
 Raven Theatre presents The Sea Gull by Anton Chekhov in a translation by Jean-Claude van Itallie, directed by Michael Menendian, opening Sunday, March 25, 2007 at 7:00 p.m. at Raven Theatre, 6157 N. Clark Street. Chekhov’s dark yet comedic masterpiece, depicting the quintessential dysfunctional family, explores situations that today’s American audiences can easily relate to: hating a job, keeping a family together,.... Read More
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Teatro Vista and Goodman Theatre Present The World Premiere Of Massacre (Sing to Your Children)
Massacre (Sing to Your Children), a darkly comic thriller by Academy Award-nominee José Rivera, makes its world premiere in a Teatro Vista production in association with Goodman Theatre. Chuck Smith directs the play Chicago audiences first heard as a staged reading as part of Teatro Vista’s Tapas Reading Series in Pilsen and then at the Goodman’s 2006 New Stages Series. After an.... Read More |
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A Chance To Go Behind The Emerald Curtain
The record-breaking Chicago company of Wicked will soon offer an opportunity to take a rare glimpse “into the wings” of the blockbuster Broadway musical. “Behind the Emerald Curtain,” an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at Wicked, hosted by cast members in Chicago, will be offered to the public starting March 6 on Tuesday evenings at 5:00 p.m. at the Ford Center for the.... Read More |
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Lookingglass Alice To Make A Few More Stops Before Returning To Chicago
 Five years after Mary Zimmerman's Metamorphoses took New York by storm, Chicago's Lookingglass Theatre Company returns to debut its second production in New York this week with its 2005 smash hit Lookingglass Alice at The New Victory Theater, New York's premier theater for kids and families, February 9th through 25th.
The New Victory Theater is actually the second stop.... Read More
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Tickets for Jersey Boys in Chicago Go On Sale Soon
Individual tickets for the highly-anticipated Chicago premiere of Jersey Boys, the story of Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons, will go on sale Friday, February 23, 2007 for performances beginning October 6 through January 6, 2008 at Chicago’s LaSalle Bank Theatre (18 W. Monroe St.).
Tickets for Jersey Boys will go on sale at 8:00 a.m. at the LaSalle Bank Theatre box office,.... Read More |
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Michael Greif To Direct AMTP's The Boy In The Bubble
 Northwestern University has announced that award-winning Broadway director Michael Greif has replaced Oskar Eustis as the director of the American Music Theatre Project’s (AMTP) fourth new musical, “The Boy in the Bubble” which is scheduled for production on the University’s Evanston campus in late July 2007 at the Ethel M. Barber Theatre.
Eustis, director of the Public Theatre in New York, will continue.... Read More |
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Pegasus Players To Present The World Premiere of David Barr's Black Caesar
 Pegasus Players continues its 28th season with the world premiere of Black Ceasar by David Barr III. This world premiere production of acclaimed Chicago playwright David Barr’s Black Caesar is an African-American adaptation of the Orson Wells film classic Citizen Kane. Black Ceasar chronicles the life of C.J. Caesar; a black newspaper mogul who builds a media empire through playing the ‘race.... Read More
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Steppenwolf Theatre Announces New Ensemble Members
Steppenwolf Theatre Company has announced six new ensemble members: Alana Arenas, Kate Arrington, Ian Barford, Jon Hill, Ora Jones and James Vincent Meredith. The Steppenwolf ensemble, the longest-existing theater ensemble in the United States, now totals 41 members.
“The greatest honor with which I am entrusted is that of naming new members to the Steppenwolf ensemble,” says Steppenwolf Artistic Director.... Read More |
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Kathleen Turner and Bill Irwin to Star In Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?
 Edward Albee’s beloved classic Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? starring Kathleen Turner and Bill Irwin will appear in Chicago for a limited engagement as part of its five-city, five-month national tour. The award-winning and critically acclaimed production will play the LaSalle Bank Theatre (18 W. Monroe St.) from March 27 through April 8, 2007.
When Kathleen Turner and.... Read More |
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Spelling Bee To Close After A Full Year In Chicago
 Chicago’s company of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee will host the final competition at the Drury Lane Theatre Water Tower Place on Sunday, March 25. The widely acclaimed and Tony award-winning musical comedy will end its run after over 400 performances spanning a year in the Windy City.
"The Chicago production of Spelling Bee has been an unqualified success.... Read More |
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Cherry Jones Talks With Theatre In Chicago
 Tony Award-winning Best Actress Cherry Jones who is currently starring in the National Touring production of the Tony Award- and Pulitzer Prize-winning play Doubt, sat down with Theatre In Chicago’s Anne Nicholson Weber to talk about the show and her role as Sister Aloysius, a role she originated in 2005. Along with the Tony Award, this role has earned her a Drama Desk.... Read More
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Writers' Theatre To Present Chicago Premiere of Itamr Moses' Bach at Leipzig
 Writers’ Theatre is set to continue its 15th season with Itamar Moses’ highly acclaimed, Bach at Leipzig, which will be directed by Nick Bowling. Already extended, the production is set to run at Writers’ Theatre, 325 Tudor Court in Glencoe from January 23 to April 1.
The play takes place in Germany in 1722, where seven musicians are invited to apply for the prestigious.... Read More |
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Mary Zimmerman Set To Direct Cymbeline At Northwestern
 Mary Zimmerman, renowned Tony Award-winning director, Goodman Theatre Artistic Associate, Lookingglass Theatre ensemble member and Northwestern University faculty member, will return to the Northwestern stage this winter for the first time since the 1996 production of Six Myths (which became Metamorphosis on Broadway) to direct William Shakespeare’s comedy Cymbeline.
This adventurous Shakespearean fantasy weaves a tale.... Read More
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Jackie Taylor and Black Ensemble Theater Announce 2007 Season
 Black Ensemble Theater Company Founder and Executive Director Jackie Taylor has announced the schedule for the company's 31st season, offering an ambitious lineup of five new productions which pay tribute to the lives, music and history of great African American male artists. The 2007 season of excellence, "Dedicated to the Men," begins in February - Black History Month - with Memphis Soul Stew (The Story of Stax.... Read More
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Crip Slam Sundays Ramp Back Up at the Victory Gardens Greenhouse
 The Victory Gardens Theater Access Project announces the return of Crip Slam Sundays - the innovative new series of Sunday night readings, presentations and live performances by and about persons with disabilities, formerly known as Disability Culture Sundays.
Victory Gardens' 2007 Crip Slam Sundays series kicks off January 28 at 7:30 pm with Clothing Optional, a solo performance by the incomparable Tekki.... Read More |
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The Neo-Futurists Give America What It Wants With You Asked For It!
 The Neo-Futurists create the plays that America most and least wants to see in their latest prime-time production, You Asked For It!, written and directed by founder Greg Allen, opening Saturday, January 27, 2007 at 8:00 p.m. at The Neo-Futurarium, 5153 N. Ashland.
Inspired by conceptual artists Komar and Melamid, whose book Paint by Numbers featured works of visual art created after surveying.... Read More |
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Cat In The Hat's 50th Birthday Helps Emerald City Celebrate Reading
 Take the whole family when Emerald City Theatre Company brings the world of Dr. Seuss magically to life with its fresh new staging of Seussical the Musical, a whimsical, wonderful musical for the whole family by Eric Idle, Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens, based on the collected works of Dr. Seuss.
Chicago's largest professional theater devoted entirely to families, Emerald City.... Read More |
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Glen Berger's Comic Tragedy Bows at Lookingglass Theatre
 Dreamers, schemers and would-be lovers inhabit Brood, a miserable hamlet on an unspecified British coast, and the fantastical setting for Glen Berger's The Wooden Breeks, receiving its first Chicago production January 24-March 11, 2007 at Lookingglass Theatre Company.
"Breeks" is Scottish for "breeches," making "wooden breeks" vernacular for "wooden pants." Or, "coffin." "Brood," Berger reminds us, "means not only.... Read More
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Nickelodeon's Go, Diego, Go! Roars Into Chicago As Part Of Live U.S. Tour
 Following the massive success of Dora the Explorer Live!, Nickelodeon and Live Nation are launching an all new family theatrical live tour, based on the top preschool series Go, Diego, Go!. The national tour of Go, Diego, Go Live! The Great Jaguar Rescue will come to the Rosemont Theatre, 5400 N. River Rd. in Rosemont, Tuesday, Feb. 20 – Sunday, Feb. 25, 2007.
Go, Diego, Go.... Read More |
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"Court-Martial at Fort Devens" Opens Little-Known Chapter in U.S. WWII Race Relations
 Court-Martial at Fort Devens, a riveting new drama about U.S. military race relations during World War II by Victory Gardens ensemble playwright Jeffrey Sweet, will continue the theater's 2006/07 all-world premiere inaugural season in its beautiful new Biograph Theater mainstage, February 2-March 11, 2007.
Court-Martial at Fort Devens tells of a confrontation during WWII between privates who happened to be black women, a.... Read More |
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Theatre Building Chicago Launches New Children's Musical Program
Celebrating its 30th Anniversary season, Theatre Building Chicago continues its mission to cultivate new American musical theatre, with musicals for kids. TBC shines the spotlight on the pint-sized patron (ages 3-8) with new shows created by members of its nationally recognized musical theatre writers workshop.
Theatre Building Chicago will present The Adventures of Anansi the Spider by Christina Biggs (book) and Marianne Kallen (music & lyrics).... Read More |
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Composer Stephen Flaherty To Be Honored At Bailiwick Theater
Composer Stephen Flaherty will be honored in person at the Bailiwick Theater Mainstage, 1229 West Belmont, on Monday, March 19, 2007 with a musical revue of classic Broadway songs written by the team of Flaherty and lyricist Lynn Ahrens, including numbers from their renowned shows like My Favorite Year (which will run at Bailiwick from March 8 to April 14, Ragtime, Once.... Read More |
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Lookingglass Young Ensemble To Debut With Mary Zimmerman's "The Odyssey"
Take your family on an amazing voyage complete with magic, monsters and feats of great bravery when the Lookingglass Young Ensemble - the new youth performing troupe of Lookingglass Theatre Company Education and Community Programs - makes its debut after the holidays with Mary Zimmerman's The Odyssey.
