Broadway in Chicago Archives

Pierre Jean Gonzalez as Alexander Hamilton stands center stage. Around him is a circle of dancers, leaning in with their legs stretched behind them and arms to their sides.

The room where it happens, again

by Kerry Reid September 21, 2023September 20, 2023

At this point, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton is beyond critic-proof. (Once you’ve had an entire episode of Drunk History dedicated to your recap of the events in your musical, what else is there to achieve?) But for the fanatics and newbies alike, I’m happy to report that the current Broadway in Chicago touring production of the […]

Theater Review

MJ delves into the chaos and glory of Michael Jackson

by Cristalle Bowen August 18, 2023August 18, 2023

Double Michaels! Triple threats! Joe Jackson’s aggression! MJ the Musical titillates in a new touring production of the Broadway hit navigating the chaotic life of King of Pop Michael Jackson, highlighting the challenges public and private during his 1992-93 Dangerous world tour. The Pepsi-Cola-sponsored global event went on to gross $140 million for Jackson’s Heal […]

A woman in a yellow ball gown sits center, while three women stand behind her and a man in a yellow frock coat kneels beside her, singing.

Theater Review

Lovely, dark, and deep

by Catey Sullivan May 2, 2023May 2, 2023

The woods are leaf-free spires of light, Cinderella’s sisters are outfitted in bad 80s prom dresses, and Rapunzel’s coil of blonde hair is a rope in the national touring production of Into the Woods. Directed by Lear deBessonet, Stephen Sondheim’s musical is one of endlessly intricate lyrics packaged in broad suggestions of time and place […]

Heidi Blickenstaff, a middle-aged white woman with long blonde hair, sits center in a church pew. She is facing the back of the pew, her arm crooked around the back, facing us. Three other people are seated in front her, and we see the backs of their heads. The scene is mostly blue light, with a spot on Blickenstaff.

Theater Review

What goes around comes back around

by Amanda Finn April 17, 2023April 17, 2023

A simple lit rooftop, church steeple, or body-as-a-temple metaphor greets you as you enter the theater. Two bright lines meet in the middle, seemingly pointing upwards towards something greater. Designed by Riccardo Hernández, with lighting brought to life by designer Justin Townsend, the simplicity of the set is apt. Perhaps it serves as a reminder […]

Audrey Francis, a white woman in blue jeans and a black jacket, is standing left, and Glenn Davis, a Black man in dark trousers and shirt, is standing right in front of the empty new theater at Steppenwolf.

Ghost Light

It’s season-announcement season

by Kerry Reid April 13, 2023April 14, 2023

The warmer temperatures, blossoming flowers, and budding trees aren’t the only harbingers of spring. It’s also the season of the season announcements, with the major Chicago companies letting us know what to expect in 2023-24 on their stages. The Goodman presents the first season selected by Susan V. Booth, who took over as artistic director […]

A dozen actors (nine Black, three white) stand in a line onstage n front of a huge American flag, hung facing downward. The set is a wooden barracks, and the cots are also draped in the American flag. The three men in front are in officers' dress khakis. The men in the rear are in regular army green fatigues.

Theater Review

Army tragedy

by Kerry Reid April 6, 2023April 6, 2023

Though it premiered in 1981 with the Negro Ensemble Company, won the 1982 Pulitzer Prize for drama, and was subsequently turned into the well-received 1984 film A Soldier’s Story, Charles Fuller’s A Soldier’s Play didn’t get a Broadway production until nearly 40 years after it first appeared. Fuller, who died in October 2022 at 83, […]

Theater Review

White saviorism: the musical!

by Emily McClanathan April 5, 2023April 4, 2023

The Book of Mormon is back in Chicago, slightly rewritten since it last played here in 2018 but still the same wildly irreverent take on that most quintessential of homegrown white American religions: the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. After the hit musical opened on Broadway in 2011, it played in Chicago four […]

Zurin Villanueva as Tina Turner stands at a microphone center in a bronze-colored sleeveless satin minidress. To her right is Garrett Turner as Ike Turner in a pale salmon suit, holding a guitar. On the left are three Black women backup singers in sleeveless yellow dresses. A band comprised of six Black musicians (a piano player on the left, then three horn players, a drummer, and a bassist) are in the background.

