Windy City Playhouse Archives

Five white people in 1960s cocktail attire stand around a dining room table filled with appetizers. They are toasting with champagne.

Windy City Playhouse goes on the market

by Kerry Reid May 12, 2023May 11, 2023

When Windy City Playhouse first opened on Irving Park Road in 2015, the company won nearly as much attention for its comfortable audience perks (swivel seats and food and beverage service, like a luxe movie theater) as it did for its programming, which for the most part focused on contemporary plays like Deborah Zoe Laufer’s […]

Theater Review

Crowded house

by Amanda Finn September 22, 2022November 3, 2022

Chicago doesn’t have much in the way of immersive theater experiences like Sleep No More in NYC. So when Windy City Playhouse debuted Leslie Liautaud’s Southern Gothic in 2018 it took the scene by storm. Folks were clamoring to get inside the Coutier home to be one of the two dozen houseguests for Suzanne’s 40th […]

Two men and two women in 1960s evening wear stand holding drinks, looking shocked.

Best of Chicago

Best reason for a fully vaxxed and boosted person to raise their mask and a glass

by Amanda Finn March 2, 2022March 15, 2022

Windy City Playhouse It’s no secret that theater companies (and movie theaters) make a lot of their profits at the concession stand. So curating themed cocktails is not that uncommon for theater spaces around Chicago. However, there is one location that has made their drink menu as iconic as their immersive work—Windy City Playhouse. Not […]

Three men stand in front of a microphone. The men on the left and right are in evening wear. The man in the center is shirtless, wearing strands of pearls and beads.

Theater Review

Glitter and be gay

by Max Maller February 9, 2022February 9, 2022

The stars in this play spend one act gleaming, another act fading away. For a brief window of time in the 1930s, Hollywood was a place of permissiveness toward the homosexuality of its leading men, with the movies’ first Ben-Hur, Ramon Novarro (Trey DeLuna) and the dashing MGM icon Billy Haines (Adam Jennings) throwing champagne […]

City Life

Viva La Diva, Amigas Latinas, and more

by Salem Collo-Julin, Micco Caporale and Kerry Reid January 28, 2022January 28, 2022

Snow! So? There’s plenty to do in Chicago over the next few days, both inside and outside. Read on for some ideas. FRI 1/28 The Arts Club of Chicago presents an online performance by Courtney Mackedanz, who will offer an “inquisitive movement interaction” with “Surplus Tension,” an exhibition of work by Hannah Levy which closes […]

Theater Review

In the weeds with Rick Bayless and Windy City Playhouse

by Irene Hsiao October 21, 2021February 17, 2022

It’s #influencernight at the Contumacious Pig restaurant, and if you’re on payroll at a restaurant or an Instagrammer with 5,000 or more followers, you know what that means. If not, read on. The scene is the aforesaid purveyor of pork (and sundry sides), the night the amateur eaters are afoot, the head chef has doffed […]