Performances are January 21-February 18, 2007, and kick off the ensemble's inaugural season at Lookingglass'.... Read More |
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Richard Thomas & George Wendt To Star In "Twelve Angry Men"
The National Tour of the recent Broadway smash hit, Twelve Angry Men, written by Reginald Rose, directed by Scott Ellis, produced by New York’s Roundabout Theatre Company, and starring Richard Thomas and George Wendt will play Chicago’s LaSalle Bank Theatre from January 30 - February 11, 2007.
Roundabout Theatre Company’s Broadway production of the searing courtroom drama, Twelve Angry Men, was the longest.... Read More |
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Northwestern To Stage Tony Award-Winning Musical "Pippin"
The mischievous and magical musical Pippin is the imaginary coming-of-age story of legendary medieval King Charlemagne’s eldest son. With music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz, the composer of the Broadway and Chicago hit musical Wicked, and book by Roger O. Hirson, Pippin will be performed from January 26 to February 4 at the Josephine Louis Theatre, 20 Arts Circle Drive, on Northwestern University’s Evanston.... Read More |
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Chicago To Hold Adult 'Spelling Bee' on January 12
On Friday, January 12, 2007, there will be a special “for-mature-audiences-only” performance of Chicago’s The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, the Tony Award-winning and critically acclaimed new musical comedy in an open-run. It will be parent/teacher night for this one performance only at the Drury Lane Theatre Water Tower Place – the kids should definitely stay at home and do their.... Read More |
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Cast Changes Announced For The Chicago Company Of Wicked
Chicago’s record-breaking Wicked has announced that Dee Roscioli will assume the role of Elphaba full-time starting Tuesday, December 12. Dee joined the Chicago company as the Standby for Elphaba last January, and has performed in the role many times over the course of this past year.
As previously announced, original Broadway cast member, William Youmans, assumes the role of Doctor Dillamond for a.... Read More |
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Star of The Color Purple Talks With Theatre In Chicago
The Color Purple is still a few months away from making it’s Chicago premiere but the buzz and excitement for the show is as high as ever. Native Chicagoan Felicia Fields, who currently stars as Sofia in the Broadway production and who will also star in the Chicago production, sat down with Theatre In Chicago to talk about the show, her role, and.... Read More |
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August Wilson's Final Play, Radio Golf, To Make Chicago Premiere
Radio Golf is the centerpiece of Goodman Theatre’s August Wilson Celebration, a tribute to the late Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning American playwright. Completed only months before his untimely death in 2005, Radio Golf is the final play in Wilson’s powerful decade-by-decade exploration of the 20th Century African American experience—and the only play within the cycle about the African American middle.... Read More |
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The Chicago Sketch Comedy Festival Announces 2007 Performers and Workshops
Lukaba Productions has announced its performers and workshops for The 6th Annual Chicago Sketch Comedy Festival. The festival will be held January 4th – 14th, 2007 at Theatre Building Chicago, 1225 W. Belmont. The Chicago Sketch Comedy Festival (Chicago SketchFest) is the largest sketch comedy festival in the nation. Similar to previous years, the festival will showcase performances by more than 100 sketch comedy groups over a.... Read More |
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Chicago's Spelling Bee Presents "Game Night at the Bee"
Starting Wednesday, December 6, audience members at Chicago's The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee will get in on the buzz bumbling across the country by competing in "Game Night at the Bee," a pre-show board game competition held at 6 p.m. before Wednesday night performances of the critically acclaimed Broadway musical comedy.
Participants will gather in the lobby of the Drury Lane Theatre Water Tower Place.... Read More |
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Doubt To Make Chicago Premiere at LaSalle Bank Theatre
Tony Award-winning Best Actress Cherry Jones stars in the National Touring production of the Tony Award- and Pulitzer Prize-winning play Doubt, by John Patrick Shanley. The production, directed by Tony Award-winner Doug Hughes, will make its Chicago premiere at the LaSalle Bank Theatre (18 W. Monroe St.) for a limited three-week engagement beginning January 9 – 28, 2007.
Cherry Jones will play Sister Aloysius,.... Read More |
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Frank's Home Takes Up Residence At Goodman Theatre
Goodman Theatre Artistic Director Robert Falls continues his 20th Anniversary Season with the world premiere of Frank’s Home by Tony Award-winning playwright Richard Nelson, a lyrical, heartbreaking story about one of Chicago’s greatest, if less than perfect, visionaries. Frank’s Home features stage and screen star Peter Weller—perhaps best known for his starring role in the first two Robocop films—as Frank Lloyd.... Read More |
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Tis The Season For Holiday Plays
With the holiday season upon us, many theaters in the Chicago area are bringing out their holiday shows. There are, as always, many to choose from to get you in the holiday mood.
Of course the yearly popular shows return again this year which include A Christmas Carol at the Goodman Theatre, Christmas Schooner at the Bailiwick Theatre, and The Nutcracker at the.... Read More |
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Mamma Mia! Returns To Chicago
Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus’ Mamma Mia!, the smash hit musical based on the songs of ABBA, returns to Chicago for a limited holiday engagement December 12 – 31 at the Cadillac Palace Theatre.
Inspired by the story-telling magic of ABBA’s timeless songs, writer Catherine Johnson’s sunny, funny tale of family and friendship unfolds on a Greek.... Read More |
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TimeLine Brings Lillian Back to Life
Lillian Hellman died in 1984, but she remains as colorful and fascinating a figure today as ever. The playwright had her first successful play, “The Children’s Hour” at the age of 28, and that seminal work is currently being revived by the highly lauded TimeLine Theatre Company. Add Writers’ Theatre’s production of “Another Part of the Forest,” a prequel to “The.... Read More |
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"Jerry Springer - The Opera" Will Have its American Premiere at Bailiwick Repertory Theatre
Jerry Springer - The Opera, the sensational, award-winning musical, will gets its American premiere at Chicago’s Bailiwick in spring 2007. The only work in British history to win Best Musical in all of their major awards – Olivier Awards, Critic’s Choice, Evening Standard, and What’s On Stage – along with many other awards, Jerry Springer - The Opera is a fascinating mix .... Read More |
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Frank and Malachy McCourt's "A Couple Of Blaguards" Returns To Chicago
A Couple of Blaguards, the rollicking autobiographical Irish comedy written by award-winning authors (and brothers) Frank McCourt and Malachy McCourt will return to Chicago’s Royal George Theatre, 1641 N. Halsted St, for a limited four-week engagement, beginning Saturday, November 25, 2006.
In 1988, before Angela’s Ashes and A Monk Swimming made “McCourt” a household name, the two McCourt brothers, Frank and Malachy, first introduced.... Read More |
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And The Winners Are....
At a star-studded gala at DePaul’s Merle Reskin Theatre on Monday, November 6, 2006, The Joseph Jefferson Awards Committee, honoring excellence in Chicago-area Equity theatre, presented 32 awards, including a Special Award, to recipients among 155 nominees in 28 categories for productions which opened between August 1, 2005, and July 31, 2006. The Jeff Committee sent judges to the opening nights.... Read More |
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A Conversation With Nick Sandys
Talk Theatre In Chicago talks with Nick Sandys from the Remy Bumppo Theatre as they are set to open Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing. This is the company’s fourth Stoppard play, including its inaugural production of Night and Day in 1996. The show is set to run Nov. 15, 2006 through Jan. 7, 2007 in the Upstairs Mainstage at the Victory Gardens.... Read More |
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The Christmas Schooner Set For Final Voyage
The Christmas Schooner, the much-beloved musical will set sail into its 12th – and final - annual presentation at Chicago’s Bailiwick Repertory, 1229 W Belmont Avenue, in the Mainstage Theater starting November 17. This humorous, poignant musical was inspired by the historical story of the German and Swiss immigrants who sailed on ships like the Rouse Simmons, “The Christmas Tree Ship”,.... Read More |
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The Black Ensemble Theater Presents 2nd Black Playwrights Festival
Jackie Taylor announced the Black Ensemble Theater will present the Second Annual Black Playwrights Festival, November 13-20, 2006. The Black Playwrights Festival, produced by Black Ensemble Theater Founder and Executive Director Jackie Taylor and award-winning actor and writer David Barr III, promises to be an exciting week of new works by up-and-coming as well as established African American writers. The Black Playwrights Festival will.... Read More |
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Theatre Off The Map
Some of the most crucial work in Chicago’s theater community is being done off the map, where few theatre reviewers or members of the Jeff Committee ever venture.
I’m not talking about a company of young geniuses producing avant garde multi-media theatre in someone’s garage off Division Street. I’m talking about shows like The Stinky Cheeseman and Other Fairly Stupid Tales.... Read More |
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Bid Your Way To Musical Theater Stardom at Victory Gardens
Do you ever come out of a Victory Gardens Theater production with an itch to be on stage yourself? Or do you love to sing in the shower, but wish you had a larger audience?
Then bid your way to musical theater stardom at Victory Gardens' 25th Casting Auction, always one of Chicago's most unique benefit fundraisers.
This year, more than 50 starring and.... Read More |
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Chicago Production of Wicked Gets a New Glinda
The Chicago production of Wicked has a new Glinda starting October 24th. Erin Mackey joins the Chicago production and succeeds Stacie Morgain Lewis as the popular Glinda.
