Chicago Theatre Review

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Style and Sincerity Rule

November 20, 2017 Comments Off on 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

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Acceptance in the Kingdom of Colors

November 20, 2017 Comments Off on Acceptance 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.

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Grrrl Power

November 16, 2017 Comments Off on Grrrl 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

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Blow Out Your Candles

November 13, 2017 Comments Off on Blow Out Your Candles

The Glass Menagerie – Jedlicka Performing Arts Center 

 

Tennessee Williams’ self-entitled Memory Play launched his career as a respected playwright. It

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Art Imitating Life

November 11, 2017 Comments Off on Art 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

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You’ve Gotta Have Friends

November 11, 2017 Comments Off on You’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,

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As History Repeats, Still We Stumble

November 7, 2017 Comments Off on As 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.”

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Go Into Your Dance!

November 7, 2017 Comments Off on Go 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

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A Tree Without Roots

November 7, 2017 Comments Off on A 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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You’re in the Band

November 7, 2017 Comments Off on You’re in the Band
School of Rock – Broadway in Chicago
 
 
 
In 2003, and for many years thereafter, “School of Rock,” starring Jack Black and a classroom of musically talented kids, was the most popular, highest grossing comedy film of all time (until “Pitch Perfect 2,” two years ago). The movie came to the attention of Andrew Lloyd Webber. Soon thereafter the iconic British composer acquired theatre rights and work began on Webber’s newest musical. Julian Fellowes, known for writing such popular television series as “Downton Abbey,” the script for the Oscar-winning film, “Gosford Park,” as well as the libretto for the theatrical musical “Mary Poppins,” was asked to adapt Mike White’s cinematic screenplay. Webber, best known for his soaring, romantic scores for such theatrical classics as “Phantom of the Opera” and “Evita,” returns here to his earlier roots, so prominent in rock musicals like “Jesus Christ Superstar.” This time around, Webber worked with his “Love Never Dies” lyricist, Glenn Slater (“Sister Act,” “The Little Mermaid”), developing a fleshed-out score for the theatrical treatment that also featured several of the rock songs from the film. 
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