CHICAGO THEATER REVIEWS

While there's nothing ultimately life-changing about the Hollywood spoof, 'EPIC PROPORTIONS,' Project 891 has assembled a hard-working and joke-selling troupe of performers who nail their occasionally generic material....

Playing on Sunday nights in February and March in Mary's Attic, that casual and funky space above Hamburger Mary's restaurant in Chicago's Andersonville neighborhood, is the equally casual and funky "Show Us Your Love," a fundraiser cum audience development activity cum consumer survey vehicle that ...

To say Dog & Pony's 'THE TWINS WOULD LIKE TO SAY' is a theatrically refreshing 60 minutes would be an understatement. Playwrights Seth Bockley and Devon de Mayo have chosen an intriguing tale to bring to Steppenwolf's Garage Rep: a pair of twins who made a pact not to speak to anyone beside the othe...

With the help of the likes of Rodgers & Hammerstein, Sondheim, Harburg, and Kander & Ebb, 'An Evening with Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin' is a master class in staying on the top of one's game...no matter the set list omission....

Now through April 25, 2010, at the Marriott Theatre in Lincolnshire, Illinois, is a 'Fiddler On The Roof' for our time. It is true that we still have fresh memories of the not-quite ageless actor Topol as Tevye the dairyman, appearing in productions of this Bock-Harnick-Stein musical for almost 45 y...

On view this weekend and next (through February 28, 2010) at the landmark Auditorium Theatre of Roosevelt Unversity (in downtown Chicago) is an impressive, lovely, and sweetly moving mounting of Sir Frederick Ashton's 1948 choreography for Sergei Prokofiev's "Cinderella." ...

'101 DALMATIANS' not baby enough to be considered children's theatre, nor polished or bulky enough to be a typical flashy Loop arrival, but BT McNicholl and Dennis DeYoung's show is a perfect family outing. ...

...

Boy, this one was a struggle to write! Tuesday night's opening performance of the weeklong stand of the now and forever "Tomorrow" musical, "Annie," still on a national tour that dates back to 2005, was enough to make this reviewer take a very deep breath. On the one hand were the direction, choreog...

The National Tour of 'MAMMA MIA!' is full of saucy Spandex'd fluff, achy back gags, and boob-grabbing, but what more could one ask for on a musical trip down memory lane?...

Chills. I got chills! When Sara Sheperd as Fanny Brice let loose the other night with her remarkable voice at the end of those legendary Brice/Barbra standards "I'm The Greatest Star," "Don't Rain On My Parade" and (even) "The Music That Makes Me Dance" ........

At the "theater-in-the-round" Marriott Theatre in Chicago's northern suburb of Lincolnshire, for the next two months or so, theatergoers will find a different sort of "My Fair Lady" than the one they might expect to find. Now, it is hilarious, very truthful and detailed, and its leading performances...

Those folks you will see sweating in Chicago's Loop for the next three weeks won't be working too hard, wearing too many clothes or worrying about the local real estate market. They will merely be lucky Chicago theatergoers, responding to the warmth, light and fire of the very first touring producti...

From now until January 10, 2010, The Ford Center for the Performing Arts/Oriental Theatre hosts a near-perfect pre-Broadway premiere of 'THE ADDAMS FAMILY.'...

In this, its 18th season of award-winning and insightful professional theater, Writers' Theatre, 'focusing on the word and the artist,' has decided to bless us all with only its second musical offering ever--and what a production!.......

'BANANA SHPEEL's' script is wonky and often unfunny, but for an evening of phenomenal dance numbers, thrilling acrobatics, and electrifying big-band-esque music, 'SHPEEL' is worth a looksee....

Theater Wit's 'THE SANTALAND DIARIES' is an alternative gin-fuel yuletide holiday monologue for anyone who's over the manufactured 'joy' of the season and into an ol' fashioned adult-aimed evening of comic storytelling....

I may be the only Chicago theater critic of a certain age who has never seen "The Christmas Schooner." After its initial production by the Music Theatre program at Northwestern University in 1993, directed by Dominic Missimi, the show debuted at the old Bailiwick Repertory Theatre in 1996 and ran fo...

Now on the boards at Theatre Building Chicago is the first edition of Porchlight Music Theatre's hoped-for holiday tradition, 'Miracle on 34th Street,' an adaptation of the Academy Award-winning 1947 film (and its Valentine Davies source novel) by Patricia Di Benedetto Snyder, Will Severin and John ...

YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN features extremely talent performers carrying an ok show on a lack-luster tour....

Opening this week at the high-flying Drury Lane Theatre, in Chicago's far western suburb of Oakbrook Terrace, is "Thoroughly Modern Millie," the 2002 Best Musical Tony winner which gave the world the career of Sutton Foster (and didn't too badly for her male co-stars Gavin Creel and Marc Kudisch). B...

Whether or not Zachary James realizes it yet, his name is in for a world of star-power draw in the upcoming months. If he decides to perform 'IMBECILE D'AMOUR' in Chicago again, it's bound to have musical theatre and vocal aficionados filling Gorilla Tango to the brim....

Alright, I have to confess that I was prepared for a night of processed cheese melting under stage lights. I personally cannot stomach holiday-themed theatre (regardless of the holiday) and this was the second Halloween-themed show I reviewed in the past three weeks. However, I am happy to say that...

Filament Theatre Ensemble picked the perfect month, performance space, & design team to present their new folk music adaptation of Washington Irving's 'THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW.'...

I support the promotion of local playwrights, especially women. However, 'Lucinda's Bed' plays into every stereotyped moment of a woman's life: self-consciousness, violence, guilt, fear. Don't get me wrong. A stereotype is a stereotype because there is some kernel of truth to it. Who hasn't had...