A Passing Beauty

By the time Chicago theatre-goers read this review, the Three Crows Theatre production of Martin McDonagh’s play, The Beauty Queen of Leenane, will most likely have already closed.  Its foreshortened run — just 12 performances in 11 days, closing September 17 — is the result of a fire at the theatre company’s original venue.  

A Work in Progress

Baked! The Musical

A real cause for celebration, the magnificent and unique Theo Ubique Cabaret Theatre has opened its 26th season of musicals and concert productions. Fred Anzevino’s crowd-pleasing, critically lauded venue, always recognized for its high quality entertainment presented in an intimate setting, is beginning the year with a Season of Sondheim. But before those three sublime Stephen Sondheim musicals take to the stage, Theo is doing something else it does that makes Anzevino’s theatre so special. They’re giving a pair of fledgling writer/composers an opportunity to fully stage their new musical.  

Last Tango in Boston

North & Sur

North & Sur by Oscar Perdomo Marín, in its world premiere production by Water People Theater, is an engrossing, site-specific evening of theatre about an imagined meeting between a poet from the North, the enigmatic bard from Boston Edgar Allan Poe, and a poet from the South, the Argentine female poet Alfonsina Storni.  

A Welcome Return

Hamilton

From its stellar 2015 Off-Broadway opening, to its epic, jaw-dropping Broadway opening later that same year, this exhilarating, inspirational, sung and rapped musical is still going strong today, eight years later. In a welcome return to Chicago, this mega hit, which earned unprecedented popularity (especially among younger audiences) and unheard of critical acclaim, is back in the Windy City through the end of 2023—perhaps even longer if this return visit proves to be popular. 

A Life of Comforting Traditions and Rituals

Birthday Candles

Dramatic literature is full of plays and musicals whose theme is life affirming. We’re advised to stop and smell the roses, to always appreciate that earth is too wonderful for anybody to realize and to realize that life is a banquet but most people are starving to death. In playwright Noah Haidle’s beautifully poetic new play, which opened on Broadway last year and starred Debra Messing, we follow the life of a woman named Ernestine. She lives in Michigan but longs for travel and adventure. In Northlight’s radiant production this character is in the hands of one of Chicago’s most gifted and popular actresses, Kate Fry. It’s a performance, indeed an entire production, that should definitely not be missed. It’s that exquisite.

Don’t Feed the Plant!

Little Shop of Horrors

I naively thought that there wasn’t anyone, certainly any theatergoer in the area, who hadn’t seen this unusual, uniquely enjoyable play. However, as I listened to comments from my fellow audience members around me, I found I was wrong. Having seen this curious comic rock horror musical so many times that I know all the lines and lyrics, I found myself envying those who were experiencing this weirdly wonderful show for the first time, here at the Paramount Theatre.

How Can Humans Do Better?

Cat’s Cradle

There aren’t enough expletives of praise in the English language to express the magnificence of this incredible, two-hour production of Kurt Vonnegut’s 1963 classic. The famed American writer, known for a large canon of stories (Welcome to the Monkey House), plays (Happy Birthday, Wanda June) and wryly satirical novels (including Slaughterhouse-Five and Breakfast of Champions), wove elements of science fiction and fantasy into his stories to highlight the horrors and ironies of living in the 20th century. All of his books, like Cat’s Cradle, are marked by a a fatalistic viewpoint while still embracing humanistic beliefs. In this play Vonnegut seems to be continually asking, “How can humans do better?”

The Music of Johnny Cash

Ring of Fire

We have all experienced our own highs and lows throughout life. It’s safe to say that no one has sailed through the years without their share of sorrow and hardship, hopefully balanced by more joyful opportunities and happier times. The Man in Black, better known to his many fans as American Country-Western singer Johnny Cash, documented the ups and downs of life through his soulful music. 

The Four-Color Trilogy, Part Two

The Innocence of Seduction

Once, in the 21st century, there lived an ultra conservative, but arrogantly stupid man who possessed a modicum of power in the state he governed. However, this man longed for even more authority and strict control over his people—in fact, all his country’s people. He tried to become its leader. In attempting to win over the other unimaginative right-wingers, this narrow-minded man began a campaign to limit what could be taught in schools. But even worse than that, he began banning all the children’s books that didn’t meet his personal criteria and moral standards. Not only were hundreds of books removed from school curricula and libraries, they were often even burned.   

A Brightly Shining Moon

I experienced a sinking feeling during the first fifteen minutes or so of Moon at the Bottom of the Ocean, the new play by Bryn Magnus from the Curious Theatre Branch, now playing at Chicago Dramatists.  The situation seemed dated and frayed at the edges: A scraggly bearded, deeply neurotic urban schlub named Paul (Jeffrey Bivens) who fancies himself a “literary novelist” but never seems to finish the novel he claims to be working on hires a detective to stalk a far more successful fellow writer who’s just won a MacArthur fellowship (aka the “Genius Grant”) in order to learn the “secret” of his prize-winning prose.