Mackey was previously with the touring production of Wicked. In April of 2006, she joined the Chicago company, in which she was the understudy for the role of Glinda and performed in the ensemble. .... Read More |
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Mary Zimmerman Returns To Lookingglass To Stage Greek Spectacle Argonautika
You can experience the spectacular tale of Jason and the Argonauts at the Lookingglass Theatre as ensemble member and Tony Award winning director Mary Zimmerman returns to her home theater to direct her world premiere adaptation, Argonautika.
An older story and stranger than the Odyssey, Argonautika recounts the adventures of Jason and his crew aboard the ship.... Read More |
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Neil LaBute Talks To Theatre In Chicago
Acclaimed playwright, screenwriter and film director Neil LaBute discusses his current productions Fat Pig and Wrecks with Theatre In Chicago’s Anne Nicholson Weber. The critically acclaimed Fat Pig is now enjoying an extremely successful run at the Profiles Theatre, while Wrecks, staring Ed Harris, recently opened in New York. The full interview can be heard on Talk Theatre.... Read More |
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Halloween Shows Haunt Chicago
With Halloween almost here what better way to get into the Halloween spirit than see one of the many Halloween-ish shows now haunting many Chicago theatres.
This year theatergoers have a variety of different choices to choose from ranging from the dark to the more traditional.
For the more traditional you can check out Frankenstein playing at the Beverly Arts Center or you can see this.... Read More |
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Patti LuPone JCC Chicago Benefit Set for November 14
 Jewish Community Centers of Chicago (JCC) will hold its annual Benefit Concert, featuring Tony Award-winning actress and Broadway sensation Patti LuPone – in her triumphant one-woman show, Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda – with members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on Tuesday, November 14, 2006 at 7:30 p.m. at Symphony Center, 220 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago
"JCC is proud to present Patti LuPone at this year's benefit gala." says.... Read More |
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Chicago Celebrates "Wicked Month" with a Spell of Citywide Events
Wicked, Chicago’s record-breaking musical telling the untold story of the Witches of Oz, celebrates its second Wicked Day in the windy city with a spell of citywide events. Wicked-ness will again be found throughout Chicagoland from Daley Plaza’s, “Chicagoween”, the State Street Halloween Happening Parade, suburban shopping centers, and of course every night at the Ford Center for the Performing Arts, .... Read More |
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Beloved Chicago Actor Gene Janson Passes Away at the Age of 72
Veteran actor Gene Janson, age 72, passed away on October 4th at Lincoln Park Hospital in the company of family members. He collapsed on stage during a matinee performance. He was taken to the Lincoln Park Hospital by ambulance escorted by several of his fellow cast members.
Gene Janson was co-starring as Ex-President Arthur Hockstader in Remy Bumppo Theatre Company’s .... Read More |
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Menopause The Musical To Close November 19 After 175 Smash Weeks
Menopause the Musical, the smash hit which has had an open run at the Apollo Theater has announced a close date of November 19. Menopause is the highest grossing show in the Apollo Theater's 28-year history. It’s also the second longest running show in the theater’s history. When it closes, the production will have run 175 weeks for 1,281 performances and have been seen by.... Read More |
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First Movement Of Hershey Felder's "Composer Sonata" To Debut In Chicago
Beethoven, a new play by Hershey Felder, will have its world premiere at Chicago’s Royal George Theatre. Performances begin on February 9, 2007. Hershey Felder is currently appearing at San Diego’s Old Globe Theatre in a critically and popularly acclaimed run of the two previous movements of his “Composer Sonata,” George Gershwin Alone, and Monsieur Chopin. Both productions enjoyed successful.... Read More |
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Jersey Boys Coming To Chicago
Jersey Boys, the Broadway smash hit, is set to come to Chicago in 2007. The musical about Rock and Roll Hall of Famers The Four Seasons: Frankie Valli, Bob Gaudio, Tommy DeVito and Nick Massi, will open at the LaSalle Bank Theatre in October of 2007 in a co-presentation by Broadway In Chicago and TheatreDreams.
Jersey Boys is a documentary-style musical based on the.... Read More |
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New Lookingglass Youth Ensemble to Present 3 Family Shows
The Lookingglass Youth Ensemble, the new youth performing troupe of Lookingglass Theatre Company Education and Community Programs, announced its first-ever three-show season of public performances. Thirty talented ensemble members, ages 8 to 18 and from throughout the Chicago area, will present and star in these exciting family shows in 2006/07, on weekend afternoons at Lookingglass:
The Odyssey
.... Read More |
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Altar Boyz National Tour Cast Announced
The full cast has been set for the National Tour of Altar Boyz which will open at The LaSalle Bank Theatre on October 10th. Matthew Buckner (as Matthew), Ryan J Ratliff (Mark), John Arthur Greene (Luke), Jay Garcia (Juan) and Nick Blaemire (Abraham) will star in the musical when it kicks off a 30-week National Tour with the three-week engagement in Chicago.Read More |
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Noah Haidle's Vigils Set To Open
Director Kate Whoriskey returns to the Goodman Theatre October 14th to helm the world premiere production of Noah Haidle’s Vigils, which Chicago audiences first witnessed as a staged reading in the Goodman’s 2005 New Stages series devoted to new plays. A prolific young writer who has been produced at some of the nation’s leading theaters, Haidle places unconventional characters in often awkward.... Read More |
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Black Ensemble Theater Celebrates 30th Anniversary With Two World Premieres
Jackie Taylor’s renowned Black Ensemble Theater Company will celebrate its 30th Anniversary this Fall in a big way with the launch of two World Premiere productions: Those Sensational Soulful Sixties, presented by the Black Ensemble Touring Venture at The Black Orchid inside Piper’s Alley beginning October 14 and Don’t Shed A Tear (The Story of Billie Holiday), beginning November 4 at the.... Read More |
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Madness Returns To The Windy City
Chicago’s favorite whodunit comedy, Shear Madness, makes a triumphant return to the Windy City on Monday, September 18th, at the Chicago Theatre Downstairs- the new 281 seat theatre located on the lower level of the legendary Chicago Theatre.
Shear Madness is a fast-paced, whodunit comedy filled with mischief, mayhem, Chicago-centric humor and up-to-the-minute laughs. After world-famous pianist (and upstairs landlady) Isabel Czerny.... Read More |
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Joseph Jefferson Awards Committee Announces Equity Award Nominations
Casting a wide net honoring smaller off–Loop houses and suburban theatres along with downtown main stages, The Joseph Jefferson Awards Committee announced 155 nominations in 28 categories for Chicago's Equity theatrical productions which opened between August 1, 2005 and July 31, 2006. The Jeff Committee sent judges to the opening nights of 123 Equity productions offered by 51 producing organizations,.... Read More |
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side project Settles into New Home with 8-show Season
Using its new theatre at 1439 W Jarvis Ave – christened The Side Project Theatre – as an impetus, the side project has revamped its mission statement and returned to its roots as a company that provides not only like-minded playwrights and directors a home for their art, but also a company that looks to use its space to foster the art.... Read More |
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Falls' 20th Anniversary Season Includes A February Broadway Directorial Engagement
Robert Falls’ 20th anniversary season at Goodman Theatre begins with his production of William Shakespeare’s King Lear, featuring Stacy Keach in the title role with performances beginning September 9. However, his season won’t just keep him in Chicago. Falls will reunite with playwright Eric Bogosian to also direct the first Broadway production of Talk Radio. Bogosian’s biting 1987 drama which will.... Read More |
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Neil LaBute's "Fat Pig" Coming To Profiles Theatre
Profiles Theatre is preparing to kick off their 2006-2007 Season by presenting the Midwest Premiere of Neil LaBute's award-winning Fat Pig. Fat Pig won the Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Off-Broadway Play in 2005 and will open at Profiles September 14, 2006. Profiles' production will mark only the third time Fat Pig has been produced since its MCC Premiere in.... Read More |
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The Pirate Queen Launches Live Castcom
The Pirate Queen is about ready to set sail in Chicago with its October 3 opening at the Cadillac Palace Theatre but those eager for a sneak peak of the show may want to check out the “castcom” which will launch on Tuesday, September 12th.
This castcom is a daily video diary that will introduce viewers to the cast and creative team, and special.... Read More |
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Victory Gardens Theater Greenhouse To Bloom August 29
Victory Gardens Theater will officially rename its longtime location at 2257 N. Lincoln Avenue the Victory Gardens Theater Greenhouse at a free Open House celebration, Tuesday, August 29 from 6 to 8 pm.
Here's your chance to sample the variety of companies and plays that will be seen at the Victory Gardens Theater Greenhouse on any given night...for free! Resident companies About.... Read More |
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Enjoy A Free Taste Of Emerald City
Kids can meet Snow White, Nutcracker, Cat and the Hat and other Emerald City characters at Taste of Emerald City, a free event celebrating the launch of Emerald City Theatre Company's 11th season, Saturday, September 9 from 9:30 am-2:30 pm at the Apollo Theatre, 2540 N. Lincoln Ave., Chicago. The event includes live performances, interactive workshops, theater games, ice cream, meet-the-actor events.... Read More |
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Artistic Director Robert Falls Celebrates 20 Years At The Goodman
Goodman Theatre’s 2006/2007 season marks the 20th anniversary of its Tony Award-winning Artistic Director, Robert Falls. Since 1986, Falls’ forward-thinking leadership has created ground-breaking live theater and earned the Goodman unparalleled artistic distinction; since his time as Artistic Director of Wisdom Bridge Theatre (1977 – 1985) he has brought the city of Chicago national attention to its theater scene. In recognition.... Read More |
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Gary Houston: A Voice of Experience
 I asked for this interview after seeing Gary Houston’s performance in The Artistic Home’s production of Romulus Linney’s Unchanging Love. I’d never seen him act before that; I’d never even heard of him. But the ease and conviction of his work were striking. On Google I found a couple of articles from the late ‘70s and early ‘80s about avant garde.... Read More
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Remy Bumppo Theatre Kicks Off Season With Annual Salon
Remy Bumppo Theatre Company officially begins its 2006-2007 season with its annual Season Salon on Wednesday, Sept. 6. The Salon will be held at the Victory Gardens Greenhouse Theater, 2257 N Lincoln Avenue. The event will last from 7:30 – 9:30 p.m. Doors open at 7:00 p.m.
