Rachel Weinberg - Page 18

TEATRO ZINZANNI is unabashedly designed to entertain — and it’s at its best when it makes high-flying fun literal with the aerial acts on display. The entire evening exudes energy, and the buzz that comes from being reunited with live performance was palpable.

I didn't hate I HATE IT HERE. In fact, Chicago playwright Ike Holter's 'concept album' play was both uproariously funny and thought-provoking.

Director Tiffany Nichole Greene stages esteemed playwright Adrienne Kennedy’s OHIO STATE MURDERS with a cinematic twist in this second installment in Goodman Theatre’s Live Series. OHIO STATE MURDERS centers on Suzanne (a harrowing Jacqueline Williams), an accomplished writer who returns to Ohio State University’s campus for the first time since her freshman year in 1949. There, Suzanne gives a lecture on the violent imagery in her work — and the origins of that imagery are much closer to the university than audiences may initially suspect.

If you’re looking for something to help fill that show tunes void, look no further than Lyric Opera’s THE NEW CLASSICS streaming concert.

Gavin Creel chatted about making his Lyric debut, his hopes for the future of equity and access on Broadway, and how he handled self-care during the height of the coronavirus pandemic.

Broadcast live from Goodman Theatre’s intimate Owen Theatre, THE SOUND INSIDE intrigues because of the twists and turns in Adam Rapp’s script, but also because it combines cinematic-quality streaming with the thrill of live theater. It’s been over a year since I last stepped inside a theater, and now with the first limited run production in its LIVE series, the Goodman has come extremely close to capturing the exhilaration of being live and in the room with theater. Running only for four more performances through Sunday, May 16, THE SOUND INSIDE is indeed a unique and limited-edition experience. 

THE LAST MATCH derives its greatest level of poignancy from the fact that it lays bare Tim and Sergei’s interior lives for the audiences.

With NEW FACES SING BROADWAY 1961, Porchlight Music Theatre has put together a program that will satisfy the cravings of those who desperately miss live musical theater.

It seems most fitting that Goodman Theatre's current encore streaming production of SMOKEFALL exists both in and out of time. Noah Haidle's whimsical play, beloved by critics and audiences when it originally premiered at the Goodman in 2013 (and remounted in 2014), occupies an achronological space.

Although I don’t often preface my reviews, I think this particular write-up deserves one. As I reflect on my viewing of Goodman Theatre’s current Encore showing of PEDRO PARÁMO, I find it important to note that I’m writing about a production that took place eight years ago. The Goodman presented Cuban theater company Teatro Buendía’s PEDRO PARÁMO in 2013, in association with the Museum of Contemporary Art. The immense theatricality and experimental nature of Teatro Buendía’s production make clear why this was a fitting co-production between the Goodman, the MCA, and Teatro Buendía. And the Goodman’s decision to allow audiences to revisit (or experience for the first time) an international theater collaboration feels poignant at this time. The chance to see this collaboratively produced piece feels like both a nostalgic exercise and one that reminds us of the hope for such kinds of artistic collaborations in the future.

Porchlight's streaming program BROADWAY BY THE DECADE provides some much needed musical theater cheer in this unprecedented and challenging year for Chicago theater.

J. Nicole Brooks's HER HONOR JANE BYRNE, now in a world premiere production at Lookingglass, is a play deeply rooted in Chicago's not-too-distant history. Inspired by former Chicago Mayor Jane Byrne (the first woman to serve as mayor here) and her decision to move into Cabrini-Green as a display of her desire to revitalize the city's housing projects, the play introduces a cast of characters representing different perspectives in the city. Brooks (who also directs) has assembled an intriguing array of characters in HER HONOR JANE BYRNE, and she makes the pivotal choice to prominently feature residents of Cabrini-Green as much as Byrne and some of her fellow Chicago politicians. Yet the play becomes too cluttered in its various storylines and ideas.

In WHAT THE CONSTITUTION MEANS TO ME, playwright Heidi Schreck has pulled off one of the most challenging feats in theater: The seamless blending of the personal and the universal. And the result is remarkable.

Bachelor Nation fans of Chicago can experience all the drama of the popular reality show this March when THE BACHELOR LIVE ON STAGE arrives at Broadway In Chicago's Cadillac Palace Theatre. In advance of BACHELOR LIVE's arrival here, I chatted with former Bachelorette Becca Kufrin, who is co-hosting alongside former Bachelor Ben Higgins. Kufrin shared a preview of what audiences can expect from the show, as well as some behind-the-scenes information from her time on the show (of course, I had to ask about some BACHELOR filming secrets), and her thoughts on the current season.

orde arrington tuttle's graveyard shift, now making its world-premiere following an initial workshop production during Goodman Theatre's 2018 New Stages Festival, is a haunting and beautiful reflection on police brutality against Black Americans. Inspired by the legacy of 28-year-old Sandra Bland, who was found hanging in her prison cell in 2015 after being arrested for failing to signal a lane change, graveyard shift is also remarkable in its capacity for empathy and its meditation on shared humanity. graveyard shift is an undeniably brutal play, as it should be given its subject matter, but tuttle also writes his dialogue in such a poetic way that I was equally stunned by the play's beauty.

While Donna Summer may be 'Hot Stuff' when it comes to iconic songwriting and singing, SUMMER: THE DONNA SUMMER MUSICAL is a lukewarm entry in the genre of biographical jukebox musicals. The musical features many of Donna Summer's notable hits-and this national touring cast has the talent to take them all on-but the storyline gave me whiplash. With a book by Colman Domingo and Robert Cary and direction from Des McAnuff, SUMMER careens between the major events of Donna Summer's life at an often breakneck pace.

Steppenwolf's production of ensemble member Tracy Letts's BUG is positively skin crawling, with magnificent central performances from Carrie Coon and Namir Smallwood that make the play all the more unnerving. While Letts's 1996 play may have seemed far-fetched and ahead of its time when it debuted in the nascent days of the internet, it reads eerily prescient now. BUG's dual exploration of paranoid schizophrenia and government surveillance becomes even more unsettling in the current digital era.

Liliana Padilla's HOW TO DEFEND YOURSELF offers a brilliant examination of collegiate life, and, more specifically, the ways in which rape culture and the entirely real possibility of sexual assault affect university students. But what makes Padilla's play so powerful, fascinating, and entertaining is that their playwriting never becomes preachy or pointed. By capturing the parlance and cadence of the language that college students use with acute accuracy, Padilla allows the expertly fleshed out characters to reflect on these issues in a grounded and compelling manner.

DUKE ELLINGTON'S SOPHISTICATED LADIES is a classic Porchlight show: an ebullient musical revue showcasing both the esteemed song catalog of Duke Ellington and also the formidable talents of some of the city's finest musical theater performers.

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 does consider both sides of this divisive issue. The play is perhaps most compelling in its capacity to pull back the curtain around the original Roe v. Wade case and reveal the case's history. ROE centers on two critical women, the lawyer Sarah Weddington, who was only in her mid-twenties when she brought this case before the Court, and Norma McCorvey, the plaintiff under the pseudonym 'Jane Roe.' Before I saw this play, I had never heard these women's names before. But now, thanks to Loomer's work, I won't soon forget them. For Loomer interestingly not only presents both sides of the United States' debate over a woman's right to choose but also puts forth Sarah and Norma's two differing perspectives on the events that transpired before and after Roe v. Wade was decided.