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Home » Arts & Culture » Performing Arts Review

Category: Performing Arts Review

A group of performers in American colonial-era clothing stands in a line in front of a bridge, where two men stand.
Posted inArts & Culture

In search of freedom

by Deanna Isaacs April 25, 2022April 25, 2022

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. […]

Three women in ragged dresses, their heads covered with scarves, stand in a row, holding pieces of paper with musical notes on them.
Posted inPerforming Arts Review

Holocaust, the opera

by Deanna Isaacs March 31, 2022March 31, 2022

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 […]

Front of a riverboat onstage, surrounded by blue/purple light and projections of butterflies. A woman in a light long dress stands on the upper deck of the boat.
Posted inArts & Culture

Riverboat romance

by Yasmin Zacaria Mikhaiel November 18, 2021November 18, 2021

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 […]

A woman on the left in black dress with white trim and a man in brown suit and hat, both wearing vaudeville-style makeup, surrounded by projections of yellow and blue flowers
Posted inArts & Culture

What a concept!

by Deanna Isaacs November 5, 2021November 5, 2021

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 […]

Posted inPerforming Arts Review

Good medicine

by Deanna Isaacs September 27, 2021September 27, 2021

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, […]

Posted inPerforming Arts Review

Risking all for opera

by Deanna Isaacs September 20, 2021September 20, 2021

A Verdi classic, a twist on Bizet, and a doubleheader of new work kick off the opera season in Chicago.

Posted inPerforming Arts Review

Chicago-style magic is ready for its close-up again

by Kerry Reid August 19, 2021August 23, 2021

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 […]

Kevin Theis as Prospero in Oak Park Festival Theatre's The Tempest
Posted inArts & Culture

Coming through the pandemic storm with The Tempest

by Kerry Reid July 21, 2021August 18, 2021

A trash island forms the background for Oak Park Festival Theatre’s outdoor staging of The Tempest.

Oliver Parkinson and Cassie Cutler
Posted inArts & Culture

Teatro ZinZanni brings back glitz, kitsch, and the joy of living

by Irene Hsiao July 20, 2021August 18, 2021

Teatro ZinZanni,the dinner circus spectacle, reopens at the Cambria Hotel.

Whale Song from Sea Change
Posted inArts & Culture

A Sea Change for a time of upheaval

by Catey Sullivan July 19, 2021August 18, 2021

Cabinet of Curiosity sets sail with a new live show about mermaids, whales, sharks, seagulls—and climate disaster

Henchpeople
Posted inArts & Culture

Henchpeople is a satisfying amuse-bouche for the return of live theater

by Kerry Reid July 16, 2021August 18, 2021

Ross Compton’s Henchpeople is a shaggy and endearing comedy about supervillain support staff.

Hoss Brock in Lyric Opera's Hansel and Gretel
Posted inArts & Culture

Lyric’s al fresco Hansel and Gretel is a family-friendly treat

by Deanna Isaacs June 8, 2021August 18, 2021

North Park Village Nature Center provides an ideal setting for Lyric’s Hansel and Gretel.

"Six Feet Apart" from Strawdog Theatre's How Do We Navigate Space?
Posted inArts & Culture

We’re all in the same boat (alone) with Moby Dick and How Do We Navigate Space?

by Kerry Reid March 26, 2021August 18, 2021

Two streaming shows from Theatre in the Dark and Strawdog capture the drama of obsession and isolation.

The Ministry of Mundane Mysteries will try to clue you in.
Posted inArts & Culture

An inspector calls: The Ministry of Mundane Mysteries messes with a critic’s head

by Catey Sullivan March 9, 2021August 18, 2021

This interactive performance-piece-by-phone offers a daily dose of oddness.

Anu Bhatt (left) and Cris Blak perform in the 2021 Fillet of Solo festival.
Posted inArts & Culture

Fillet of Solo reminds us that no one is alone

by Catey Sullivan February 18, 2021August 18, 2021

The annual festival of storytelling offers the freshest catches for COVID days.

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