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?
.... Read More
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 .... Read More
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.... Read More
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.... Read More
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.... Read More
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.... Read More
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 .... Read More
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.... Read More
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. .... Read More
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.... Read More
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.... Read More
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.... Read More
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.... Read More
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.... Read More
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..... Read More
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.... Read More
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.... Read More
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.... Read More
