This commission by Chicago Opera Theater brings to town a new opera by the prolific and celebrated Belize-born British composer, singer, pianist, and performer Errollyn Wallen, with librettist Deborah Brevoort. […]
Category: Performing Arts Review
Holocaust, the opera
It was a little disturbing that in the final moments of Chicago Fringe Opera’s stirring production of the Holocaust opera Two Remain (Out of Darkness), what should pop into my […]
Riverboat romance
With the first Chicago snow of the season also came the opening of Florencia en el Amazonas, and the late Daniel Catán’s opera kept the audience warm with hot romance […]
What a concept!
Barrie Kosky’s magic take on Mozart’s The Magic Flute, which has been circling the globe for nearly a decade and seen by 700,000 people, landed on the Lyric Opera Stage […]
Good medicine
This take on Gaetano Donizetti’s 1832 comic opera, L’elisir d’amore, is a two-act antidote for our COVID-plagued reality. Cleverly directed by Daniel Slater and beautifully designed by Robert Innes Hopkins, […]
Risking all for opera
A Verdi classic, a twist on Bizet, and a doubleheader of new work kick off the opera season in Chicago.
Chicago-style magic is ready for its close-up again
Magical thinking is both bane and balm. Without a little bit of belief in the possibility of miraculous transformation, I’d probably never get out of bed (especially lately). Yet amid […]
Coming through the pandemic storm with The Tempest
A trash island forms the background for Oak Park Festival Theatre’s outdoor staging of The Tempest.
Teatro ZinZanni brings back glitz, kitsch, and the joy of living
Teatro ZinZanni,the dinner circus spectacle, reopens at the Cambria Hotel.
A Sea Change for a time of upheaval
Cabinet of Curiosity sets sail with a new live show about mermaids, whales, sharks, seagulls—and climate disaster
Henchpeople is a satisfying amuse-bouche for the return of live theater
Ross Compton’s Henchpeople is a shaggy and endearing comedy about supervillain support staff.
Lyric’s al fresco Hansel and Gretel is a family-friendly treat
North Park Village Nature Center provides an ideal setting for Lyric’s Hansel and Gretel.
We’re all in the same boat (alone) with Moby Dick and How Do We Navigate Space?
Two streaming shows from Theatre in the Dark and Strawdog capture the drama of obsession and isolation.
An inspector calls: The Ministry of Mundane Mysteries messes with a critic’s head
This interactive performance-piece-by-phone offers a daily dose of oddness.
Fillet of Solo reminds us that no one is alone
The annual festival of storytelling offers the freshest catches for COVID days.