BroadwayWorld has a first look at Chicago’s must-see summer musical The Who’s Tommy, reimagined for a new audience 30 years after the original production opened on Broadway, opens tonight and extends a second time—now running through August 6.
Lucy and Charlie are Asian American newlyweds on that “Vigilante Sh*t” (to borrow from Taylor Swift) in Matthew C. Yee’s premiere musical LUCY AND CHARLIE’S HONEYMOON.
The epic pop-culture musical smash sensation that revolutionized the theater, The Who’s Tommy, is reimagined anew at Goodman Theatre this summer. The cast and crew of the production went began rehearsals this week! Go behind the scenes and meet the cast with new photos and video!
I didn't think I'd ever see a singing Antarctic explorer in a musical, but that's exactly what ERNEST SHACKLETON LOVES ME delivers. This quirky but conventionally structured two-hander introduces audiences to Kat, a struggling experimental musician with a newborn baby and a deadbeat, absent boyfriend who's on tour with a Journey cover band, and the eponymous Ernest Shackleton.
“Stop trying to be what everyone else wants you to be, man. Just be you.” Antonio Edwards Suarez recounts that his childhood best friend, Curtis, said to him growing up. This sentiment becomes in many ways the mantra for ANTONIO’S SONG: It’s a deeply human exploration of identity — and specifically Suarez’s identity — and all the elements that make us who we are. In ANTONIO’S SONG, Suarez and co-playwright Dael Orlandersmith share vignettes from Suarez’s upbringing that reflect the complexities of his identity. This is a touching, if not groundbreaking, solo show. Ultimately, theater reflects our humanity, and ANTONIO’S SONG reinforces that we turn to art to better understand ourselves. Structurally and thematically, this is well-trod territory.
See photos of the Porchlight Music Theatre Chicago premiere of the critically acclaimed musical comedy Ernest Shackleton Loves Me.
Mercury’s production has some fabulous performances, but it doesn’t entirely answer the question of why BIG RIVER needed to be brought out of the archives.
Get a look at production photos from Paramount Theatre's production of School of Rock!
Mercury Theater has released first look production photos from Big River, a musical based on Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
It’s only fitting that for his swan song at Goodman Theatre Artistic Director Robert Falls has adapted and directed Anton Chekhov’s THE CHERRY ORCHARD, a play that’s also very much a swan song. With this staging, Falls has completed the cycle of directing all four of Chekov’s full-length plays for the Goodman stage. Fall’s take on THE CHERRY ORCHARD is surprisingly comedic and strips the play of the more obscure Russian references (though it’s still a period piece), which also demonstrates an artful understanding of the text and how 2023 audiences are best primed to receive it. THE CHERRY ORCHARD’s central character, estate owner Lyubov Ranevskaya, desperately clings to her glamorized version of the past even as the world around her moves inexorably forward. It’s a farewell, indeed, and a lesson in learning when to hold on and when to let go.
Chicago Shakespeare Theater Artistic Director Barbara Gaines cleverly marries play and production concept in THE COMEDY OF ERRORS for her final production.
Paramount Theatre has release production photos for Into the Woods, Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's brilliant reimagining of the Grimm Brothers fairy tales, which runs through March 19, 2023. Check out the photos here!
What did our critic think of TONI STONE at Goodman Theatre? TONI STONE is a memory play-in more ways than one. Lydia R. Diamond's play is indeed structured in non-linear (and yet, still mostly chronological order) as the titular Toni Stone recounts her memories as the first woman to regularly play professional baseball. It's also a memory play in the sense that it captures a moment in history that many audiences may not know before they see the work. In real life, Toni Stone played for the Indianapolis Clowns, a Negro League team, in 1953. The play itself never references that year-or any dates in Toni's timeline-outright (the program merely lists the setting as '1920's-1940's USA.') Instead, Toni weaves between different moments in her life, diving in and out of them-much like she might dive to catch a ball in the outfield (although she played second base).
What did our critic think of LADY DAY AT EMERSON’S BAR AND GRILL at Mercury Theater Chicago? To say Alexis J. Roston's performance as Billie Holiday in LADY DAY AT EMERSON'S BAR AND GRILL is a masterclass in acting and singing is no exaggeration. Roston gives the kind of lived-in, seamless performance that only comes from knowing the material intimately well, and indeed, it's a role she's played many times before.
Porchlight Music Theatre has announced, due to popular demand, a new block of tickets for three weeks of performances have been added to its presentation of the Tony Award-winning landmark musical Cabaret, at the Ruth Page Center for the Arts. See photos from the production!
In the ripple, the wave that carried me home, protagonist Janice must metaphorically reckon with her homecoming and her childhood in the fictional Beacon, Kansas.
What did our critic think of CABARET at Porchlight Music Theatre? Porchlight invites audiences into the glittering, gritty world of early 1930s Berlin with John Kander and Fred Ebb’s iconic musical CABARET. Under the direction of Porchlight Artistic Director Michael Weber and with associate direction and choreography by Brenda Didier, this production largely belongs to Erica Stephan in the role of Sally Bowles. As the seductive and desperate nightclub singer, Sally, Stephan is an absolute dream. She not only plays the character’s arc beautifully, moving from artful seduction to total desperation and panic by the show’s end, but she showcases her powerful belt and vocal control in each of Sally’s solo numbers. In this way, Porchlight’s production mirrors Sally’s character arc; as the other characters in the show are awakened to the realities of the Nazi party’s rise to power, they must contend with the fact that life is not, in fact, a cabaret.
Want to know what's coming to Broadway in 2023? This Broadway season will include performances by Jessica Chastain, Josh Groban, Nathan Lane, Laura Linney and many more! Check out a full list of which Broadway shows will open this year.
What did our critic think of TROUBLE IN MIND at TimeLine Theatre Company? TROUBLE IN MIND is a blistering portrait of racial and gender politics on Broadway.
What did our critic think of RENT at Porchlight Music Theatre? Jonathan Larson’s 1996 Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winning musical RENT comes to life in a Porchlight production that captures the ethos of the original Broadway production. It also reinvigorates the fresh energy of the musical’s message about love, acceptance, and living in the moment.
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