Jackie Sibblies Drury’s Fairview won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize, but is only getting its Chicago premiere now courtesy of Definition Theatre. After seeing Tyrone Phillips’s staging at the cozy Revival space in Hyde Park, I’m glad that Definition snagged it, and not just because this company (which has been doing excellent work for years and […]
Tag: Definition Theatre
Chicago Theatre Week kicks off
Update February 24: Chicago Theatre Week has been extended through March 5. “If you see our show, that’s at least two spots on your bingo card!” That’s what Jimalita Tillman, global director for the Harold Washington Cultural Center, said at the Chicago Theatre Week kick-off party Monday night at Wicker Park’s Den Theatre. She wasn’t […]
Infatuation and identity
When The Revival theater opened its doors in 2015 at the corner of 55th Street and University Avenue, its intent was to pay homage to improv’s earliest roots. Paul Sills formed the Compass Players in that exact spot, bringing his knowledge of his mother Viola Spolin’s theater games (outlined in her seminal work Improvisation for […]
Art and appropriation
Of the two plays exploring race that Steppenwolf has on stage right now—King James and WHITE—the latter definitely stands out for being not only funnier, but more complex and satisfying in its critique of race, privilege, and power. Written by James Ijames and directed by Ericka Ratcliff, Definition Theatre’s production is a delightfully silly yet […]
Omer Abbas Salem is building his own canon
With Mosque4Mosque and other plays, MENA playwright and actor Omer Abbas Salem creates space for Muslim and Arab artists.
Black artistic leaders take charge at several Chicago theaters
“There is no other way forward”: reflecting on those who shaped them and the future they envision
In Nilaja Sun’s No Child … a teacher and her students discover the magic of theater
Unfortunately, the characters lack the depth to make that transformation visible.
Definition Theatre’s An Octoroon boldly subverts, in white-, red-, and blackface
Playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins resurrects a wildly popular—and wildly racist—19th-century melodrama.
The southern drama Byhalia, Mississippi remains essential viewing
Steppenwolf’s 1700 Theatre revives Evan Linder’s searing play.