Broadway in Chicago Archives - Page 2 of 6

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

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 […]

On the left is Aaron LaVigne as Jesus, kneeling with his hands covering his face. His body is bloody and also covered in gold glitter. Standing behind him is Omar Lopez-Cepero as Judas, in black leather, his hands covered in silver glitter, and lifting a microphone. Behind them is a multiethnic ensemble in white robes.

Theater Review

Glitter and be God

by Kerry Reid July 21, 2022July 21, 2022

You want irony? How’s this—the actor originally cast as Judas in the 50th-anniversary touring production of Jesus Christ Superstar, James Beeks, was dismissed from the tour after being arrested for his participation in the January 6 insurrection. In his pretrial motion, Beeks claimed that he didn’t recognize the authority of the government and that he […]

Five dancers in red cloaks crouch in a semi-circle, their hands raised in fists before them.

Performing Arts Feature

Hot weather, hot shows

by Kerry Reid, Irene Hsiao and Deanna Isaacs June 22, 2022July 8, 2022

Summer is officially here, in case the sweat and lightning bugs weren’t enough of a clue. In addition to the shows and artists we profiled in our summer arts preview issue this week, we’ve got just a few suggestions for other offerings in theater, dance, and opera that look promising—whether you’re looking for a nice […]

Seven Black men in black suits and white shirts performing onstage. The man int he middle is on knees with a microphone in his left hand. They all have their right hands raised.

Theater Review

Song and dance, but not enough story

by Catey Sullivan May 26, 2022May 26, 2022

Here’s the TL;DR version of what to expect from Ain’t Too Proud, the new jukebox musical about soul/blues/disco/rock hitmakers The Temptations, whose catalog of songs spans the 1960s and the height of the Motown era through the disco beats of the 1970s and beyond. The music—featuring more than 30 tunes from the Motown catalog—is irresistible […]

At left, Jem Finch in khakis and a plaid shirt stands next to the front porch. Atticus Finch is seated on a bench center, wearing tan pants, a vest, shirt, and tie, holding a pad of paper. On the right is Scout Finch in denim overalls, sitting on the porch, and on the far right is Dill Harris in blue pants and a plaid short-sleeved shirt.

Theater Review

This bird has flown

by Kerry Reid May 19, 2022May 19, 2022

Aaron Sorkin’s gonna Sorkin, even when he’s working off someone else’s material. In his new adaptation of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, now in a short touring stop with Broadway in Chicago, the creator of A Few Good Men, The American President, and The West Wing goes back to the courtyard drama/political grandstanding that […]

Man in blue pants and long-sleeved black shirt, wearing sunglasses, crouches in outdoor parking lot

Theater Review

Red windmills of your mind

by Kerry Reid April 27, 2022April 27, 2022

Full disclosure: I don’t think I’m the target audience for Moulin Rouge, inasmuch as the 2001 film on which it’s based mostly left me feeling like I had a case of the bends, what with all the swooping and zooming camera action. But if you’re a fan, then you’ll probably want to see the current […]

The six members of the cast of Six, standing in a semicircle and holding microphones

Theater Review

Tudor lessons

by Kerry Reid April 19, 2022April 19, 2022

After starting life at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2017, then getting its North American premiere at Chicago Shakespeare in 2019 before heading off to Broadway, Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss’s sassy rock musical (directed by Moss and Jamie Armitage) about the most famous sextet of spouses in history is back for a three-month run […]

Performing Arts Feature

Homecoming queen

by Emily McClanathan March 30, 2022April 4, 2022

An all-new cast of queens begins its reign in Chicago with the return of Six, the musical by Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss that transforms the famous wives of King Henry VIII into pop stars. The hit show from the UK had its North American premiere at Chicago Shakespeare Theater in 2019, opened on Broadway […]

Theater Review

Don’t look back

by Kerry Reid March 8, 2022March 8, 2022

Hadestown, the 2019 Tony Award-winning musical that grew out of a 2010 concept album by Anaïs Mitchell, is an earnest and goodhearted show (now in a short run with Broadway in Chicago) that in some regards left me cold. (Or maybe lukewarm, as I imagine the temperature in purgatory might be.) This gloss on Greek […]

Theater Review

Island of empathy

by Kerry Reid February 24, 2022February 24, 2022

At one point in Come From Away, a citizen of Gander cites a Bible verse from Philippians that begins “Do not be anxious about anything.” If you’ve spent the better part of the last half-decade or so feeling anxious about everything, then this show might provide some balm, at least for a night. Gander (population […]

Theater Review

A 21st-century Oklahoma!

by Albert Williams January 14, 2022January 14, 2022

Director Daniel Fish’s controversial 2019 Broadway revival of the classic musical Oklahoma! has come to Chicago for a two-week run at the CIBC Theatre. I don’t know how Fish’s innovative rethinking of the work (first developed at Bard College’s Fisher Center in 2015, and then produced off-Broadway at St. Ann’s Warehouse in 2018 prior to […]