The celebration includes coffee, desserts and sparkling conversation..... Read More |
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Theatre Building Chicago Presents Stages 2006
 Theatre Building Chicago presents Stages 2006, a festival of eight new musicals on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, August 11, 12, and 13. The three-day musical extravaganza performs each new work twice in concert-style formats. Now in its thirteenth season, Stages is committed to developing musicals and the writers who create them.
Stages kick-off gala takes place on Friday, August 11 with a reception at.... Read More |
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Stephen Sondheim to Join Pre-Concert Discussion at Ravinia's Gypsy
 Award-winning composer Stephen Sondheim will join Ravinia Festival president Welz Kauffman for a pre-concert discussion prior to the Aug. 11 concert staging of the classic Gypsy. The pre-concert discussion, according to a Ravinia spokesperson, will be held in the Ravinia's Martin Theatre and will also be broadcast to the audiences on the lawn. The discussion is scheduled to begin at 6:45 with the.... Read More
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Teatro Vista Announces 2006-07 Season
Teatro Vista- Theatre With a View, a theatre company committed to sharing and celebrating the riches of Latino culture with all Chicago theater audiences, has announced their 2006-2007 season which will give theatre-lovers productions packed with powerhouse performances by ensemble members. Artistic Director, Edward F. Torres says, “We are extremely excited to bring you some of the most provocative and edgy Latino writers in the U.S. with.... Read More |
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Wicked Star Kristy Cates To Perform In a Rare Solo Performance
Kristy Cates has performed on Broadway, at the Tony Awards and currently stars in the leading role as Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West, in Chicago's blockbuster production of Wicked. Now, Arlington Heights' Metropolis Performing Arts Centre has announced a rare solo performance by Cates, one-night-only, Monday, October 9, 2006 at 7:30 pm.
This will be your chance to join a musical excursion.... Read More |
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Andrew Lippa's "Asphalt Beach" to Premiere at Northwestern in Fall
The world premiere of "Asphalt Beach" will be the third new musical to emerge from the recently launched American Music Theatre Project (AMTP) at Northwestern University. The show features music and lyrics by Andrew Lippa, book by T. C. Smith and Peter Spears and direction by Amanda Dehnert. Performances will be held from Oct. 27 through Nov. 12 at the Josephine Louis.... Read More |
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A Must Attend Event For Creative Students
College-bound high school students interested in pursuing undergraduate and graduate studies in the areas of music, dance, theater, visual arts, graphic design, and other related disciplines can find out more about by attending the National Association for College Admission Counseling's (NACAC) Chicago Performing and Visual Arts College Fair.
The Chicago Performing and Visual Arts College Fair will be held on Tuesday, October 3 at Northwestern University,.... Read More |
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Six Things To Know About Designer Brian Sidney Bembridge
I watched theatrical designer Brian Sidney Bembridge at work during tech week at Writers’ Theatre as he finalized the lighting for The Duchess of Malfi. Even from afar, he was someone you couldn’t help liking -- relaxed (even in the crucible of tech), friendly, positive, focused, professional. Only after I asked him for an interview did I discover that.... Read More |
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"Big Bang" Fizzles Out
Big Bang, the "unofficial" inaugural production of the new Downstairs theatre at the Chicago Theatre has closed its run early due to the inability to find a Chicago audience for the show.
The production, which was slated to run until August 20, had its last show on Sunday, July 23. This was the first production in the new basement space that has.... Read More |
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No Bones About It: Comic Got Last Laugh
Chicago comedy legend Del Close apparently did not, in fact, donate his skull to the Goodman Theatre, the Chicago Tribune reported Friday. The human skull that was thought to be Close's has become a legendary prop in Chicago theater and a symbol of his eccentric and offbeat humor.
Close died at 64 in 1999 of emphysema and legend has it that Close’s.... Read More |
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Countdown Begins For Opening Of Victory Gardens Theater At The Biograph
Every day, Victory Gardens Theater's dream of creating An American Center for New Plays inside Chicago's historic Biograph Theater comes closer to reality. Chicago's number one presenter of new work for more than 30 years, Victory Gardens will open its new Biograph mainstage in September 2006, becoming an important new addition to Chicago's live theater scene, and a thriving new cultural attraction.... Read More |
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Theatre Tidbits
 Lookingglass Theatre Company To Take "Lookingglass Alice" On A Tour Of East Coast Theatres
Chicago's Lookingglass Theatre Company will take its acclaimed 2005 smash hit Lookingglass Alice on a regional tour of major east coast theaters in 2007, starting in January at the McCarter Theatre in Princeton, NJ, The New Victory Theater in New York City in February, and Philadelphia's Arden Theatre Company in.... Read More |
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SideFest Benefit To Showcase New Season
The Side Project will preview their 2006-2007 season this Saturday, July 22 at its annual SideFest Benefit. In the spring of 2006, the side project opened the doors to a new, larger, more comfortable space at 1439 W. Jarvis, equipped with 43 padded chairs, three restrooms and a large lobby. Sean Graney's controversial dark comedy Porno was the inaugural performance.
This benefit will be.... Read More |
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Christmas In July
Christmas may still not be here for another five months or so but it is not too early to start planning for the Christmas season. Tickets to the timeless holiday tradition of Goodman Theatre's production of A Christmas Carol are now on sale.
The Goodman Theatre's A Christmas Carol, one of the most popular Chicago plays, celebrates the yuletide season by infusing.... Read More |
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The Pirate Queen In Final Rehearsals
The production of The Pirate Queen is in final rehearsals and is getting ready for it’s world premiere later this year here in Chicago. Riverdance creators Moya Doherty and John McColgan are launching their follow-up to the Irish-themed stage show - The Pirate Queen, which is a big budget musical production based on the real-life story of the legendary Irish clan.... Read More |
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Remy Bumppo Theatre Company Set To Begin 10th Season
Remy Bumppo Theatre Company, the absurdly named theatrical venture co-founded by Artistic Director James Bohnen in 1996, begins its 10th year of talk-provoking plays performed by an ensemble of seasoned Chicago actors, in the intimate Victory Gardens Greenhouse Theater Upstairs Mainstage at 2257 N. Lincoln Avenue. The 2006-2007 Season opens with Gore Vidal’s election drama The Best Man, followed by.... Read More |
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The Color Purple Begins Casting in Chicago
The National Tour of the Broadway smash hit musical is getting closer to making its Chicago debut. The Color Purple will begin the casting process in Chicago July 14 – 18 for the Tony Award nominated show, which will kick off at the Cadillac Palace Theatre April 17, 2007. This long-run engagement will have an initial block of tickets on sale through June.... Read More |
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GreyZelda To Mount Original Adaptation of The Scarlet Letter
The GreyZelda Theatre Group will present their original adaptation of Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, directed by co-artistic director, Rebecca Zellar beginning in August. A preview will be held on August 9th and performances will be August 10th - September 16th, Thursdays through Sundays at StageLeft Theatre, located at 3408 N. Sheffield in Chicago.
The Scarlet Letter will be adapted.... Read More |
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Sayers for Players: Lifeline's Gaudy Night
Frances Limoncelli is Director of Marketing and an ensemble member with Lifeline Theater. She adapted Dorothy L. Sayers’ detective novel, Gaudy Night, for Lifeline’s current production, as well as two other Sayers novels previously produced by the company. Other adaptations for Lifeline include The Emperor's Groovy New Clothes and Somebody Loves You, Mr. Hatch with Queen Lucia's composer/lyricist George Howe. She.... Read More |
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Tommy Tune and Dr. Dolittle Coming To Chicago
Chicago audiences will be able to talk to the animals soon. The on-again, off-again touring stage production of the Leslie Bricusse musical "Doctor Dolittle" is back on the schedule for Chicago's Cadillac Palace Theatre July 18-30, 2006. Legendary song and dance man Tommy Tune not only takes the lead but the directorial reins as well. Broadway veteran Dee Hoty will play.... Read More |
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Neil LaBute's "Fat Pig" To Kick Off Profiles Theatre Season
Profiles Theatre will kick off its 2006-2007 Season by presenting the Midwest Premiere of Neil LaBute's award-winning "Fat Pig". "Fat Pig" won the Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Off-Broadway Play in 2005 and will open at Profiles September 14, 2006. Profiles' production will mark only the third time "Fat Pig" has been produced since its MCC Premiere in 2004, and will preclude Mr. Labute's self-directed London premiere.
Profiles continues .... Read More |
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Emerald City To Remount Hit Family Musical
Emerald City Theatre will cap its most successful season in its 10-year history with a brief summer remount of its 2005/06 season finale The Jungle Book, July 12-14. Performances of Emerald City's hit family musical will move from the company's regular home at the Apollo Theatre, to the Athenaeum Theatre Mainstage for three shows only: Tuesday through Thursday, July 12-14 at 11 am.Read More |
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"Timber!" for Chicago Directors Shade Murray and Chuck Smith
Critically acclaimed Chicago directors Shade Murray and Chuck Smith will be spending part of their summer mounting productions for Timber Lake Playhouse in Mt. Carroll, Illinois. This long established summer stock company is celebrating its 45th anniversary this year with a wide spectrum of adult and children shows. Murray, who was responsible for Writer’s Theatre’s stunning production of “The Chosen,”.... Read More |
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Theatre or Theater?
So is it theatre or theater? Ok, so it isn't the most important question, but none the less it is one that people are really split on. But which one is correct? Theatres (or theaters) around Chicago are also split on this as well. For example, you can go to the Goodman Theatre or the Victory Gardens Theater but which one is correct?
