There was a time when concessions at Chicago live theaters were pretty basic: water, soda, candy, coffee, tea, and maybe some beer in a can or wine in a box (depending on whether or not the venue had a liquor license). But as theater bars have expanded their range of legal booze options (or in […]
Category: Arts & Culture
Posted inTheater Review
Hothouse Shakespeare
Midsommer Flight’s production of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night is back at the Lincoln Park Conservatory, this time with an immersive “choose-your-own-path” twist. It’s an exciting concept that could use some workshopping given the uniqueness of the greenhouse space and the inherent challenges already present in performing Shakespeare in a way that’s relatable and easy to follow […]
Posted inTheater Review
Mr. Dickens’ Hat offers a different spin on a Victorian Christmas
In 1865, Charles Dickens, his mistress Ellen Ternan, and her mother were all on a train that derailed in Kent, England. Dickens used his hat to carry water to the survivors (and some that didn’t make it). That grim footnote in history forms the basis for Michael Hollinger’s Mr. Dickens’ Hat, a play with music […]
Posted inTheater Review
Knuffle kerfuffle
Mo Willems’s 2004 picture book, Knuffle Bunny, spawned a series of spin-offs, including this musical by Willems and Michael Silversher, which marks the inaugural production of Young People’s Theatre of Chicago under founder Randy White’s direction. Trixie (Aissa Guerra), a toddler who hasn’t quite learned to talk in recognizable English (but sure knows how to […]
Posted inTheater Review
Bedford Falls is live in Chicago
Who needs four ghosts to remind you of the meaning of life when one angel (second class) can do the job? Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life by now is right up there with A Christmas Carol as a holiday classic delivering lessons about the importance of love over money. (Well, a Sam Wainwright waiting […]
Posted inTheater Review
Joan-sing for the holidays
Hell in a Handbag Productions’ campy spoof of A Christmas Carol replaces miserly moneylender Ebenezer Scrooge with hard-hearted Hollywood icon Joan Crawford, played by author (and Hell in a Handbag artistic director) David Cerda. In Cerda’s reworking of Charles Dickens’s behavior-modification fable, Joan—a tyrannical, tough-as-nails diva who abuses everyone around her, including her loyal personal […]
Posted inDance
Joffrey’s Nutcracker gets a new home
Year after year the critic comes, that unkind aunt who wasn’t quite invited to the house spoiling Christmas for the children by pointing out that The Nutcracker is, like most American traditions, not as old and established as it purports to be and problematic where it comes to gender and race to boot. This year, […]
Posted inGhost Light
Fire in Oak Park and changes in Oak Brook and Jefferson Park
Oak Park Festival Theatre was one of the first companies back to live performance this year after the COVID-19 shutdown with their production of The Tempest, staged in their longtime outdoor home at Austin Gardens. They weathered that storm, only to suffer a fire on November 23 at their offices in downtown Oak Park, located […]
Posted inTheater Review
Cindy Lou Who is all grown up
Christopher Pazdernik directs Matthew Lombardo’s 2017 grown-ups-only update of Dr. Seuss’s yuletide classic, How the Grinch Stole Christmas. On the outskirts of Whoville, in a modest but homey trailer, a very adult Cindy Lou Who recounts her meet-cute with the Grinch and the resulting fallout. Who’s Holiday! Through 12/26: see website for full schedule, Theater […]
Posted inArts & Culture
A Kate Bush catharsis
For music fans starved of live performances over the first year of the pandemic, the return to in-person shows earlier this year was a blessing, a small sense of normalcy amid a still-steady battle with the coronavirus. Despite the many additional challenges thrown up by playing through a pandemic, fans and musicians alike have eagerly […]
Posted inArts & Culture
A mystery on the home front
How do we contribute to making history every day? When we learn history, there’s often a huge emphasis on the leaders who make things happen, whether they are presidents, businessmen, or heads of social and political movements. But what about the people who make these movements happen: the ones who campaign for the presidents or […]
Posted inTheater Review
Too much of a good thing
Inspired by the real-life onstage/offstage marital drama of the husband-and-wife acting team, Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, this Tony Award-winning 1948 musical features an engaging book by Sam and Bella Spewack and a score packed with iconic Cole Porter earworms—among them “Why Can’t You Behave,” “Always True to You (In My Fashion),” and “Too Darn […]
Posted inArts & Culture
The “singing mailman” with a unique gift
To write about John Prine, whose death from COVID-19 related complications in April 2020 devastated fans around the world, is an inherently intimate act. Prine’s music has always felt like a treasured good, sacred and familial. I felt that as a kid, hearing stories from my dad, who lived near Chicago in the 1970s and […]
Posted inPerforming Arts Feature
Remembering Matt Rieger: ‘a good egg for the ages’
Editor’s Note: Matt Rieger, managing director and ensemble member of the Curious Theatre Branch, died on October 27 at 50, following a recent cancer diagnosis. Rieger’s death led to an outpouring of tributes on social media, reminding many of how instrumental he had been in many roles onstage and off over his years as a […]
Posted inArts & Culture
The scene report from space
Elaborate hologram displays. A satellite planet. A mysterious deity. On the surface, Lane Milburn’s rollicking sci-fi graphic novel Lure doesn’t have much to do with Chicago. But Milburn drew inspiration from his old neighborhood, his punk band, his friends, and his near-decade living in the city. Lure takes place on an alternate earth, orbited by […]