Lifeline Theatre Archives - Chicago Reader

Linsey Falls, wearing a blue PlayMakers T-shirt and a Santa hat and beard, sits center. A man in a coonskin cap and burlap smock stands behind him, leaning in. Behind them is a backdrop with comic strips.

Remembering Linsey Falls

by Kerry Reid November 10, 2023November 30, 2023

You may not have known Linsey Falls’s name, but if you spent much time in the audience at Chicago non-Equity and storefront theaters over the years, you almost certainly knew his face and his voice. His expressive features, big eyes, and mischievous grin lit up the stage in comic roles, and his malleable voice and […]

A man with white hair and glasses stands front left. He wears a gray lab jacket and his arms are stretched out in front of him in an agitated way. Behind him on the right are two other men, one also wearing a lab jacket.

Theater Review

Dark comedy goes nuclear in Cat’s Cradle

by Dmitry Samarov September 14, 2023September 14, 2023

Heather Currie directs John Hildreth’s laugh-a-minute adaptation Cat’s Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut’s satire about the U.S. nuclear program and all-around ignorant hubris. The story is told in flashback by a writer, possibly named Jonah, or maybe John (Tony Bozzuto), trying to write a book about the end of the world while perhaps living through said event. […]

Three Black women onstage in front of a set resembling a wooden cabin. The woman in the center is in a wheelchair and the women on either side of her appear to be dancing.

Theater Review

Southern stories

by Kerry Reid May 11, 2023May 11, 2023

I first saw Dr. Endesha Ida Mae Holland’s autobiographical From the Mississippi Delta over 30 years ago in the old Goodman studio theater space. Though it’s been revived many times since, I hadn’t seen it again until the current Lifeline and Pegasus Theatre Chicago coproduction at Lifeline. It’s a testament to Holland’s gift for dialogue […]

A young girl in a bright pink sweater is sleeping with her head on a round able. A wooden box of yarn and knitting needles sit in front of her. Two people in dark clothing loiter nearby, as if interested in stealing the box without waking her up.

Theater Review

Warm and fuzzy

by Kerry Reid February 23, 2023February 22, 2023

Charles Dickens’s schoolmaster Mr. Gradgrind from Hard Times (he who insists, “Now, what I want is Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts”) would feel right at home in the grim factory town run by a petulant archduke in Mac Barnett’s 2012 children’s book Extra Yarn. There, young Annabelle and her schoolmates are […]

Arts & Culture

Collected stories

by Kerry Reid January 10, 2023January 10, 2023

When Sharon Evans started producing solo work at Live Bait Theater in the late 1980s, storytelling hadn’t yet become a cottage industry in Chicago. “At that time it was a very unusual thing to do,” Evans says. “I remember being told that no one would pay to see a solo performer on an extended run.” […]

Five actors on a brightly painted stage. In front left is a woman with pig ears on her head. She is next to a man in bright orange clothing with rainbow suspenders and ducks on his socks. Behind them to the right is a woman in overalls with a cow sweater and ears. In the middle is a woman in a light blue sweater with sheep on it, wearing a knit cap with sheep ears. At the far right in the back is a man in tan farmer overalls.

Theater Review

Ewe oughta know

by Kerry Reid November 15, 2022November 15, 2022

Lifeline Theatre’s acclaimed KidSeries has had good luck with the silly bucolic tales of Doreen Cronin (illustrated by Betsy Lewin), from 2003’s production of Click Clack Moo: Cows That Type to 2012’s Duck for President. A large part of the success of these family musicals comes from the fact that adapter James E. Grote and […]

On the far left, Sherlock Holmes (a middle-aged white woman in a red Victorian suit) stands crouching. Kneeling before her is Dr. Dorothy Watson, in an orange coat. A dead man's body lies before them on the floor. Inspector Lestrade, in a tan suit, stands behind them, taking notes.

Theater Review

#1 Victorian ladies detective agency

by Kerry Reid September 8, 2022September 9, 2022

Six years ago, Lifeline Theatre unveiled the world premiere of Christopher M. Walsh’s Miss Holmes—a cunning gender-bent take on Arthur Conan Doyle’s Baker Street polymath that predated the film Enola Holmes by several years (though not the young-adult series of novels by Nancy Springer). Now Katie McLean Hainsworth’s Sherlock and Mandy Walsh’s Dr. Dorothy Watson […]

Agenda

La Esquina, Creepshow, Miss Continental, and Miss Holmes

by Kerry Reid, Micco Caporale and Salem Collo-Julin September 2, 2022September 2, 2022

At the corners of Cullerton and Carpenter sits La Esquina, a community center that opened this spring to provide free art classes and provide safer space for neighborhood youth to explore their creativity. Tonight, La Esquina hosts their first annual expo and fundraiser at Thalia Hall (1807 S. Allport). From 5-9 PM, this event is […]

A line of four sailors on the deck of a ship, apparently being blown by high winds, with ropes swaying as they hold on.

Theater Review

A cluttered Passage

by Kelly Kleiman April 28, 2022April 27, 2022

Though it has some of Lifeline’s patented how-do-they-do-that effects, like a completely persuasive storm at sea achieved with nothing but video, some noise, and actors purporting to be blown around, Middle Passage is too cluttered to be satisfying. Rutherford Calhoun’s misadventures on the high seas include a captain mad enough to compete with Ahab, participation […]

City Life

Bunnies, Rollins, and poetry

by Salem Collo-Julin, Kerry Reid and Micco Caporale April 15, 2022April 16, 2022

Looking for some action? We can’t promise that, but we do think you’ll have a great time at the following events! Reader, read on. FRI 4/15 Barbara Burdick opened Cuddle Bunny in Lakeview (2901 N. Clark) in June of 2020, inspired by the animal cafes of Japan. At the shop, visitors can enjoy hanging out […]

Best of Chicago

Best performance space for dealing with interior microclimates

by Amanda Finn March 2, 2022March 15, 2022

Lifeline Theatre Anyone who frequents establishments in the summer months knows that there are generally two temperatures: not cold enough and Hell has frozen over. Even so, some locations deal with that microclimate variety at any time of year. So, when it comes to dealing with indoor temperature changes, no one does it better than […]

Performing Arts Feature

The unforgettable Jane Blass

by Dorothy Milne September 3, 2021September 3, 2021

Actor, singer, and all-around raconteur Jane Blass, who called Chicago home from 1988-2006 before she relocated to New York, where she performed on Broadway and in the touring companies of many shows, died at 59 after a long struggle with stomach cancer on August 6. Dorothy Milne, her friend and cofounder of the long-running women’s storytelling collective the Sweat Girls, compiled these remembrances from those who knew and loved her in Chicago and New York.