Reviews Category
Style and Sincerity Rule
The Importance of Being Earnest – Writers Theatre
Can there be a more exquisite comedy in the English language? Populated by some of literature’s most delightfully self-absorbed characters, Oscar Wilde’s comedy
Read MoreAcceptance in the Kingdom of Colors
Sleeping Beauty – Marriott Theatre for Young Audiences
Forget the Grimm Brothers, Charles Perrault or Walt Disney’s fairy tale versions of this story. Marc Robin takes familiar fairy tales and rewrites them for today’s kids.
Read MoreGrrrl Power
Lizzie – Firebrand Theatre
Opening with the familiar sing-song refrain of the childish rhyme, “Lizzie Border took an axe and gave her mother 40 whacks; and when she saw what she had done, she gave her
Read MoreBlow Out Your Candles
The Glass Menagerie – Jedlicka Performing Arts Center
Tennessee Williams’ self-entitled Memory Play launched his career as a respected playwright. It
Read MoreArt Imitating Life
Fade – Teatro Vista and Victory Gardens
Tanya Saracho, cofounder of Teatro Luna and a Victory Gardens ensemble playwright, maintains that her 2013 play isn’t about her own life. This, despite the fact
Read MoreYou’ve Gotta Have Friends
Significant Other – About Face Theatre
Jordan is a young man, on the cusp of turning 30. As the play opens, he’s enjoying a mostly fulfilling social life as the Gay Best Friend of his three college pals, Kiki,
Read MoreAs History Repeats, Still We Stumble
Third Eye Ensemble – With Blood, With Ink
Third Eye Ensemble continues to highlight the spiritual journey of women with its current production of David Crozier’s operatic dramatization of the life of Juana Inés de la Cruz, a nun, scholar, poet, and champion of women’s rights well before our time, when women dare to hope, often hopelessly, that their humanity will be “protected.”
Read MoreGo Into Your Dance!
42nd Street – Drury Lane Oakbrook
There’s an old saying proclaiming that “everything old is new again.” Generally it implies that, if you wait long enough, yesterday’s ideas will come back into fashion again. But that’s
Read MoreA Tree Without Roots
Yasmina’s Necklace
Abdul Samee, or Sam, as he prefers to be called so as to be more accepted, is a product of several different cultures. Ali, his father, is an Iraqi immigrant; Sara, his extremely
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