Madeleine Peyroux’s visit Tuesday night to the City Winery stage couldn’t have been more curious. A straight-ahead performance full of edgy humor and wonderful music, she casually interlaced the familiar and the new, the melancholy and the playfully salacious; all the while filling the evening with unexpected jolts of surprise. It’s not by intention, but …
The Brothers Size opens with a chant proclaiming that “the road is rough” before showing what that means in a universe of two. Stories examining relationships between brothers or between sisters are too rarely seen in serious drama. Given their complexity and intensity, they’re an ideal source for creating captivating story telling. Tarell Alvin McCraney’s …
Opening night at the opera remains a striking occasion. The red carpet, the gowns, the heart racing energy flowing through the nearly 4000 people assembled to see The Barber of Seville, one of the world’s most popular operas. It’s ironic that something so beloved isn’t exactly an original. Rossini based his classic on a French …
Who wouldn’t want to see a masterpiece in a masterpiece? The prospect had movie goers streaming into The Auditorium Saturday night to see Jordan Peele’s master work Get Out in the palatial splendor of one of the city’s most beautiful landmarks. For almost a decade and across the country, screening movies with a live orchestra …
Jazz lovers have long memories and pride themselves on their loyalty to trusted music resources. That dedication explains why the Jazz Showcase was bulging at the seams Tuesday night with fans honoring retiring 90.9 WDCB radio host Barry Winograd. Winograd will be leaving his daily 10am to 2pm slot September 20th with early morning host …
Against the backdrop of today, seeing Kenneth Lonergan’s story about young people adrift in Reagan era America probably made this play darker than intended. Or it may have simply proven an odd reminder of how much some things don’t change regardless of the setting or the time. Often for very compelling reasons, there will always …
You’d think the meaty new production, The Recommendation, currently playing at Windy City Playhouse was tailor made for immersive theater. With a few accommodating revisions from playwright Johnathan Caren, director Jonathan Wilson and his creative team fused a suspenseful story of trust and friendship on a kinetic “living” stage; making the combined effect more powerful …
Windy City Playhouse Takes Immersive Theater to the Next Level with The Recommendation Read More »
It’s hard to imagine that Beyond Therapy, the delightfully outlandish farce Eclipse Theatre now has running at the Athenaeum, could be nearly as endearing under the charge of any other director. Rachel Lambert in her staging of Christopher Durang’s 1981 lampoon on the dating game has overseen the production of a little jewel. Originally …
Eclipse Theatre’s Beyond Therapy Delivers Farce that Sparkles Read More »
Tolstoy had it right. Happy families are all the same but every unhappy family has its own special brand of sad. He didn’t mention the broad middle ground. That space where families skew one way or the other but can’t truly be called either happy or unhappy. Because of their unpredictability, these are the families …
Inspirations, even when they spring from nowhere, can still end up remarkable artistic creations. To hear playwright Brian Yorkey tell it, his Tony award winning Next to Normal now playing at the Writers Theater in Glencoe was just a “what about a play about” idea. Astonishing that a mere whim could carry such force. The …