First Floor Theater Archives

Academic fireworks

by Kerry Reid May 18, 2023September 6, 2023

You don’t have to be a sucker for love-hate romances among the literati to fall in love with Rehana Lew Mirza’s Hatefuck, but it helps. Then again, Lew Mirza’s play, now in its local premiere with First Floor Theater under Arti Ishak’s clever direction, provides a lens not usually implemented in tales of professional and […]

Side-by-side headshots of Aila Ayilam Peck on the left, and Faiz Siddique on the right. They are both Muslim actors.

Theater Review

Messy Muslims

by Yasmin Zacaria Mikhaiel May 3, 2023May 3, 2023

Chicago actor and community organizer Arti Ishak was tapped to audition for Hatefuck in 2020. They found the script exciting, like nothing they’d ever read. But the production was ultimately canceled in the wake of the pandemic, leaving Ishak determined to get this play up on a Chicago stage one way or another. Now it’s […]

Two people stand in red light. On the left is a Black person in contemporary male clothing, with long blonde braids and a wreath of flowers on their head. On the right is a Latino man in a black flowing shirt open deep at the neck and leather pants.

Theater Review

Artistic licentiousness

by Kerry Reid October 6, 2022October 6, 2022

Welcome to Florence, circa 1485, where the Medicis rule by fear and favors—and where their favorite bad-boy artist, Sandro Botticelli, is about to fuck around (literally) and find out. Canadian playwright/novelist Jordan Tannahill’s Botticelli in the Fire premiered in 2018, before COVID-19, but plague is one of the problems facing Lorenzo De Medici’s Renaissance fiefdom. […]

Three people in exaggerated blonde wigs and blue dresses in a row.

Theater Review

Dictator dictation

by Melissa Renee Perry May 19, 2022May 19, 2022

The energy in the Den Theater last Thursday was electric, as The Secretaries, written by Omer Abbas Salem and directed by Laura Alcalá Baker, made its highly anticipated debut with First Floor Theater. The dark comedic play was first developed through Goodman Theatre’s Future Labs and marks Salem’s first full production as a playwright in […]

Maria Bamford in black pants and red shirt, onstage at the Den

Arts & Culture

A Den of comedy

by Kerry Reid April 13, 2022April 14, 2022

The last few months have been busy ones with theaters announcing new venues: if all goes well, American Blues, Steep, Northlight, and TimeLine will all be producing in their new homes sometime in the next couple of years. But the long COVID shutdown of 2020-21 also took away some venues that had provided rentals to […]