Review: FOOL FOR LOVE at Steppenwolf Theatre CompanyFebruary 12, 2025FOOL FOR LOVE has peak Steppenwolf energy. I’ve long associated Steppenwolf Theatre Company with gritty, messy, feral family and relationship dramas — Sam Shepard’s one-act fits the bill. It’s also only 65 minutes — that run-time is short, but it’s a logical choice in the TikTok era when attention spans are, too. An hour is still plenty of time for genius Steppenwolf ensemble member Caroline Neff to go toe-to-toe with Nick Gehlfuss (who audiences might recognize from CHICAGO MED) as toxic couple May and Eddie.
Review: FUN HOME at Porchlight Music TheatreJanuary 31, 2025Jeanine Tesori and Lisa Kron’s FUN HOME is a musical journey in sketches through the memories of Alison Bechdel. Based on the graphic memoir of the same name — and so called because the Bechdel family business was a funeral home — Porchlight director Stephen Schellhardt’s production brings each scene sharply to life.
Review: JAJA’S AFRICAN HAIR BRAIDING at Chicago Shakespeare TheaterJanuary 21, 2025With JAJA’S AFRICAN HAIR BRAIDING, Jocelyn Bioh pulls off a challenging theatrical feat: She makes a slice-of-life play consistently engaging and entertaining. Set in Harlem at a hair salon of the same name, JAJA’S AFRICAN HAIR BRAIDING follows a group of West African immigrant women working there — along with some of their customers. Bioh has populated her play with a cast of big personalities and peppers in just enough of the stylists’ backstories to allow us to learn more about them.
Review: SHUCKED National Tour Presented by Broadway In ChicagoJanuary 9, 2025SHUCKED is a corny musical...in the best way possible. Book writer Robert Horn and composer team Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally’s lyrics are chock-full (or should I say husk-full?) of puns, double entendres, and cringey punchlines. I was grinning ear-to-ear (of corn). SHUCKED is joyful, creative, and fun.
Review: TEATRO ZINZANNI at Cambria HotelDecember 12, 2024TEATRO ZINZANNI is still kicking it in the indoor Spiegeltent Zazou nestled on the fourteenth floor of the Cambria Hotel in the Loop. It’s still a reliably entertaining variety show, and this particular edition includes many returning performers.
Review: FALSETTOS presented by Court Theatre and TimeLine Theatre CompanyNovember 25, 2024FALSETTOS, originally written as two-one act musicals set in 1979 and 1981, respectively, feels simultaneously dated and prescient. In this co-production from Court Theatre and TimeLine Theatre Company, director Nick Bowling leads a first-rate ensemble that preserves the musical as a period piece but also makes it feel utterly alive. Lauren Nichols’s set design evokes a 1970s retro roller rink and Theresa Ham’s costume designs also use extremely ‘70s colors (and each character wears a signature color). But many of the show’s central themes hit now as ahead of their time and eerily relevant. In particular, the musical’s reverence for Jewish culture and tradition and its unabashed embrace of queer love are especially moving at a time when anti-Semitism and homophobia seem tragically on the rise in America.
Review: LEROY AND LUCY at Steppenwolf Theatre CompanyNovember 4, 2024In Ngozi Anyanwu’s LEROY AND LUCY, two strangers meet at a crossroads in Mississippi...and not much happens. Based upon the myth of Robert Johnson, who supposedly sold his soul to the devil to make it as a blues musician, the play finds Leroy (Jon Michael Hill) and Lucy (Brittany Bradford) in a liminal space. And that’s precisely the challenge of this play: Anyanwu’s characters don’t know each other and literally exist on Andrew Boyce’s empty (but pretty) set. It’s a tall order to create high stakes when characters are unknown to each other, and unfortunately, Anyanwu’s play isn’t dynamic enough to sustain its 90-minute run time.
Review: BEST KEPT SECRET: TELL EVERYONE at The Second City E.t.c.October 31, 2024The Second City’s latest e.t.c. revue BEST KEPT SECRET: TELL EVERYONE wants to remind audiences that life is a cabaret, old chum. While some Second City revue themes hang together better than others, BEST KEPT SECRET slyly pays homage to the classic Kander and Ebb musical CABARET and the general idea of cabaret shows.
Review: PRIMARY TRUST at Goodman TheatreOctober 15, 2024Namir Smallwood’s performance as Kenneth is a real testament to his superb abilities as a performer and the intimacy of PRIMARY TRUST becomes more profoundly emotional thanks to him.
Review: HARRY POTTER AND THE CURSED CHILD National Tour PremiereSeptember 27, 2024HARRY POTTER AND THE CURSED CHILD is three hours of nostalgia-fueled, utterly captivating theater...with heaps of stage magic. The Chicago engagement marks the national tour debut of the eighth installment in J.K. Rowling’s HARRY POTTER series.
Review: INHERIT THE WIND at Goodman TheatreSeptember 24, 2024Goodman Theatre’s season-opening production of INHERIT THE WIND centers on a fictionalized version of the 1925 “Scopes Monkey” trial — at its heart, a debate on creationism vs. evolutionism. Though playwrights Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee make it clear they’re on the side of evolution, it’s still a treat to watch this production’s Matthew Harrison Brady (Alexander Gemignani) and Henry Drummond (Harry Lennix) go head-to-head in a verbal spar.
Review: NOISES OFF at Steppenwolf Theatre CompanySeptember 23, 2024NOISES OFF is lengthy and occasionally redundant because the show literally runs through Act One three times from different perspectives. But it’s also legitimately funny — which is rare and welcome for a Steppenwolf show.
Review: BACK TO THE FUTURE: THE MUSICAL National TourAugust 15, 2024=
BACK TO THE FUTURE: THE MUSICAL is a fun and faithful adaptation of the 1985 film — but it’s overly long and generically scored. With music and lyrics by Alan Silvestri and Glen Ballard (Silvestri composed the film’s original score) and book by Bob Gale, the musical has a typical pop Broadway score — with some 1950s flare when protagonist Marty McFly travels back in time to 1955.
Review: ALICE BY HEART at Kokandy ProductionsAugust 4, 2024While Kokandy Productions’ ALICE BY HEART has some lovely performances, the musical itself is far less imaginative than its ALICE IN WONDERLAND-inspired title suggests.