Liz Lauren News

Set against the lavish backdrop of a 1930s Hungarian perfume shop, the Tony Award-winning musical comedy gem, SHE LOVES ME, continues The Marriott Theatre's 2017 Season, running April 26 through June 18, 2017 with a press opening on Wednesday, May 3 at 8 p.m. at 10 Marriott Drive, Lincolnshire.

What began as a 1970s rock opera concept album became a global stage phenomenon that captured seven Tony Award nominations and countless awards overseas in its 40-plus years.

Chicago Shakespeare Theater brings to the stage one of the most popular romantic films of all time, Shakespeare in Love-in an enchanting, music-filled theatrical event staged by acclaimed director Rachel Rockwell. Based on the Academy Award-winner for Best Picture with screenplay by Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard, Shakespeare in Love is adapted for the stage by Tony and Olivier Award-winner Lee Hall.

Victory Gardens Theater continues its 42nd season with the World Premiere of Queen, written by Madhuri Shekar and directed by Joanie Schultz. Queen runs now through May 14, 2017, with the press performance tonight, April 21, 2017, at 7:30 pm at Victory Gardens Theater, 2433 N. Lincoln Avenue. BroadwayWorld has a first look at the cast in action below!

Explore the vivid history of America's largest Chinatown through the eyes of a new generation in Lauren Yee's King of the Yees - a Goodman Theatre-commissioned world premiere that was developed in the 2015 New Stages Festival. Yee's longtime collaborator Joshua Kahan Brody directs her offbeat and electric joy ride about living in the contemporary world while honoring one's rich ancestral heritage - and the conflict that ensues. The production will debut at A Contemporary Theatre and Canada's National Arts Centre later this year. BroadwayWorld has a first look at the cast in action below! 

Lookingglass Theatre Company, in association with Dark Harbor Stories, present the U.S. Premiere of Beyond Caring, written and directed by Alexander Zeldin. Beyond Caring runs March 22 - May 7, 2017 at Lookingglass Theatre Company, located inside Chicago's historic Water Tower Water Works, 821 N. Michigan Ave. at Pearson. 

Explore the vivid history of America's largest Chinatown through the eyes of a new generation in Lauren Yee's King of the Yees - a Goodman Theatre-commissioned world premiere that was developed in the 2015 New Stages Festival. Yee's longtime collaborator Joshua Kahan Brody directs her offbeat and electric joy ride about living in the contemporary world while honoring one's rich ancestral heritage-and the conflict that ensues. The production will debut at A Contemporary Theatre and Canada's National Arts Centre later this year. BroadwayWorld has a sneak peek at the company in rehearsal below!

The plot twists, outrageous circumstances and fast-paced narrative style of the telenovela arrive on the Goodman stage this spring in Destiny of Desire by Karen Zacarias. BroadwayWorld has a first look at the cast in action below!

In Kurtis Boetcher's set design for Marcus Gardley's world premiere A WONDER IN MY SOUL, the backdrop for the South Side beauty shop where the play is set prominently displays the photographs of black female icons ranging from Diana Ross to Beyonce-and all of course have fabulous hair in the photos. And as we learn in the play, Aberdeen "Birdie" Calumet (Greta Oglesby) and Bell Grand Lake's (Jacqueline Williams) fictional beauty shop has played host to a number of these famous black women over the years. But what Gardley's play does so beautifully is take the story of these specific, everyday characters and lend a universality to them. The play takes place primarily in 2008 but shows us flashbacks of young Birdie (Camille Robinson) and young Bell (Donica Lynn) as they make their way from Mississippi to settle in Chicago and start their business. Along the way, Gardley weaves a narrative that is warm and sometimes funny but also ultimately serious and touching. And as one would expect, Johnny Jamison's hair and wig design is just superb.

Goodman Theatre Artistic Director Robert Falls marks his 30th anniversary season with the Chicago premiere of Pulitzer Prize winner Annie Baker's (The Flick) adaptation of Uncle Vanya. Uncle Vanya opens tonight and appears for a now-extended run through March 19 in the Owen Theatre.

Victory Gardens Theater continues its season with the World Premiere of A Wonder In My Soul, written by ensemble playwright Marcus Gardley and directed by Artistic Director Chay Yew, with original music by Jaret Landon. A Wonder In My Soul runs now through March 12, 2017, with the press performance on Friday, February 17, 2017, at 7:30pm at Victory Gardens Theater, 2433 N. Lincoln Avenue. BroadwayWorld has a first look at the cast onstage below!

Uncle Vanya by Anton Chekhov, adapted by Annie Baker from a literal translation by Margarita Shalina and the original Russian text, is being directed by Robert Falls in its Chicago premiere, now through March 12, 2017 in the Goodman's Owen Theatre. BroadwayWorld has a first look at the cast in action below!

Chicago Shakespeare Theater presents Shakespeare's playful romantic comedy Love's Labor's Lost, staged by acclaimed director Marti Maraden as part of the Theater's 30th Anniversary Season. Four gentlemen foreswear love and worldly pleasures for scholarly pursuits, only to be put to the test by the arrival of four beautiful ladies from the French Court-and the ensuing hysterical misadventures.

The global phenomenon seen by over 60 million people all around the world and one of Broadway's longest running hits, MAMMA MIA!, kicks off Marriott Theatre's 2017 Season, running February 8 through April 2, 2017 with a press opening on February 15 at 10 Marriott Drive, Lincolnshire.

Hands down, this incredibly absorbing stage adaptation of MOBY DICK is one of the most stunning and enthralling pieces of theater I have had the privilege of experiencing from a Southern California stage. Continuing through February 19 at Orange County's Tony Award-winning regional theater in Costa Mesa, this highly creative and mesmerizing play---adapted and directed by David Catlin---is a production from Chicago's highly regarded Lookingglass Theatre Company, who also produced similar successful runs of this adaptation at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta and the Arena Stage in Washington D.C.

Some call Sweeney Todd Stephen Sondheim's most perfect score, filled with ravishing beauty. Others describe this Victorian melodrama as a pitch-black comedy, filled with thrills and terrors. 

Audiences have two more opportunities to see the Chicago premiere of Gloria - a 'shocking, hilarious and spectacularly honest play' (Chicago Tribune) and 'tantalizing, darkly comic expose of ambition and egoism' (Daily Herald) by MacArthur Foundation Fellow Branden Jacobs-Jenkins.

Chicago Shakespeare presents the world premiere of The Book of Joseph, a new play by award-winning playwright Karen Hartman that chronicles three generations of the Hollander family. Richard Hollander was devastated when his parents were killed in an accident. While cleaning out their attic, he discovered a suitcase of letters written in Polish and German during World War II by a family he never knew-his father's mother, three sisters, and their husbands and children-depicting day-to-day life under the most painful of circumstances in occupied Poland. Richard went on to discover that at the time the letters were written, his own father, Joseph, was fighting the United States government to avoid deportation and death.

What is newsworthy? What lives have value? Does ambition compromise morals? MacArthur Foundation Fellow Branden Jacobs-Jenkins explores these questions and more in Gloria. Directed by Evan Cabnet, Gloria made its Off-Broadway debut in 2015 at the Vineyard Theater. The complete cast and creative team reunite for the Chicago premiere at the Goodman.

Gloria by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, is currently running through February 19, 2017, directed by Evan Cabnet, in its Chicago premiere at the Goodman Theatre, starring Kyle Beltran, Catherine Combs, Michael Crane, Jennifer Kim, Jeanine Serralles and Ryan Spahn. BroadwayWorld has a first look at the cast in action below!