Zac Thompson, author at Chicago Reader

Chicago’s most uncomfortable theaters can offer exceptional theatrical experiences

by Zac Thompson June 23, 2016August 18, 2021

Close quarters, minuscule budgets, and structural limitations can work wonders when it comes to creating intimacy and forcing invention.

Arts & Culture

In Long Day’s Journey Into Night there’s darkness at the end of the tunnel

by Zac Thompson March 23, 2016August 18, 2021

Eugene O’Neill’s family tragedy Long Day’s Journey Into Night gets a true-to-life staging at Court Theatre.

Arts & Culture

How Chicago theater artists are diversifying the city’s stages

by Zac Thompson March 22, 2016August 18, 2021

Efforts are underway to make Chicago’s theater less uniformly white, thin, able-bodied, and gender-conforming.

Arts & Culture

The Goodman’s 2666: Epic, eerie, and ultimately unfathomable

by Zac Thompson February 18, 2016August 18, 2021

Roberto Bolaño’s sprawling novel becomes a phantasmagoric five-and-a-half-hour ride.

Arts & Culture

Steppenwolf’s Domesticated is a battle tooth and claw

by Zac Thompson December 16, 2015August 18, 2021

Bruce Norris’s dark comedy looks at the aftermath of a political sex scandal.

Arts & Culture

Victory Gardens’ Sucker Punch is a KO

by Zac Thompson October 1, 2015August 18, 2021

Dexter Bullard directs British playwright Roy Williams’s drama about two black London boxers.

Arts & Culture

The Chicago Fringe Festival: Satire! Burlesque! Nonsense!

by Tony Adler, Justin Hayford, Jack Helbig, Dan Jakes, Marissa Oberlander and Zac Thompson September 10, 2015August 18, 2021

A critical guide to the 2015 Chicago Fringe Festival

Arts & Culture

Post-PJ Paparelli, ATC goes bold with Fulfillment, provocateur playwright Thomas Bradshaw’s latest

by Zac Thompson September 9, 2015August 18, 2021

American Theater Company suffered a major loss in May, when artistic director PJ Paparelli died at age 40 after a car accident in Scotland, just weeks after the opening of The Project(s), his acclaimed documentary-theater piece about public housing in Chicago. ATC is dedicating its 2015—’16 season to the writer-director’s legacy, but don’t expect a […]

Arts & Culture

Making art out of Hurricane Katrina’s suffering

by Zac Thompson September 2, 2015August 18, 2021

Ten years after the disaster in New Orleans, true stories of survival fill a pair of Chicago productions.

Arts & Culture

The multimedia Assassination Theater argues that a Chicago crook killed JFK

by Zac Thompson August 26, 2015August 18, 2021

Former investigative reporter Hillel Levin makes a case for the return of the grassy knoll.

Best of Chicago

Best test of the structural soundness of audience members’ backsides

by Zac Thompson June 24, 2015August 18, 2021

All Our Tragic The day before I saw the Hypocrites’ loose adaptation of all 32 surviving Greek tragedies, I flew back to Chicago from a vacation in Austria. The flight lasted nine hours, the show 12. But although it took significantly more time to get through than it takes to cross the Atlantic, All Our […]