According to.... Read More |
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Chicago's Production Of Wicked Honors Its 1st Year Anniversary
There’s no place like home… Wicked remains the most ‘Popular’ show in all of Oz with nearly 1,000,000 audience members having attended since it landed permanently in the Windy City. Chicago’s open-ended production of Wicked celebrates one year where it continues sold-out performances at the Ford Center for the Performing Arts, Oriental Theatre. In honor of the occasion, the Chicago.... Read More |
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Theatre That Moves You
With the great summer months here in Chicago the lure of warm sunny days may pull some away from going to the theatre but that need not be the case. With “Theatre-Hikes” there is no need to sit on a hard seat in a dark theatre waiting for the scenes to change. Instead, as they promote, you could be strolling along with the.... Read More |
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Jeff Citations Awarded In Ceremony At Park West
Thirty-seven Jeff Citations Awards honoring excellence in non-Equity Chicago theatre were spread among 24 productions and 20 theatres at the 33rd Annual Citations Awards Ceremony held Monday, June 5 at Park West in Chicago. First-time nominee Infamous Commonwealth Theatre Company’s ambitious production of The Kentucky Cycle, Parts 1 and 2 received the Jeff Citation for Outstanding Production.... Read More |
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Goodman Theatre to Go Down a Rabbit Hole
Goodman Theatre Artistic Director Robert Falls announced a new carrot for subscribers with the final addition to his 20th Anniversary Season: the Tony Award-nominated play Rabbit Hole by David Lindsay-Abaire. Directed by Goodman Associate Producer Steve Scott, Rabbit Hole will run in the Goodman’s Albert Theatre March 10 through April 15, 2007.
“I’m very excited to bring Rabbit Hole.... Read More |
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Wicked Has Fundraising Success
The success of Chicago’s open-ended Wicked continues not only at the box office, but also in the community at large as many members of the cast and crew work to better the lives of those in need. The Chicago company earned the top fundraising honor in the 20th Annual Easter Bonnet Competition, a national effort on behalf of the charity Broadway.... Read More |
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Rehearsing the Duchess: Part III
 Actors Elizabeth Rich and James Meredith describe some of the challenges they faced in creating the pivotal love scene in The Duchess of Malfi, currently playing at Writers Theatre.
Making a Scene: Elizabeth and James
.... Read More
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Rudy Hogenmiller Previews Light Opera Works Season
Light Opera Works has evolved over its 26 year history from an ambitious but largely amateur company specializing in obscure musicals and operettas to a professional operation boasting a mixture of Equity and talented non-Equity performers, lavish production values and opulent productions of established and popular musical theatre. The transition in the company’s mission has largely been reflected in its choice.... Read More |
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Rehearsing the Duchess: Part II
 Rehearsing The Duchess: For The Duchess of Malfi costume designer, Tatjana Radisic, the challenge was to create a high-end fashion line for the rich and powerful inhabitants of a world that doesn’t exist.
This is the second in a series of articles documenting the production of John Webster’s tragedy directed by Michael Halberstam, which opens at Writers’ Theatre in Glencoe this.... Read More
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Lookingglasss' New Chase Studio Theatre to Debut In September With Clay
Chicago can boast of yet another space for live theater this fall when Lookingglass Theatre Company, located inside the historic Water Tower Water Works, 821 North Michigan Avenue, unveils its new Chase Studio Theatre with the American premiere of Clay.
Presented in a co-production with About Face Theatre, Clay is a groundbreaking one-man hip-hop musical written and.... Read More |
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Summer Must Almost Be Here
A sign that summer is almost upon us is the announcement of the Theatre On The Lake Season. Well then it must almost be here as The Chicago Park District has announced the 54th Theater on the Lake Season, featuring nine artistically diverse Chicago theater companies reprising critically-acclaimed productions, June 14 – August 13, 2006. This season opens with Porchlight Music.... Read More |
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Rehearsing The Duchess
How do director, designers and actors prepare to realize John Webster’s Jacobean blockbuster, The Duchess of Malfi, for a modern audience? What challenges do the artists face along the way? How does their vision evolve over the course of rehearsal?
This is the first in a series of articles documenting the upcoming production at Writers' Theatre in Glencoe, adapted and directed.... Read More |
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Trans-Atlantic Production Of Henry IV Launches Chicago Shakespeare's 20th Anniversary
Chicago Shakespeare Theater’s (CST) 20th Anniversary year will be aptly inaugurated with a trans-Atlantic production of Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2, currently running at Shakespeare’s heartland home on Chicago’s Navy Pier through June 18, 2006, and concluding at his birthplace in Stratford-upon-Avon, England at the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), July 6-15, 2006. The production, staged by CST Artistic Director Barbara.... Read More |
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Goodman Announces Re-Imagination Of Mary Zimmerman's Mirror of the Invisible World
Goodman Theatre Artistic Director Robert Falls has announced the addition of Mirror of the Invisible World—a critical and popular success originally produced in the intimate Goodman Studio in 1997 and now re-imagined for the Albert stage—as a part of his dynamic 20th anniversary season. Adapted and directed by Goodman Manilow Resident Director and Tony Award winner Mary Zimmerman, the .... Read More |
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Ina Marlowe At Home in New Library Theatre
Ina Marlowe has been resurrected, both professionally and perhaps more importantly artistically. The intrepid former Artistic Director of the Organic and Touchstone Theaters has a new venue to call home and a refined goal that has less to do with commercial success and all its messy red tape and everything to do with creating art. A year and a half ago, exhausted.... Read More |
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LaSalle Bank Theatre Re-Opening Celebration Begins May 23
Following a multi-million dollar restoration and renovation, the LaSalle Bank Theatre is ready to entertain Chicago for another hundred years. The 100-year-old venue gloriously restored and newly named the LaSalle Bank Theatre, will now showcase previously hidden treasures including mosaic flooring and original gilded ceilings, all uncovered during the restoration process.
The 100-year-old venue, located at 18 W. Monroe Stret, is.... Read More |
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First Folio Shakespeare Festival's New Subscription Season Announced
First Folio Shakespeare Festival has announced its first subscription series: The Tempest, by William Shakespeare, The Madness of Edgar Allan Poe: A Love Story, adapted for the stage by David Rice and Alison C. Vesely, and Angel Street (Gaslight), by Patrick Hamilton. In addition, First Folio will present Chicago’s own Babes With Blades in their newest production, When Fairy Tales…Attack!
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the side project Finally Set To Open New Space
After an unexpected permit process put the January move into their new home on hold, the side project has announced that it has completed the gamut of reviews and inspections needed to finally open at their new location, The Side Project Theatre, at 1439 W Jarvis Ave. Lucky for them, since Sean Graney has been rehearsing his latest play, Porno, for the past.... Read More |
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And The Nominees Are...
The Joseph Jefferson Awards Committee has announced 112 nominations in 24 categories for Chicago's non-Equity theatrical productions which opened during the 2005-06 season (April 1, 2005-March 31, 2006). The Jeff Committee judged 129 opening night productions offered by 60 non-Equity producing organizations, and recommended 55 productions for further judging, which made these 55 eligible for Jeff.... Read More |
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Steep Theatre To Present Bang The Drum Slowly
Steep Theatre Company continues its Fifth Season with Eric Simonson’s Bang the Drum Slowly. The hard-working company’s season of plays has revolved around a bold, plainspoken theme entitled “Watch a Buddy Die,” where matters of friendship, loyalty, and the fear of facing death have surfaced in solid productions of Catch 22, The Night Heron and Of Mice and Men. Now with Bang the Drum.... Read More |
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Cirque du Soleil Returns To Chicago
Cirque Du Soleil returns to Chicago after a three-year absence to present Corteo, its latest touring show. Corteo will open on Friday, July 14 for a limited engagement at the United Center (Parling Lot K) under its trademark blue-and-yellow Grand Chapiteau.
Corteo, which means “cortege” in Italian, is a joyous procession, a festive parade imagined by a clown. The show brings the passion .... Read More |
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Court Announces 2006-2007 Season
Court Theatre will launch its 2006/07 Season by continuing to explore the musical theatre canon with the Tony and Grammy Award-winning musical, Raisin, based on Lorraine Hansberry’s classic A Raisin in the Sun (September 14, 2006 – October 22, 2006). Court’s second production, Hotel Cassiopeia, written by Charles Mee, was recently unveiled at the Humana Festival and directed by one of the.... Read More |
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On A Poetry Jag
T. S. Eliot’s seldom-produced play, The Cocktail Party, is finishing its run at the Atheneum this weekend, produced by Caffeine Theatre. Caffeine’s Artistic Director Jennifer Shook talks with Anne Nicholson Weber about making poetry-based theatre that gets people talking over their after-theatre coffee.
What was the genesis of Caffeine?
Caffeine began as I guess many young theatre.... Read More |
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Fire at Theatre Building Chicago
The Theatre Building Chicago sustained significant smoke and water damage after a fire occurred Thursday morning (April 13), following an apparent electrical/computer surge. While none of the three theatres on the ground floor were directly affected, the box office and 2nd floor administrative offices suffered extensive damage. Despite the fire, Theatre Building Chicago retained its 'never-ending season" reputation with uninterrupted performances.... Read More |
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Charles Dickens' Rarely Performed The Old Curiosity Shop is Lookingglass' Next World Premiere
Lookingglass Theatre Company returns to the world of Charles Dickens with a world premiere adaptation of The Old Curiosity Shop, a grown-up fairy tale of dark despair, sentimentality and desperation, featuring some of the funniest and most bizarre of all Dickens' characters.
