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.... Read More

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,.... Read More

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.... Read More

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.... Read More

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.... Read More

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.... Read More

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.... Read More

'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..... Read More

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.... Read More

"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,.... Read More

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..... Read More

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.... Read More

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.... Read More

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.... Read More

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.... Read More

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 .... Read More

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,.... Read More

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.... Read More

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.... Read More

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.... Read More