Graham Emmons

Austin Shakespeare is presenting the hilarious comedy of manners The Rivals by Richard Brinsley Sheridan, in an online reading at 5 pm, Sunday, May 30.

As an audience member at Tasha Gordon-Solmon's dark comedy I Now Pronounce, currently playing at the New Jewish Theatre, you are a guest at the wedding of Nicole and Adam. Or is it Aaron? Or Arthur? Or Anthony? Oh heck, the rabbi can't remember, although he attempts in earnest to list all the things the couple has in common before an unfortunate collapse that leaves him deader than a doornail.

Over 21 artists will make their Union Avenue Opera (UAO) debut this summer as the company celebrates its 25th Anniversary Season. The seven-week summer season will open Friday, July 5 with Bernstein's hilarious, philosophical, and fast-paced take on Voltaire's 1759 biting satire of the same name, Candide and will feature the return of Christine Brewer to the UAO stage. The season continues through August 24th with performances of Puccini's operatic blockbuster La boheme, a tribute to UAO's tradition of presenting operas in original languages, and the St. Louis premiere of Tom Cipullo's Glory Denied, the true saga of Vietnam veteran Colonel Jim Thompson, the longest-held American POW in US history.

War! Earthquakes! Disease! Very bad things happen to very good people (and plenty of bad ones too). When young Candide's marriage proposal to a baron's daughter doesn't quite go as planned, this naive student of optimism is thrust into an eye-opening odyssey across lands near and far, discovering the horrors of existence at every turn.

Circle House, which opened Friday, April 27, is the newest production from The Plagiarists, a return to a group-writing style that is rather uniquely theirs. Company member and lead playwright Jessica Wright Buha organized a group of writers and artists into multiple writing sessions over several months, exploring both the cyclical nature and unsteadiness of nature and life. From there the script was developed by Buha and her team, then masterfully tackled by the sure and sensitive hand of director Kate Nawrocki.

Set one hundred years ago in Paris, The Radiant centers on the true, tempestuous, and love-torn life of Madame Marie Sklodowska Curie. Widowed at thirty-nine, with two young children to raise and support, she becomes involved in a scandalous affair with her young married assistant, an affair which rocks Paris and nearly costs her her career - and her life. But, she survives this and the great bias against women scientists throughout Europe then and goes on to discover and isolate radium, earn two Nobel Prizes, and revolutionize the world of science forever, ushering in "The Atomic Age" and the first cure for cancer.

An epic play several thousand years in in the making just opened in Chicago and it is a not to be missed trip through time. From playwright Gregory Peters and the Plagiarists, The Epic of Gilgamesh as Told by Mr. George Smith, Associate Curator of the British Museum (Deceased) covers the remarkably parallel adventure stories of part-god, part-man Gilgamesh and Mr. George Smith, the Assyriologist who uncovered much of the Mesopotamian texts.

An epic play several thousand years in in the making just opened in Chicago and it is a not to be missed trip through time. From playwright Gregory Peters and the Plagiarists, The Epic of Gilgamesh as Told by Mr. George Smith, Associate Curator of the British Museum (Deceased) covers the remarkably parallel adventure stories of part-god, part-man Gilgamesh and Mr. George Smith, the Assyriologist who uncovered much of the Mesopotamian texts.

Genesis Theatrical Productions will present the U.S. premiere of the play SATIE ET COCTEAU: A Rehearsal of a Play of a Composer by a Poet by Canadian playwright Mike Czuba about the classical music composer Erik Satie and his complex relationship with the surrealist poet Jean Cocteau. The play will be presented tomorrow, May 12, through June 5, 2016 at the Athenaeum Theater, 2936 N. Southport, Chicago. Playwright Mike Czuba will be in attendance at the May 14th performance. BroadwayWorld has a sneak peek at the cast in costume below!

Windy City Playhouse, Chicago's newest professional theater, launches 2016 with the Chicago premiere of Nell Benjamin's slapstick farce The Explorers Club, set in a Victorian-era scientific gentleman's club. David H. Bell directs Cristina Panfilio (Chicago Shakespeare Theater's Pericles) as a female anthropologist vying for membership. Alex Goodrich (Elf: The Musical), Ryan Imhoff (Chicago Shakespeare Theater's A Midsummer Night's Dream), Matt Browning (Redtwist's Incident at Vichy), Graham Emmons (Prologue's Porcelain), Dan Rodden (Theater at the Center's On Golden Pond) and Zack Shornick (MPAACT's Ghosts of Atwood) make up the Club members, while Colin Morgan (Oracle's No Beast So Fierce) is Queen Victoria's private secretary and Wesley Daniel (Chicago Shakes' Pericles) is a blue-skinned primitive. Previews for The Explorers Club begin Wednesday, January 27, 2016 at Windy City Playhouse, 3014 West Irving Park Road. Press performances are Thursday, February 4 at 7:30 pm. and Friday, February 5 at 8 p.m. Tickets, $15-$55, are available by calling the box office at 773-891-8985 or visiting windycityplayhouse.com/the-explorers-club/

