Raven Theatre Archives - Chicago Reader

The cast of Lucy and Charlie's Honeymoon at Lookingglass Theatre stand and sit center stage, with several of them playing musical instruments.

Lookingglass goes on hiatus, and Raven gets a new artistic director

by Kerry Reid July 7, 2023August 4, 2023

The return of Chicago theater (theater everywhere, really) since the pandemic continues to be a white-knuckle experience for many companies. Last Friday, 35-year-old Lookingglass Theatre (winner of the 2011 Tony Award for best regional theater) announced that they were putting all programming on pause until at least spring 2024 and cutting their staff by over […]

A 1950s kitchen and living room set. A Black man in a striped shirt and T-shirt sits at the table on the left, and a Black woman in a yellow dress and apron stands right.

Theater Review

A refreshing October Storm

by Sheri Flanders May 18, 2023May 18, 2023

Expertly written, exquisitely performed, steamy, and hilarious, The October Storm at the Raven Theatre offers a warm slice of south-side Chicago life in the 1960s. Joshua Allen’s play, the second in his Grand Boulevard Trilogy (the first was The Last Pair of Earlies, produced by Raven in 2021) is refreshing in that it explores the […]

A middle-aged woman with graying hair, wearing a brightly printed top, is kneeling left next to a young blonde man with glasses, wearing a brown suede jacket and khakis. She is smiling, with her hands stretched out to him. He is leanng away from her, looking concerned or skeptical.

Theater Review

Right To Be Forgotten questions how much the Internet should remember

by Maxwell Rabb February 15, 2023March 3, 2023

Producing a commentary on the Internet is typically an exercise in redundancy, tasked with avoiding tropes beaten into media by shows like Black Mirror or 13 Reasons Why. At this point, we clearly understand that we live inseparably from our digital footprints as we inadvertently document our own legacies. Despite the risk of redundancy, the […]

A man with dark hair and a thin mustache stands left. He is wearing a tuxedo shirt and trousers, with his bow tie hanging around his neck. His left hand stretches out toward a woman in a formal blue sleeveless dress; her hand is also stretched toward his. Purple drapes hang behind them, with a collection of potted plants scattered around the stage

Theater Review

Sexy screwball comedy with a twist

by Albert Williams October 5, 2022October 5, 2022

“Extraordinary,” muses Amanda, the heroine of Noël Coward’s Private Lives, “how potent cheap music is.” Her rueful observation, uttered while she is standing on the terrace of a hotel where she is staying, is in reference to a song playing in the ballroom below. The melody is described in Coward’s script as “a sentimental, romantic […]

Agenda

Chinatown hip-hop, Summer Skate, Dracula, and dance

by Micco Caporale and Kerry Reid August 26, 2022August 26, 2022

Have you hit a summer festival in Chinatown yet? Starting today through Sunday, Hip Hop in Chinatown is happening at Chinatown Square (2133 S. China Pl.), a three-day festival celebrating Chicago hip-hop while subtly intimating the relationship of immigrant communities to music, fashion, and street culture. From 2-9 PM today, there will be a street […]

A Black man in a blue shirt and tan trousers sits on a bar stool. A white woman in ripped black jeans, a black top, and with a yellow-and-plaid flannel shirt wrapped around her waist, sits next to him. They are both looking at a penny the man is holding up. The lighting is blueish, as if in a dimly lit bar.

Theater Review

People who need people

by Kelly Kleiman May 12, 2022May 18, 2022

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 […]

Black woman in white slip lays on floor with her head in lap of another Black woman, who brushes her hair

Theater Review

The chill of other suns

by Dan Jakes November 9, 2021November 9, 2021

Before it was retrofitted into an upscale wedding and corporate events hall, the landmark Motor Row building at 2400 South Michigan was home to the Chicago Defender, the iconic Black newspaper of record that in no small part empowered and facilitated the Great Migration of Black southerners to northern cities during the early 20th century. […]