Lookingglass' new adaptation of The Old Curiosity Shop is the fourth of five consecutive world.... Read More |
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Longtime Chicago Critic Jonathan Abarbanel Sits Down With Talk Theatre In Chicago
Long time Chicago theatre critic Jonathan Abarbanel sat down for an interview for the Talk Theatre In Chicago podcast. To say that Mr. Abarbanel is a Chicago theatre expert is an understatement. He is currently the longest tenured Chicago theatre critic with 35+ years of reporting on theatre in Chicago. Mr. Abarbanel talks about his background and experiences as a theatre critic and how.... Read More |
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Goodman Theatre Announces Stage Door Series
Goodman Theatre has announced its new Stage Door Series, a provocative mix of lectures, discussions and special performances designed to give audiences an insider's look at Goodman Theatre productions. This season's series includes three not-to-be-missed events: The Healing Power of Laughter on Monday, May 15 at 7pm in the Albert Theatre; The Legacy of Madam C.J. Walker on Monday, June 19.... Read More |
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Assassins Takes Aim at Chicago’s Storefront Theater
Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman’s dark and provocative musical “Assassins” will be presented by the award-winning ensemble of Open Eye Productions at Chicago’s Storefront Theater, May 12-June 18, 2006. Performances are Thursday through Saturday evenings at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday matinees at 3:00 p.m.
“Assassins” explores the dark side of the human experience, where presidential assassins and would-be assassins from different periods in.... Read More |
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Be Transported Over Four Centuries With Timeline Theatre
Timeline Theatre, the company dedicated to producing plays both deeply intertwined with history and connected to current social and political issues, is giving you the chance to be transported over four centuries with their 10th Anniversary season that they have just announced. According to Timeline Theatre, the stories unfold in wildly varying historical contexts. Yet they all illuminate themes that transcend time.... Read More |
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Next and Porchlight Theatre Announce New Season
Next Theatre in Evanston is touting its 2006-07 season as “Off-Broadway in Chicago”. According to a press release, the company’s 26th season follows a tradition of “socially provocative theatre” with “major new plays by writers of distinction that traverse progressive territory, including the futility of war, the price of feminine beauty, individual agency in a complex society, and the possibility of.... Read More |
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Monty Python's SPAMALOT Returns to its World Premiere Home
The Tony Award-winning Best Musical of 2005, Monty Python's SPAMALOT, triumphantly returns to its pre-Broadway home in Chicago to play the Cadillac Palace Theatre for a limited engagement, Wednesday, April 19 through Sunday, June 4, 2006. Monty Python’s SPAMALOT premiered in Chicago in December 2004 during a sold-out run, before continuing onto Broadway.
Lovingly "ripped-off" from the internationally famous comedy team's.... Read More |
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Goodman Sweeps In Clean House
Goodman Theatre continues its 2005/2006 season with the play that is sweeping the nation—The Clean House by Chicago native Sarah Ruhl, one of the country’s hottest new voices. Acclaimed local artist Jessica Thebus, with whom Ruhl enjoyed an early writer/director partnership, will direct the play The New York Times has called “visionary, tinged with fantasy, extravagant in feeling, maybe a little.... Read More |
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Changes At The Chicago Jewish Theatre
Theatre in Chicago has learned that Elayne LeTraunik and her son Brian LeTraunik will be leaving the Chicago Jewish Theatre following the current run of "Feathers in the Wind." Elayne is the founder and Artistic Director of the company, which currently performs in an Andersonville storefront space located at 5123 N. Clark. The troupe had planned to relocate to the larger Meyer Kaplan.... Read More |
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Everything's Coming Up Sondheim
She’ll be swell, she’ll be great…Broadway diva Patti LuPone will once again be singing the words of Stephen Sondheim at the Ravinia Festival. This summer, LuPone will tackle the mother of all stage mothers, Mama Rose in a staged concert of “Gypsy” August 11-13. Ravinia first embarked on its annual Stephen Sondheim festival 6 years ago with a concert version of.... Read More |
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Leaving Iowa Heading To Chicago
"Leaving Iowa," the critically acclaimed, hilarious family comedy written by Chicago playwrights Tim Clue and Spike Morton, and directed by Clue, returns for a six-week limited engagement at the Royal George Theatre.
"Leaving Iowa" is a warm and nostalgic comedy about a middle-aged writer searching for the perfect spot to scatter his father's ashes. Along the way, he relives the summer vacations he.... Read More |
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Victory Gardens Theatre At The Biograph Becoming A Reality
With each passing day, Victory Gardens Theater's longtime dream of creating An American Center for New Plays at the historic Biograph Theater becomes closer and closer to reality.
Pepper Construction is hard at work, and the Biograph, located 2433 N. Lincoln Avenue in Chicago, is looking more like the new theater that architect Daniel Coffey has helped Victory.... Read More |
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Griffin Returns to Chicago With 'A Flea'
 A lot of people are looking at Gary Griffin's production of “A Flea in Her Ear" at Chicago Shakespeare Theater as a homecoming of sorts, which seems to take the veteran Chicago director by surprise. After all, Griffin has been pretty busy working on a little project called “The Color Purple" on Broadway and trekking out to London to win an.... Read More
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Chicago's Wicked Welcomes Original Broadway Cast Member
 Chicago’s record-breaking production of Wicked will soon receive a special visit from another land…the Great White Way! Tony Award winner Carole Shelley, Broadway’s original Madame Morrible, will assume the role in Chicago for a limited appearance from April 25 through June 25, 2006. Shelley steps in as Shiz University head mistress while Rondi Reed fulfills her commitment to appear with fellow Steppenwolf.... Read More
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Chicago Shakespeare Theater Announces 2006/2007 Season
 Chicago Shakespeare Theater (CST) Artistic Director Barbara Gaines and Executive Director Criss Henderson announced the productions slated for the Theater's 20th Anniversary Season. The season kicks off with both a leap forward and a nod to the past this summer with CST's debut at the Royal Shakespeare Company in Shakespeare's hometown of Stratford-upon-Avon. Barbara Gaines' production of Henry IV, Parts 1.... Read More
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Theatre Tidbits
The American Music Theatre Project (AMTP) at Northwestern University, in association with the Johnny Mercer Foundation, will host a weeklong summer festival on the Evanston campus titled “The Power of the American Popular Song.” The American Music Theatre Project is a new initiative at Northwestern University dedicated to the development of new musicals and the creation of exciting educational opportunities in.... Read More |
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What Makes Chicago Theatre Different?
The question reminds me of an amusing book title I saw once: Why Women Are Different. But since New York is still undeniably the standard against which all U.S. theatre is measured, the implied question -- “What makes Chicago theatre different from New York theatre?” -- is maybe not so silly. It certainly has very real repercussions in the lives of theatre.... Read More |
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The Pirate Queen Announces Star
Producers of "The Pirate Queen," an epic musical tale from the writers of "Les Miserables" and "Miss Saigon," have announced that Stephanie J. Block, the former Elphaba in the first national tour of "Wicked,” will star in the pre-Broadway debut in Chicago this fall.
As first announced by Block at the stage door after her final performance in “Wicked” March 5, her.... Read More |
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Erin Coors Lands Role Of Barbie
Mattel and Live Nation have announced that actress Erin Elizabeth Coors has been cast as the lead role of Barbie in the elaborate stage production of Barbie Live In Fairytopia. Barbie, the doll with the too-good-to-be-true figure, wardrobe and array of careers, is taking human form for the first time. Coors, from Cincinnati, Ohio, will bring Barbie to life onstage for.... Read More |
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The Color Purple Coming To Chicago
The Producers of The Color Purple have announced that the National Tour of the Broadway smash hit musical will premiere April 2007 at Chicago’s Cadillac Palace Theatre in association with Broadway In Chicago. This long-run engagement will have an initial block of tickets on sale through June 2007, and the Chicago run will be followed by engagements in other major cities across.... Read More |
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Emerald City Announces New Season Of Childrens' Shows
Emerald City Theatre Company, Chicago's largest professional theater devoted entirely to families, announced a full slate of five family favorites for its 2006/07 season.
Starting this Fall with the newly pared down version of Seussical, and ending next Spring with Narnia, a musical version of C.S. Lewis' first and most famous story of The Chronicles of Narnia, Emerald.... Read More |
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Steppenwolf Theatre Founder Gary Sinise Embarking On His 17th USO Tour
Actor, director and producer Gary Sinise is embarking on his 17th USO tour to provide a morale boost to Marines, sailors and their family members March 12 at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center (MCAGCC) in Twentynine Palms, Calif. The trip, sponsored by TriWest Healthcare Alliance, will feature Sinise and the Lt. Dan Band. Best known for his Oscar-nominated performance as.... Read More |
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Martin Short To Make Extra Stop Prior To Chicago
Martin Short: Fame Becomes Me will make one additional stop prior to coming to Chicago. It has been announced that the show will now play Toronto's Canon Theatre from May 27 - July 2, 2006 in addition to the previously announced engagements at the Curran Theatre in San Francisco April 25 - May 21, 2006 and in Chicago at.... Read More |
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Harold Gould Stars In Tuesdays With Morrie
When actor Harold Gould was approached last year to do a Broadway tour of the stage play version of author Mitch Albom's best-seller "Tuesdays with Morrie," he debated about going out on the road.
"Doing a tour that takes you city to city around the country for months at a time isn't always easy," said Gould,.... Read More |
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Actress Marsha Mason To Appear In Hecuba
Chicago Shakespeare Theater announced an exciting addition to its spring season. CST will produce the American Premiere of Hecuba, a new adaptation of Euripides' tragedy, written by world-renowned playwright Frank McGuinness. Tony Award-winning director Patrick Mason, in his Chicago directorial debut, stages the production featuring Marsha Mason, in the theater Upstairs at Chicago Shakespeare, April 26 through June 18, 2006.