Theater Review

Great songs, so-so script

by Kerry Reid March 17, 2023March 17, 2023

On the ticketing page for Broadway in Chicago’s presentation of the touring version of Tina: The Tina Turner Musical, there’s a small line at the bottom: “Please note that Tina Turner does not appear in this production.” Given that Turner turned 83 last November and retired from performing at 69, the caveat hardly seems necessary. […]

A cast of 17 women and nonbinary performers, dressed in colorful Revolutionry War-era costumes, stands together in front of a red curtain. Some of them are gesticulating, others hold books as if declaiming from them.

Theater Review

Hold the fireworks

by Kelly Kleiman March 2, 2023March 2, 2023

One can imagine what inspired directors Diane Paulus and Jeffrey L. Page to rework this 1960s musical about the Continental Congress. There’s the attraction of doing a piece about the nation’s unification during a period of division, not to mention the appeal of presenting the virtually all-male show with an all-female and nonbinary cast of […]

Evan Hansen, wearing a striped blue polo shirt and a cast on his left arm inscribed CONNOR, stands left. A middle-aged man and middle-aged woman sit at a table behind him, alongside a younger woman.

Theater Review

Searching for an emotional connection with Dear Evan Hansen

by Emily McClanathan December 15, 2022

I’ve now seen the North American tour of Dear Evan Hansen twice in Chicago, and both times I’ve come up short trying to feel the emotional connection that so many fans have with this show. My first viewing was before the pandemic, and I hoped it might hit differently in 2022. After all, the musical […]

The company of The Lion King onstage with puppets representing the animals. Mufasa is holding baby Simba up toward the sky at the rear.

Theater Review

What’s new, pussy cat?

by Catey Sullivan November 23, 2022November 23, 2022

At 25 years old, The Lion King has been seen by more than 110 million people and played every continent but Antarctica. Between global warming and ticket demand, it’s probably just a matter of time. The latest U.S. tour to stop in Chicago feels significantly less lavish from earlier versions that blew audiences and critics […]

Eleven actors are seated and standing in a group on a pink background. They are of various races, genders, and ethnicities. Objects associated with fantasy games (scepter, skull, chalices) are held by some of them.

Theater Review

Choose your own adventure—from your seat

by Boutayna Chokrane November 9, 2022November 9, 2022

The Twenty-Sided Tavern—written by David Andrew Greener Laws (aka DAGL), with game design by Sarah Davis Reynolds, and produced by David Carpenter, is an interactive, theatrical quest that invites you to control the story from the comfort of your seat. Inspired by fantasy tabletop role-playing games, you choose the characters and the choices they make […]

Three white people in dark clothing stand in a line. A woman with long light-brown hair is on the left, holding an open wooden box filled with dice. A man with a goatee stands slightly front in the center, holding a leatherbound book to his chest. Another woman with short brown hair is on the right, holding an open book in one hand and dice in the other. They are standing in front of a plain light-blue screen.

Arts & Culture

The Twenty-Sided Tavern offers hundreds of sides to every story

by Matt Simonette October 26, 2022October 26, 2022

According to head writer David Andrew Greener Laws, who goes by the acronym DAGL, The Twenty-Sided Tavern, opening October 27 at the Broadway Playhouse, is “a game and an experience, and set in a sword and sorcery fantasy world that casts the audience as the fourth player.” Inspired by role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons […]

a ghost reading a book while sitting on a bench (adult person in a white sheet ghost costume)

Agenda

Michelle Williams in Children of Eden, Sabaton, improv ghost hunters, and more

by Kerry Reid and Salem Collo-Julin October 15, 2022October 15, 2022

Before there was Wicked, there was Children of Eden, and before there was Beyoncé, there was Destiny’s Child. Michelle Williams, Bey’s former bandmate, stars in this concert presentation of Wicked composer Stephen Schwartz’s 1991 musical based on the book of Genesis. (Not his first foray into biblical musicals; he also wrote Godspell 20 years earlier.) […]

A scene from the Broadway-bound musical The Devil Wears Prada. A young Black woman stands on the far left. A middle-aged white man and a middle-aged white woman stand facing her. We see other actors behind floor-length office windows behind them, along with racks of clothing. A large blue sign reading RUNWAY is over their heads

Theater Review

The Devil Wears Prada doesn’t quite make it work

by Kerry Reid August 9, 2022August 10, 2022

There’s a brand new dance / But I don’t know its name / That people from bad homes / Do again and again / It’s big and it’s bland / Full of tension and fear / They do it over there / But we don’t do it here. – “Fashion,” David Bowie The new Broadway-bound […]