The very first Ghost Light column I wrote back in summer of 2020, I interviewed Markie Gray, the incoming managing director for Raven Theatre. Gray was hired to work alongside artistic director Cody Estle, who assumed the job in November 2017 from founders (and married couple) Michael Menendian and JoAnn Montemurro. (The board’s decision to […]
Tag: Cody Estle
Posted inTheater Review
Trash talk
Lindsay Joelle’s The Garbologists, now in a local premiere at Northlight under Cody Estle’s direction, is a slice-of-life two-hander about an odd-couple pair of New York sanitation workers. Marlowe (Tiffany Renee Johnson) is a Black woman with multiple degrees in art history from Columbia. Danny (Luigi Sottile) is a brash motormouth white man from Staten […]
Posted inTheater Review
People who need people
When everyone on the stage is excellent, it shows a director fully in command of the material. That’s the case with Cody Estle’s production of The Luckiest by Melissa Ross, receiving its Chicago premiere at the Raven Theatre. Plays about a young woman’s disability and impending death always risk straying into Love Story-style bathos, while […]
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Ghost Light: a roundup of offstage performing arts news and notes
Victory Gardens and Raven name new leadership; J. Nicole Brooks wins a prestigious playwriting grant.
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Sundown, Yellow Moon does best in quiet shadows
Raven’s production has heart, but doesn’t fully connect the pieces.
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Raven’s How I Learned to Drive lacks horsepower
Paula Vogel’s play is a stunner, but this production hits a few wrong notes.
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Damascus attempts to tackle faith, politics, and race without a road map
Strawdog’s production of Bennett Fisher’s play feels like a torturous lecture.
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The Gentleman Caller imagines an early romance between Tennessee Williams and William Inge
Two young playwrights teeter on the precipice of success.
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American Hero, Into the Empty Sky, and eight more new theater reviews
“Sandwich artists” go rogue and nameless women go nowhere in two of this week’s notable stage shows.
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Born Ready, In to America, and seven more new theater reviews
A kinder, gentler All About Eve and a multivarious chronicle of the migrant experience are among this week’s best bets.
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The Nether, The Book of Joseph, and seven more plays to see now
Thought-provoking productions at A Red Orchid and Chicago Shakespeare Theater are among this week’s best bets.
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Ubu the King, True West, and nine more new theater reviews
Alfred Jarry’s absurdist satire and a minor masterpiece by Sam Shepard are among this week’s highlights.
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New Country, Schoolhouse Rock Live!, and eight more notable new stage shows
Actor/stand-up/TV writer Mark Roberts brings a wild-and-crazy new comedy to town.
Posted inArts & Culture
What ails Uncle Bob
Off-Loop vet Richard Cotovsky stars in Uncle Bob, Austin Pendleton’s deeply flawed 1995 play about a washout who’s dying of AIDS.