Written by.... Read More |
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Change In Cast For Goodman Theatre's Production of Romance
Due to illness, John Mahoney will not appear as the Judge in Goodman Theatre's production of Romance, as formerly announced. Romance is part of the seven-week David Mamet Festival and is the playwright's newest work. The play is a searing courtroom comedy that lampoons our most sacred issues. Pam MacKinnon, who made her Goodman Theatre debut in the Edward Albee Festival, returns.... Read More |
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Goodman Announces Initial Plans For 2006/2007 Season
Goodman Theatre announces initial plans for its 2006/2007 season, a diverse line-up that unites established and emerging talents to celebrate the 20th anniversary of its Tony Award-winning artistic director, Robert Falls. Falls launches the season in the Albert Theatre with the quintessential theatrical work, William Shakespeare’s masterpiece King Lear, with the estimable Stacy Keach in the title role. The Goodman becomes the.... Read More |
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LaSalle Bank Theatre Gets Closer to Opening
It was born the Majestic Theatre in 1906, reincarnated as the Shubert Theatre in 1945, and will continue life as the LaSalle Bank Theatre, the Chicago flagship property of the Nederlander Organization, following a yearlong renovation and historic restoration. The Nederlanders purchased the 20-story Majestic Building, which includes the theatre, from the Shuberts in 1991 but declined to spend the money.... Read More |
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autobahn Set To Roll Into Chicago
Acclaimed playwright and filmmaker Neil LaButte’s “autobahn” is set to drive into Chicago and appear at the Profiles Theatre. autobahn is a tantalizing cycle of short plays full of edgy humor and shocking revelations all set in automobiles, which explores the confines of this truly American space. What other locale hosts as much human drama as the front seat of the American.... Read More |
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Hellooo, Dame Edna Is Coming Back
Dame Edna, the incomparable international housewife, megastar and guru, returns to Chicago, direct from the triumphant Broadway season of her all-new comedy extravaganza, Dame Edna: Back With A Vengeance! for one week only from Tuesday, March 14 through Sunday, March 19, 2006 at the Cadillac Palace Theatre.
Following the national success of her previous life-enhancing and much loved shows, which were.... Read More |
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Steppenwolf gives Heard a ‘Break' from TV
John Heard will take a “break” from his recurring role on television's “Prison Break” series to star in Steppenwolf Theatre Company's upcoming World Premiere of “Love-Lies-Bleeding" by Don DeLillo. “Love-Lies-Bleeding" is produced in association with The Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays, and will transfer from its Chicago run (April 27-May 28, 2006) to the Kennedy Center's Terrace Theater in.... Read More |
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Victory Gardens New State Of The Art Theater Set To Open Fall 2006
Chicago's historic Biograph Theater, 2433 N. Lincoln Avenue, may be hidden from view at the moment, but behind the scaffolds, Victory Gardens Theater has embarked on the most visible expansion project in its 32 year history - construction of a beautiful new, $11.3 million mainstage, dedicated to the enjoyment of live theater.
Victory Gardens, Chicago's number one presenter.... Read More |
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Talk Theatre Show Debuts With Artisitc Director of Lifeline Theatre Interview
Theatre In Chicago is proud to announce the debut of a weekly Theatre podcast show called Talk Theatre In Chicago. For the first show, host Tom Williams sits down for an interview with the Artistic Director of the Lifeline Theatre, Dorothy Milne. The Lifeline Theatre has just opened with their new show Johnny Tremain. In this show the American Revolution comes.... Read More |
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Theatre Building Celebrates Black History Month
Theatre Building Chicago celebrates Black History Month with two unique musical performances. Tap dynamo Savion Glover brings his newest work, "If Trane Wuz Here" to the Belmont Avenue theatre for a limited run February 14-19. The Tony Award-winning star of Broadway's "Bring in 'Da Noise, Bring in ‘Da Funk," "The Tap Dance Kid" and "Jelly's Last Jam," joins with reg e.... Read More |
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Actress A Real Paige-Turner
If you attend Chicago theatre on any kind of a regular basis, you will no doubt run across the name Cristen Paige. In just a few years, this bubbly and talented young lady has enjoyed a steady stream of high profile roles, working with some of the industry's brightest talents and most regarded venues. And while she has really earned her niche in .... Read More |
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Chicago Teens Bring Important Social Issues to the Lookingglass Stage
Lookingglass Theatre Company's Teen Touring Ensemble - a diverse group of 12 amazing and talented teens from across the Chicagoland area - will present "KNOWING:", a piece written about their experiences in the U. S. education system, Sunday February 12 at 7 pm, and Monday, February 13 at 6:30 pm at Lookingglass Theatre.
Lookingglass Theatre.... Read More |
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Victory Gardens' All-Amateur Hello, Dolly! Benefit To Wow Audiences Two Nights Only
More than 50 Chicagoans from all walks of life will enjoy two nights of fame starring in Victory Gardens Theater's all-amateur, benefit production of Hello, Dolly!, Friday, February 17 at 8pm, and Saturday, February 18 at 7 pm, at the Athenaeum Theater.
A diverse cast of doctors, lawyers, business owners, housewives and school kids all paid to.... Read More |
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Bailiwick Performer Hits the Road Again
Tim Miller may not have been born in a trunk, but he has certainly packed a few over the past two decades. The controversial author, performer and activist will be appearing at Bailiwick Arts Center for 3 performances March 16-18 in his latest solo work, "1,001 Beds," based on his new book of the same name scheduled for publication also in.... Read More |
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Broadways's Smash Hit Musical Urinetown Coming To Chicago
Urinetown, Broadway’s Tony-Award winning musical phenomenon, created by Chicago’s own Mark Hollmann and Greg Kotis, will begin its first commercial Chicago run this spring beginning with previews on March 15 and opening on Sunday March 26, 2006 at The Mercury Theater.
Tom Mullen directed the first U.S. regional production of the show and will co-produce with the newly formed Blue Dog.... Read More |
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Sita Ram World Premiere
The tradition and beauty of Natya Dance Theatre, the entrancing music of Grammy nominated Jai Uttal, the soaring voices of the Chicago Children's Choir, and Lookingglass Theatre Company's signature storytelling will unite this spring for the world premiere of Sita Ram.
Breathing new life into a key section of the ancient Hindu epic Ramayana, Sita Ram is.... Read More |
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Chicago Actor Lands Spamalot Role
Chicago actor Jeff Dumas has landed a featured role in the National Touring company of "Spamalot." Dumas will play Patsy in the Tony Award-winning musical, which is "lovingly ripped off from the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail." Chicago audiences saw the pre-Broadway tryout of "Spamalot" in December, 2004. The original cast, including Tim Curry, Hank Azaria and David Hyde.... Read More |
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Steep Theatre Presents Steinbeck’s Classic Of Mice and Men
Steep Theatre Company will continue its Fifth Season with their production of John Steinbeck’s classic Of Mice and Men which is being produced in repertory with Steep’s Midwest premiere of Jez Butterworth’s The Night Heron. Since its founding in March of 2001, Steep has grown by leaps and bounds, producing 20 shows and establishing itself as an important, contributing member.... Read More |
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Cultural Icon Receives Landmark Honor
The name Lois Weisberg has become synonymous for pioneering contributions that have enriched and improved Chicago's cultural arts scene over the past 2-½ decades. Now the commissioner of the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs is being recognized by the Landmarks Preservation Council of Illinois with its first ever Legendary Landmarks Award. The award will be presented at a Gala on Saturday,.... Read More |
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Alene Robertson Suffers Brain Aneurysm
Veteran Chicago actress Alene Robertson has suffered a brain aneurysm and is currently in a coma awaiting surgery on Tuesday, January 24. Ms. Robertson was starring in the National Touring company of 'Annie," reprising the role of Miss Hannigan she has played in numerous productions, including at Drury Lane Oakbrook in 1990 and 2002. She is a nine time Joseph Jefferson Award.... Read More |
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Chicago Shakespeare Founder Receives Royal Honor
Barbara Gaines is already considered one of the top movers and shapers of Chicago theatre by industry watchers and insiders. Now the Artistic Director of Chicago Shakespeare Theater is being honored by the Queen of England for her artistic leadership in strengthening ties between the United States and the United Kingdom. The 59-year-old Gaines.... Read More |
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Young Lady From Rwanda Chicago Premiere
Victory Gardens Theater, Chicago's #1 presenter of new plays for more than 30 years, introduces Chicago to a beautifully written, inspiring new play about a survivor of the 1994 Rwanda massacres with the local premiere of I Have Before Me a Remarkable Document Given To Me by a Young Lady From Rwanda by Sonja Linden, which runs until March 5, 2006.
.... Read More |
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Be A Playwright With 'Daivd Mamet Contest'
Have you always wanted to try your hand at being a playwright? Now is your chance! As part of Goodman Theatre's upcoming David Mamet Festival, you are invited to walk a mile in this great Chicagoan's shoes by writing a Mamet play of your very own.
As part of Goodman Theatre’s seven-week David Mamet Festival, aspiring writers and Mamet fans are invited to pen.... Read More |
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Chicago Legend 'Inherits' Northlight Season Opener
Legendary Chicago actor Tony Mockus will star in Northlight Theatre's season opening production of 'Inherit the Wind," opening in September, 2006 at the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts in Skokie. Mr. Mockus, whose recent credits include starring roles in 'The Sunshine Boys,' 'Sleuth' and 'On Golden Pond,' will play Matthew Harrison Brady, the charismatic prosecuting attorney based on.... Read More |
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Court Theatre Swinging For Fences
Just three months after acclaimed playwright August Wilson’s death, Court Theatre is honoring his life and contributions to the American literary canon by putting on a production of one of his most celebrated works.