In mounting the world premiere of Rob Urbinati's new play, Mama's Boy, Good Theater's Artistic Director Brian P. Allen has given Maine a great gift - one of the company's finest productions - some two hours of searing psychological drama, tautly directed and brought to life by a stellar cast. Urbinati's (Death by Design, Hazelwood) two-act play explores the complex, emotionally wrought family dynamics of Lee Harvey Oswald, his mother Marguerite, his wife Marina, and his brother Robert in the time just prior to and just after the Kennedy assassination. Though the play is rooted in history and evokes indelible memories in the communal consciousness, it is less about the tragic events of 1963 and more about the personal relationships of four damaged individuals desperately seeking some connection and meaning. At the epicenter of this dysfunctional family is Marguerite Oswald, thrice married single parent to three estranged sons, a fierce and tender woman who is sees herself as victim and survivor, a woman whose own emotional demands continue to cripple her children. Returning from his defection to Russia, Lee Harvey brings with him his bewildered young wife Marina and their first child, and Urbinati examines Lee Harvey's troubled year before November 22, 1963 as he struggles to support himself and his family, find an ideology, and take hold of his manhood by freeing himself from his mother. The playwright effectively probes Lee Harvey Oswald's increasing instability, as well as his conflicts with Marina and Marguerite. Though the play offers no answers to the many riddles of the JFK assassination, it does challenge the audience to view the characters as human beings and to realize that the dreadful events at Dealey Plaza claimed the Oswald family among its victims, as well as the beloved President, his family, and a grieving nation.

Good Theater will offer two talk-back sessions with the playwright, Rob Urbinati, of MAMA'S BOY on Friday evening November 6, and Saturday afternoon November 7. These talk-back sessions are open to all patrons.  The Friday night session will begin at 9:40 immediately following the conclusion of the 7:30 performance of MAMA'S BOY.  The Saturday afternoon session will begin at 5:10 following the 3:00 matinee.

Good Theater is proud to present the world premiere of MAMA'S BOY, an exciting new play from Rob Urbinati the author of Death by Design. Broadway veteran, Betsy Aidem, plays Marguerite Oswald with Graham (The Rainmaker) Emmons as Lee Harvey Oswald, Laurel (The Rainmaker) Casillo as Marina Oswald and Erik (4000 Miles) Moody as Robert Oswald in this fascinating look at the mother and the family behind an event that changed the course of history. The show will open October 28 for a run through November 22.

Good Theater is proud to present the world premiere of MAMA'S BOY, an exciting new play from Rob Urbinati the author of Death by Design.  Broadway veteran, Betsy Aidem, plays Marguerite Oswald with Graham (The Rainmaker) Emmons as Lee Harvey Oswald, Laurel (The Rainmaker) Casillo as Marina Oswald and Erik (4000 Miles) Moody as Robert Oswald in this fascinating look at the mother and the family behind an event that changed the course of history.  The show will open October 28 for a run through November 22.

Good Theater, the professional theater company in residence at the St. Lawrence Arts Center, kicks off its 14th season tonight, September 23, with the original musical revue, NO BIZ LIKE SHOW BIZ. This show is a tribute to Mary Martin and Ethel Merman starring three singers: Marie Dittmer, Lynne McGhee and Jen Means.

Good Theater, the professional theater company in residence at the St. Lawrence Arts Center, kicks off its 14th season on September 23 with the original musical revue, NO BIZ LIKE SHOW BIZ.  This show is a tribute to Mary Martin and Ethel Merman starring three singers:  Marie Dittmer, Lynne McGhee and Jen Means.

Vivarium Theatre Company is thrilled to announce its upcoming production of The Queen's Speech written by Terence Boyle; playwright and professor of modern British and Irish literature at Loyola University & columnist for the Irish American News.

The latest in unauthorized gossip and buzz from the heart of Chicago's showtune video bars, and musical theater news from Chicago to Broadway. Two weeks of voting left for the BroadwayWorld Chicago Awards! The 'Annie' film and 'The Merry Widow' open, 'Patsy Cline' extends, 'Sherlock Holmes' sings, 'Cupid' has a heart, and MCL Chicago, Drury Lane Oakbrook and Black Ensemble Theater plan new works for 2015, including 'Beaches' and a tribute to Roger Ebert!

A killer Christmas title that's 'Surprising, effective, and brutal'* to stuff your stocking with! The festival favorite An American Terror, from visionary director Haylar Garcia, releases this week from Uncork'd Entertainment (DVD/VOD). Click below to watch the trailer!

Raven Theatre's holiday family treat - a dramatization with music of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's only Sherlock Holmes mystery set around the holidays - will return for a fourth year with some new faces on and off stage joining Raven veterans. Michael Menendian, co-Artistic Director of the theater and co-author (with John Weagly) of the script, today announced the cast and crew for this fully staged production.