Andrew White News

Audiences, prepare to be enthralled; Constellation Theatre's poetic staging of the ancient Sumerian epic “Gilgamesh” is an absolute delight for the eyes and ears. With its original poetic dialogue, its brilliant costuming and choreography, not to mention an original world-music score performed live, you have a truly fascinating evening in store for you.

Continuing its 25th Anniversary Season, Lookingglass Theatre Company presents Still Alice, adapted and directed by Ensemble Member Christine Mary Dunford, based on the novel by Lisa Genova. The production begins tonight, April 10 - May 19, 2013 at Lookingglass Theatre Company, located inside Chicago's historic Water Tower Water Works, 821 N. Michigan Ave. at Pearson. The Press Opening is Saturday, April 20, 2013 at 7:30 p.m.

Lookingglass Theatre Company announces its 2013-2014 Season, opening with the World Premiere adaptation of Marguerite Duras' The North China Lover, written & directed by Ensemble Member Heidi Stillman. The season continues with The Little Prince directed by Ensemble Member David Catlin, adapted from Antoine de Saint-Exupery's beloved children's book by Rick Cummins and John Scoullar. Jessica Thebus will direct the World Premiere of Artistic Associate Sara Gmitter's In The Garden: A Darwinian Love Story to close out the Season.

Mark Jaster and Sabrina Mandell have established Happenstance as one of the most inventive, genuinely spontaneous companies in town. Their sources of inspiration are diverse, likewise the shows that develop (literally) before our eyes. Based on the principle of physical improvisation, their brand of Devised Theater (quite distinct from that bane of critics, the "work in progress") can give you the delight of witnessing artists in the process of discovery, development and revision. The results are often confusing and challenge us to abandon our innate desire to make sense of things, inviting us simply to let the ensemble go about their wonderful work.

If you haven't had the chance to catch up on your theater news, look no further than today's recap of all things theater - exclusive features, interviews, reviews and more! - around the Broadway World for the week of March 25

Lookingglass Theatre's Junior Board announces the 12th Annual Madhatter's Ball, "The Madhatter's Speakeasy" to be held at Venue One, 1044 W. Randolph, on Saturday, June 1, 2013. The VIP reception begins at 8pm. The event is from 9pm-midnight with an after-party, location TBD, from 12am-2:00am.

Opening as it does at the tail end of the Lenten season, Keegan Theatre seems to be offering 'Behanding' as a welcome antidote to the awe and reverence of the season (are you dreading the family Seder before it's even started? Sick to death of Easter eggs and plastic grass? Suffering from Pope Francis fatigue already? Have we got a show for you …). Although not without its moments of drag and indecision the production is still guaranteed to leave you rolling in the aisles at the utter shamelessness of it all.

If you haven't had the chance to catch up on your theater news, look no further than today's recap of all things theater - exclusive features, interviews, reviews and more! - around the Broadway World for the week of March 18!

Lee Blessing's Cold-War drama 'A Walk in the Woods' is given a beautiful new staging by Bethesda's Quotidean Theatre, with a stand-out performance by Brit Herring as the American negotiator.

Continuing its 25th Anniversary Season, Lookingglass Theatre Company presents the world premiere of Still Alice, adapted and directed by Ensemble Member Christine Mary Dunford, based on the novel by Lisa Genova. The production runs April 10 - May 19, 2013 at Lookingglass Theatre Company, located inside Chicago's historic Water Tower Water Works, 821 N. Michigan Ave. at Pearson. The Press Opening is Saturday, April 20, 2013 at 7:30 p.m.

Fridays at BWW mean one thing: a recap at-a-glance of this week's most-read stories in our regional markets! Take a stroll around the Broadway World to see what made news for the week of March 3!

Continuing its 25th Anniversary Season, Lookingglass Theatre Company presents the World Premiere of Big Lake Big City, written by Keith Huff and directed by Ensemble Member David Schwimmer. Tickets are now on sale for the production, running June 19 - August 11, 2013 at Lookingglass Theatre Company, located inside Chicago's historic Water Tower Water Works, 821 N. Michigan Ave. at Pearson. The Press Opening is Saturday, June 29, 2013 at 7:30 p.m.

Violinist Laurie Carney and pianist David Friend will give the world premiere of Robert Sirota's Violin Sonata No. 2 as part of a free concert at the Manhattan School of Music's Greenfield Hall (120 Claremont Ave.) on Tuesday, April 2 at 7:30pm. Sirota wrote the sonata for Carney, a founding member of the American String Quartet (ASQ), and dedicated it to their mothers who both passed away recently. The concert will also include Brahms' Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 2 in A Major; Messiaen's Theme and Variations; and Faure's Piano Quartet in C Minor with violist Daniel Avshalomov (also of the ASQ) and cellist William Grubb (Carney's husband).

The National Theatre of Norway's modern, pared-down 'Hedda Gabler' recently at the Kennedy Center, as part of the Nordic Cool festival, caught some local print critics off guard. There has been some grumbling about the lack of Victorian-era sociological context. This complaint assumes Hedda's problems belong to a bygone era, and have little to do with us--ridiculous. Moreover, audiences and artists alike don't deserve the cod-liver oil treatment. We don't expect jazz musicians to give us note-for-note renditions of Louis Armstrong's Hot Five recordings, no matter how great they were. So we should stop demanding that actors remain forever under the thumb of antiquated scripts whose dialect is so different from our own. We need to be able to breathe new life into the classics, experience Hedda as our contemporary, and this production does so brilliantly.

Lookingglass Theatre's Board of Directors and Gala Committee announce one of Chicago's highly anticipated events of the season, the 2013 Lookingglass gglassquerade, which will celebrate 25 years of ensemble collaboration, transformation and invention. Host Stephen Colbert, of Comedy Central's The Colbert Report, will be presented with the Lookingglass Civic Engagement Award at the event. gglassquerade will be held tonight, March 2, 2013, at 6:00 p.m. at The Four Seasons, 120 East Delaware Place in Chicago.

At BroadwayWorld we pride ourselves in showcasing content submitted by our regional contributors from all corners of the globe. Get all your theater news at a glance each Friday with 'Around BWW: Regional Highlights of the Week'! Scroll below for the most-read stories for the week of February 25!

The year, roughly speaking, is 1300; the city, definitely Rome. An ambitious political exile from Florence, stripped of everything he ever owned or hoped to achieve, stews in the Eternal City disgusted with the civil wars and political infighting around him. All he has to his name is a solid classical education and a gift for writing poetry in the language of the streets--Italian. Finding himself with a lot of time on his hands, Dante Alighieri nurses his pain and his burning desire for revenge, and converts them into nothing less than a classic of World Literature.

Inspired by his realization that people make bad decisions because of poor risk management, career military police officer Kevin Andre White has penned his new book, "The Neighborhood Individual Protective Guide" (published by AuthorHouse).

Get all your theater news at a glance each Friday with 'Around BWW: Regional Highlights of the Week'! Click below for the most-read stories for the week of February 18!