Chicago Theater Reviews: Best Shows & Critic Recommendations Page 11

BWW Review: ROE at Goodman Theatre
by Rachel Weinberg - January 28, 2020

Lisa Loomer's ROE offers a timely exploration of the history behind the 1973 Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade and the ongoing political debate around abortion and a women's right to choose. While Loomer's text is not necessarily nuanced in the way that it presents the argument around abortion, ROE doe...

BWW Review: THE MOUSETRAP at Court Theatre a Fresh Take on Agatha Christie's Record-breaking Mystery
by Emily McClanathan - January 26, 2020

How do you put a new spin on the world's longest-running play? At Court Theatre, director Sean Graney takes on this challenge with Agatha Christie's classic murder mystery, THE MOUSETRAP. Running continuously in London's West End since 1952, the original production currently clocks in at over 28,00...

BWW Review: GREASE at Marriott Theatre
by Emily McClanathan - January 25, 2020

The Marriott Theatre opens its 45th season with director Scott Weinstein's staging of GREASE, the 1971 musical that was born in Chicago and became a Broadway hit, a famous film and a perennial favorite of theaters across the country. With book, music and lyrics by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey, the sh...

BWW Review: ONCE ON THIS ISLAND National Tour Presented by Broadway In Chicago
by Rachel Weinberg - January 24, 2020

The national tour of Michael Arden's Tony Award-winning revival of ONCE ON THIS ISLAND has arrived in Chicago in a blaze of color and light. While Arden's production makes clear that the tropical island in the French Antilles where the musical takes place is no stranger to the devastating effects of...

BWW Review: STOP KISS at The Buena At The Pride Arts Center
by Patrick Rybarczyk - January 17, 2020

When you live in a big city with vibrant, diverse neighborhoods, you tend to forget that there are still people and places where residents living out and openly can be threatened or harmed. That very safe and sound bubble is burst in Diana Son's powerful 'Stop Kiss,' an intense and intriguing look a...

BWW Review: MEAN GIRLS National Tour at the James M. Nederlander Theater
by Rachel Weinberg - December 29, 2019

The first national tour of the MEAN GIRLS musical has arrived in Chicago, and it's totally fetch. Original screenwriter Tina Fey has partnered with composer Jeff Richmond (her husband), lyricist Nell Benjamin, and director/choreographer Casey Nicholaw to create a show in line with its pop musical co...

BWW Review: DANCE NATION at Steppenwolf Theatre Company
by Rachel Weinberg - December 22, 2019

The Chicago premiere of Clare Barron's DANCE NATION, now at Steppenwolf with direction and choreography from Lee Sunday Evans (who also helmed the original production at Playwrights Horizons), is alternately wild, messy, and confusinga?"much like the experience of early adolescence for the play's ch...

BWW Review: Scenario Two's THE LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA at Lyric Opera House
by Rachel Weinberg - December 17, 2019

Lyric Opera's special holiday engagement of Adam Guettel's THE LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA, one of the few contemporary musicals written in a style that harkens back to the Golden Age, is beautifully sung with the composer's complicated and melodious score performed by a superb orchestra. The musical focuse...

Review: Take a Trip to The Land of Forgotten Toys
by Misha Davenport - December 10, 2019

CPA Theatricals presents a winning new holiday musical, THE LAND OF FORGOTTEN TOYS....

BWW Review: THE SANTALAND DIARIES at Goodman Theatre
by Rachel Weinberg - December 08, 2019

The ceaselessly cynical Crumpet the Elf has returned to Goodman Theatre for the second year in a row. This year Steven Strafford takes the lead in David Sedaris's THE SANTALAND DIARIES under the direction of Steve Scott. While Strafford's take on David/Crumpet remains as foul-mouthed and blunt as ev...

BWW Review: Q BROTHERS CHRISTMAS CAROL at Chicago Shakespeare Theater
by Rachel Weinberg - December 06, 2019

The Q Brothers Collective puts a highly inventive and endlessly delightful twist on Charles Dickens' classic holiday tale with Q BROTHERS CHRISTMAS CAROL....

PF&P's Damaged AMERICA'S BEST OUTCAST TOY
by Misha Davenport - December 04, 2019

Holiday classic meets reality show parody in PF&P's mix bag AMERICA'S BEST OUTCAST TOY...

BWW Review: MARY POPPINS at Drury Lane Theatre
by Emily McClanathan - December 02, 2019

This holiday season, Drury Lane Theatre presents DISNEY AND CAMERON MACKINTOSH'S MARY POPPINS, the 2004 musical based on the stories of P.L. Travers and the 1964 Walt Disney film and co-created by Cameron Mackintosh. Marcia Milgrom Dodge directs and choreographs this classic tale about a magical nan...

