Reviews Category
A Bravura Performance by a True Star
Judy Garland: Come Rain or Come Shine – Music Theatre Works
Angela Ingersoll is a bright-shining star. There’s no denying this fact and the Chicagoland actress has brought her bravura, one-woman
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A Low-Calorie Confection
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Broadway in Chicago
Sometimes a book, or even a film, just doesn’t translate easily to the stage. After the extravagantly fanciful and imaginative interpretation
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Pet Shop Boys…and Girls
Artificial Jungle – Hell in a Handbag
Continuing Hell in a Handbag Productions’ tradition of presenting parodies of B-film classics and old, time-honored television
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Not Everyone’s Piece of Cake
White Rabbit, Red Rabbit – Interrobang Theatre Project
The premise of this performance piece (there’s a hesitation in calling this bare bones production an actual “play”) is that it truly
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A Bonafide Broadway Hit
Tootsie – Broadway in Chicago
In 1982, Sydney Pollack directed what would become the second-highest-grossing film of that year in America. It was nominated for ten
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Striking a Blow for Women’s Rights
Nell Gwynn – Chicago Shakespeare Theatre
A Cockney fruit seller, “pretty, witty Nell Gwynn,” as she was called by Samuel Pepys, sold oranges, sweets and her favors, up and down
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Through a Blink of Time
Indecent – Victory Gardens
After seven years, forty drafts, a number of workshops and an Off Broadway run, Pulitzer Prizewinning playwright Paul Vogel’s historically-
Read MoreEclectic Full Contact Theatre’s “Dear Brutus” Bursting with Frantic Whimsy
Dear Brutus – Eclectic Theatre
Each and every day, we are confronted by the totality of choice. Some decisions are small: do I want steak for dinner or do I want chicken? Some choices are irrevocable: do I maintain my cozy office desk job or move across the country to pursue my passions with reckless abandon? The haunting spectre of the hypothetical — of choices made and not made — is a common trigger for sleepless nights. Thanks to Eclectic Full Contact Theatre, this anxiety-inducing quandary is no longer limited to late-night self-interrogations. Loosely based upon A Midsummer Night’s Dream, JM Barrie’s Dear Brutus confronts the inherent fallacy (and value) contained in longing for that which one cannot have: a second chance.
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Little Boy Lost
Caroline, or Change – Firebrand Theatre and Timeline
The title of this smart, unusual, mostly sung-through musical uses the word “change” in the sense
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Opening His Heart
We’re Only Alive for a Short Amount of Time – Goodman Theatre
Everyone has a story to tell. But rarely do theatergoers have the opportunity to relive the difficult
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