Fences, which opened Thursday, Jan. 12, was Wilson’s second play to go to Broadway. His singular achievement and literary legacy is a cycle of ten plays, each.... Read More |
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Charlotte Set To Spin Web In Chicago
Emerald City Theatre Company, Chicago's largest professional theater company entirely dedicated to families, has corralled some of Chicago's top professional theater artists to create an entertaining, acrobatic new version of everyone's favorite barnyard story, Charlotte's Web, which will run from January 21 to April 1, 2006.
Chicago theater veteran Ann Filmer, founder of Estrogen Fest and former producing director of Chicago Dramatists, will.... Read More |
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Sex And The City Star to Appear On Stage In Chicago
David Eigenberg, the popular actor of stage and screen best known as Miranda's boyfriend Steve on HBO's Sex and the City, will make his Chicago stage debut in Victory Gardens Theater's Midwest premiere of Cradle of Man, playing March 24-May 7, 2006.
Cradle of Man, a new dramatic comedy by Melanie Marnich, is a mid-season replacement for A Fair.... Read More |
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Chicago Actress in High Demand
Chicago favorite Renee Matthews has been much in demand since walking away from this year's "Jeff" Awards with Best Supporting Actress in a Musical honors. Matthews parlayed her salty, chain-smoking, tough-talking pianist Jeanette in "The Full Monty" at Drury Lane Water Tower Theatre into a showstopping tour de force. Next up for the sprightly Ms. Matthews is another salty, tough-talking senior citizen.... Read More |
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Theatre Tidbits
Chicago actor Sean Allan Krill turned down an opportunity to recreate the same role in "Thoroughly Modern Millie" that he played on the National Tour for the Marriott Theatre's local regional premiere. It seems he will be counting his "Money, Money, Money" by starring in the ABBA song and dance sensation "Mamma Mia." Krill, whose many Chicago credits include roles at Court, Marriott.... Read More |
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Witch Change For Wicked
Chicago's resident company of the blockbuster musical Wicked is booking tickets well into 2006, but look for a few changes over at the Ford Center for the Performing Arts Oriental Theatre. Both Ana Gasteyer (Elphaba) and Kate Reinders (Glinda) will be exiting the Stephen Schwartz hit when their contracts end in late January. According to a production source, they will be.... Read More |
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Little Women Coming To Chicago
Little Women - The Musical based on the classic novel by Louise May Alcott, is coming to the Cadillac Palace Theatre where it will play from Tuesday, January 24th through Sunday, February 5th. Recording, concert and theater start Maureen McGovern, who starred in the show on Broadway, will headline the tour.
Maureen McGovern, whose career spans over 30 years, includes recordings, concerts,.... Read More |
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Dr. Dolittle To Appear In Chicago
Chicago audiences may be able to talk to the animals after all. The on-again, off-again touring stage production of the Leslie Bricusse musical 'Doctor Doolittle" is back on the schedule for Chicago's Cadillac Palace Theatre July 18-30, 2006. Legendary song and dance man Tommy Tune not only takes the lead but the directorial reins as well. Broadway veteran Dee Hoty has been announced.... Read More |
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Chicago Jewish Theatre Announces Move To Skokie
Chicago Jewish Theatre, the only professional theater in the Chicago area dedicated to celebrating and illuminating Jewish history, culture and identity, will be relocating to Skokie in July of 2006.
The theatre, which has occupied their own 50-seat storefront space in Andersonville, at 5123 N. Clark Street since 2003, will have its new home in the 260 seat.... Read More |
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New Associate Artistic Director Of Steppenwolf Named
Chicago actor David New has been named as the new Associate Artistic Director of Steppenwolf Theatre Company. New replaces Curt Columbus, who left Chicago to become the new artistic director of Trinity Repertory Company in Providence, Rhode Island.
New's Steppenwolf acting credits include roles in 'The Royal Family," 'The Ballad of Little Jo," 'Valparaiso," 'Morningstar," 'The Glass Menagerie" and 'Slaughterhouse Five." Former.... Read More |
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Chicago City Council Passes New Performing Arts Venue License
Breakthrough legislation which makes doing
business with the city easier for live theaters in Chicago was published and
made effective officially last week at the December 7th Chicago City Council
meeting.
The new legislation, ushered through by 46th Ward Alderman Helen Shiller,
establishes a brand new Performing Arts Venue (PAV) license specifically for
live theaters with under 500.... Read More |
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George Gershwin Alone Returns To Chicago
George Gershwin Alone, Hershey Felder’s international production, and the first installment of the composer trilogy, which played to sold out houses for an entire year at Chicago’s Royal George Theatre, will return to the stage for a limited holiday engagement. Performances will run December 23 - January 8 at Chicago's Royal George Theatre. There will be special New Year’s Eve performances.... Read More |
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Drury Lane Oakbrook Artistic Director Fired
Ray Frewen received a lump of coal in his Christmas stocking this year. According to an industry source, the much-lauded Artistic Director of Drury Lane Oakbrook was handed his walking papers when he attempted to collect a pay check for directing Drury Lane's children's production of "A Christmas Carol." Frewen was a co-writer as well as director of the holiday show, although sources say he.... Read More |
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Curtain Not Yet Ready To Rise
The opening of The LaSalle Bank Theatre, which was formerly the Shubert Theatre, has been pushed back until at least spring 2006. The refurbished theatre was originally scheduled to open in late January, however the reopening has been delayed because, of all things, an archaeological dig.
According to Broadway In Chicago, more time.... Read More
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John Mahoney To Return To The Goodman
John Mahoney will return to the Goodman for the first time in 15 years to join the cast of Mamet’s most recent play, Romance. Mahoney—best known for his work on the television show Frasier and last seen at the Goodman in the critically acclaimed 1989/90 Mamet adaptation of Anton Chekov’s Uncle Vanya—will portray the Judge in this courtroom farce directed by.... Read More |
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Trading Spaces’ Paige Davis Starring in Chicago
Though best known to audiences around the country as the energetic host of The Learning Channel's "Trading Spaces," Paige Davis has a long history in the musical theatre. She starred as Babette in the first national tour of Disney's Beauty and the Beast and has also been seen in productions of A Chorus Line, Company, Pippin and Hello, Dolly!. But the actress'.... Read More |
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Steppenwolf Co-founder Malkovich Taking Break From Theatre
John Malkovich made his name with Chicago's Steppenwolf theatre company. Now he has family so he says he is sticking to film
Malkovich started out in theatre as a co-founder of Steppenwolf in 1976 - his fellow troupers included Gary Sinise, Laurie Metcalf, Joan Allen and Terry Kinney - and estimates he must have spent eight solid years on stage.... Read More |
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And The Winners Are....
The 2005 Joseph Jefferson Awards, which celebrate excellence in the Chicago area’s Equity theatre community, were presented on November 7 at the Drury Lane Theatre Water Tower Place. A total of 29 theatre companies received nominations at the 37th annual event.
A total of 120 Equity productions by 51 Chicago producing companies were judged during the 2004-2005 season, running Aug 1, 2004 through .... Read More |
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Ailing Peter Hall Quits Lyric Opera's Midsummer Marriage
Legendary stage director Sir Peter Hall has withdrawn from Lyric Opera of Chicago's premiere production of Sir Michael Tippett’s The Midsummer Marriage that he was to have directed, William Mason, the Lyric's general director announced in a press release. The company has attributed Hall's departure from the production as stemming from "health reasons."
“This is very difficult.... Read More |
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The Pirate Queen To Arrive Next Season
"The Pirate Queen," an epic musical tale from the writers of "Les Miserables" and "Miss Saigon," will open in Chicago next year on its way to Broadway.
The show, which will begin performances Oct. 3, 2006, at Chicago's Cadillac Palace Theatre, features a book and score by Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schonberg. "The Pirate Queen" tells the story of Grace.... Read More |
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Off-off Broadway In Chicago
Edmund De Santis is a celebrated playwright and a founding member of the celebrated Harbor Theatre Company in New York City. De Santis has written many plays, including the award-winning Recensio, Thinking and Other Positions and American Subways to name a few. He is also coming to Chicago in November to see the Chicago premiere of his semi-autobiographical comedy Making Peter.... Read More |
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Wicked Company to Present No Place Like Home Benefit
The company of the sit-down production of Wicked at Chicago's Ford Center for the Performing Arts have organized a benefit evening to raise funds for Habitat for Humanity/Operation Home Delivery, which will aid the recently displaced hurricane victims around the country.
The Nov. 14 evening, entitled There's No Place Like Home, will be held at Chicago's Park West Theatre..... Read More |
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Chicago Theatre Scene Losing Artisitc Director
Chicago's Curt Columbus, head of the summer Theatre on the Lake and associate artisitc director at Steppenwolf Theatre is leaving the Chicago Theatre scene to become the artisitic director at Trinity Repertory Company in Providence, Rhode Island.
In addition to his duties at Steppenwolf and Theater on the Lake, the Yale graduate teaches at the University.... Read More |
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Changes At Drury Lane- Water Tower
The artistic director of the Drury Lane Theatre at Water Tower Place, Michael Weber, has been released from his position. Weber had only been in the job for five months and was in the midst of directing "Grand Hotel," which closes November 6.
The theatre, which is located near the heart of the Magnificent Mile at 175 E. Chestnut Street, will now.... Read More |
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The Chicago Theatre is Going Down Under
The Chicago Theatre, located in the loop at 175 N. State street, is expanding by going down.
The owner of the Chicago Theatre, TheatreDreams Chicago, is building a new 250 seat black-box style performance space in the currently unused space beneath the theater's main lobby. The new theatre space, which should be complete by March 2006, will house smaller and more intimate commercial shows.
The.... Read More |
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Spelling Bee Coming To Chicago
The Producers of the Tony Award-winning musical The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, have announced a long run engagement in Chicago beginning March 2006 at the Drury Lane Theatre Water Tower Place. This will be the first production of Spelling Bee since becoming a Broadway success, and it will be directed by James Lapin, the.... Read More |
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