BWW Review: 42nd Annual Production of A CHRISTMAS CAROL at Goodman Theatre
by Rachel Weinberg - November 25, 2019

Although Goodman Theatre is now producing A CHRISTMAS CAROL for the 42nd year, and although I have seen the production four times myself, it still has an immense capacity to tug at the heartstrings. While the Goodman's production has few surprises to reveal for repeat viewers at this point, the emot...

BWW Review: ALWAYS...PATSY CLINE at Firebrand Theatre
by Rachel Weinberg - November 22, 2019

Firebrand Theatre's ALWAYS...PATSY CLINE is both a lovely tribute to female friendship and Patsy Cline's iconic song catalog (the musical features more than 25 of Patsy's songs). Ted Swindley's show, here directed by Brigitte Ditmars, is based on the real-life friendship between Patsy and one of her...

BWW Review: RUTHERFORD AND SON at TimeLine Theatre a Chicago Premiere 107 Years in the Making
by Emily McClanathan - November 19, 2019

It's rare that modern theatergoers can catch the Chicago premiere of a ground-breaking play written more than a century ago, but TimeLine Theatre is offering this chance with its searing production of Githa Sowerby's RUTHERFORD AND SON. Set in a factory town in northern England, this tense family dr...

BWW Review: LINDIWE at Steppenwolf Theatre Company
by Rachel Weinberg - November 19, 2019

Steppenwolf's world premiere production of LINDIWE, a collaboration between ensemble member Eric Simonson and acclaimed South African music group Ladysmith Black Mambazo, finds the most success in its musical moments. The production, co-directed by Simonson and Jonathan Berry, features new music fro...

BWW Review: DEAD MAN WALKING at Lyric Opera Of Chicago
by Rachel Weinberg - November 17, 2019

There's nothing subtle about Lyric Opera's staging of Jake Heggie and Terrence McNally's contemporary opera DEAD MAN WALKING. Based upon the novel of the same name by Sister Helen Prejean, DEAD MAN WALKING focuses on Sister Helen's relationship with 29-year-old Joseph De Rocher, a prisoner on death ...

BWW Review: OLIVER! at Marriott Theatre
by Emily McClanathan - November 10, 2019

Tis' the season that many theaters turn to Dickensian fare, but at Marriott Theatre, young Oliver Twist rather than Tiny Tim takes the stage. Nick Bowling directs Lionel Bart's OLIVER!, the 1960 musical based on Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist. With music direction by Ryan T. Nelson and choreography b...

BWW Review: LATIN HISTORY FOR MORONS at Cadillac Palace Theatre
by Patrick Rybarczyk - November 01, 2019

Finding a way to entertain and educate can be tricky. When an artist turns educator, there is a certain magic that happens when it's done with amazing skill and clear facts. The genius of John Leguizamo is that he finds a way to marry the two while amusing us, tugging at our heartstrings, and openin...

BWW Review: AN EVENING WITH C.S. LEWIS at Broadway Playhouse
by Emily McClanathan - October 24, 2019

In Broadway in Chicago and Emery Entertainment's AN EVENING WITH C.S. LEWIS, we encounter the famed author of THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA in the cozy setting of his home in a village outside Oxford. David Payne writes, directs, and stars as Lewis, or a?oeJacka?? to his family, in this one-man show. Und...

BWW Review: SUNSET BOULEVARD at Porchlight Music Theatre
by Rachel Weinberg - October 16, 2019

With direction by Michael Weber, Porchlight Music Theatre's production of Andrew Lloyd Weber's SUNSET BOULEVARD provides one wild ride of a musical evening. The musical's storyline itself vacillates between the predictable and the shockingly dark and twisted. It chronicles the story of former silent...

BWW Review: Science Meets Family Dysfunction in MOSQUITOES at Steep Theatre
by Emily McClanathan - October 15, 2019

Olivier Award-winning British playwright Lucy Kirkwood pulls no punches when it comes to examining family dysfunction on stage. Her 2017 play MOSQUITOES, which premiered at the National Theatre of Great Britain, features three generations of family members who are so fundamentally disconnected from ...

BWW Review: THE BROTHERS SIZE at Steppenwolf Theatre Company
by Rachel Weinberg - October 07, 2019

THE BROTHERS SIZE is an artful exploration of the obligations put upon its characters. McCraney beautifully reflects on both the societal systems that oppress these three black men, while also deepening the exploration of the personal obligations they feel to one another-and the question of what it ...

BWW Review: Isango Ensemble's A MAN OF GOOD HOPE at Chicago Shakespeare Theater
by Rachel Weinberg - October 07, 2019

A MAN OF GOOD HOPE reflects the resiliency and creativity of the human spirit at every turn, while giving audiences a taste of Isango Ensemble's original methods of theatrical storytelling....