Author Archives: Nick Green

Two Gentlemen of Verona, at ImprovOlympic. Although it won a Tony in 1971, this rock-musical adaptation of Shakespeare’s early comedy, about two hapless brothers in search of true love, hasn’t […]

Film Flam, Live Bait Theater. As an expose of the perils of independent filmmaking, Chicago playwright and Reader contributor Adam Langer’s Film Flam isn’t particularly incisive: the script’s hollow satire […]

My Song, Circle Theatre. For a play that champions individuality at all costs, My Song is horribly contrived. Playwright John Green pushes too many buttons in this story of middle-aged […]

By the Sea, By the Sea, By the Beautiful Sea, Brainchoppers Productions, at La Piazza Cafe. It must have sounded like a good idea: get together with a couple of […]

The Killer A Red Orchid Theatre By Nick Green “There’s nothing more real than a mirage,” comments Berenger, the everyman in Eugene Ionesco’s 1958 farce about the absurdity of life […]

David’s Redhaired Death, Siren Productions, at the Chopin Theatre. The most frustrating aspect of Sherry Kramer’s play isn’t the grossly underdeveloped characters or the conspicuous absence of plot–it’s the distressing […]

Promise Keepers, Losers Weepers, Second City. Audiences have come to expect Second City to take at least a few potshots at the latest fads and trends–from cigar smoking to rollerblading […]

Under a Mantle of Stars, Jaboa Theatre Ensemble, at the Chopin Theatre. Playwright Manuel Puig explores the nature of alienation and the thin, often tenuous border between reality and fantasy […]

Four Dogs and a Bone, Groundswell Theatre Company, at Voltaire. With its hokey cliches, highly sanitized situations, and hastily drawn conclusions, John Patrick Shanley’s writing is perfect grist for the […]

Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, Lifeline Theatre. Adapting a book like this one for the stage is no mean feat. At just over 30 pages (many of them filled […]

Play-Action, Directors Theatre of Chicago, at the Athenaeum Theatre Studio. In the middle of Play-Action’s first act, five college students gather in the kitchen of a grungy apartment and debate […]

The Anastasia File, Illinois Theatre Center. The greatest unsolved mystery of the 20th century may be the story of Anastasia, the woman who was perhaps the sole surviving heir to […]

Chekhov in Yalta Seanachai Theatre Company at the Chopin Theatre By Nick Green Unlike Steve Martin’s Picasso at the Lapin Agile, John Driver and Jeffrey Haddow’s biographical Chekhov in Yalta […]

The Great Nebula in Orion and Ludlow Fair, TinFish Theatre. Lanford Wilson is a director’s playwright, the kind of dramatist whose works cry out for interpretation. He supplies the dialogue […]