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.... Read More

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.... Read More

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.... Read More

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.... Read More

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.... Read More

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.... Read More

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.... Read More

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.... Read More

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.... Read More

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.... Read More

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.... Read More

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.... Read More

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.... Read More

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.... Read More

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.... Read More

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.... Read More

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.

.... Read More

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.... Read More

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,.... Read More

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.... Read More