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Mar 17, 2024 – 5:45 pm

Review: Even in a Chicago Symphony season that has produced an array of memorable concerts, the March 14 program with conductor Jakub Hrůša is likely to stand out for a long time to come. The virtuosic pairing of Strauss’ “Also sprach Zarathustra’ with Bartók’s suite from “The Miraculous Mandarin” was at once a reminder of the CSO’s comprehensive brilliance and a testament to Hrůša’s extraordinary prowess.

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Dark, funny, musically vibrant ‘Don Giovanni’ raises the curtain on new Lyric Opera season

Sep 29, 2014 – 5:06 pm
Mariusz Kwiecien and Marina Rebeka in 'Don Giovanni,' production by Robert Falls, Lyric Opera Chicago (Todd Rosenberg)

Review: A more appealing cast could hardly have been assembled for Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” than the vocally resplendent, good-looking singers who inhabit the Lyric Opera of Chicago’s new production and season opener. And for the most part, Mozart’s opera – dramatically dark and musically brilliant — is well served by director Robert Falls’ heated and funny approach to this tale of the world’s most infamous sex addict, whose recklessness and hubris finally bring him all the way down and then some. ★★★★

Muti summons bravura of Tchaikovsky Fourth and elegance of Debussy’s ‘La Mer’ with CSO

Sep 26, 2014 – 5:24 pm
Riccardo Muti conducts the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in Debussy and Tchaikovsky Sept. 25, 2014. (Todd Rosenberg)

Review:The crowd went freaking wild at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s whooping finish to Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony under music director Riccardo Muti on Sept. 25 at Orchestra Hall. And understandably so. What a blazer of a performance. But the greater experience was an utterly magical account of Debussy’s “La Mer.”

In Mozart’s Don Giovanni, director Robert Falls sees a complex figure worthy of Shakespeare

Sep 24, 2014 – 9:46 pm
Director Robert Falls watches a 'Don Giovanni' rehearsal from the audience perspective. (Andrew Cioffi)

Interview: Robert Falls knows a complicated stage character when he sees one, and standing in front of him at the moment is no less intricate a figure than Mozart’s lady killer, Don Giovanni. Actually, notes Falls, artistic director at Goodman Theatre and stage director for the Lyric Opera’s season-opening production of “Don Giovanni,” it’s a different sort of killing that brings this prince of philanderers to his horrific end. The show runs Sept. 27-Oct. 29.

Theater 2014-15: Ready for something new? Drop in any time this season at Steppenwolf

Sep 23, 2014 – 9:51 pm
Ensemble members, from left, Francis Guinan ('The Nigh, K. Todd Freeman, Alana Arenas, John Mahoney and Tim Hopper. Photo courtesy of Steppenwolf Theatre

17th in a series of season previews: The 2014-15 season at Steppenwolf Theatre is for drama buffs with a taste for adventure. Every play on the calendar is new to Chicago. One show is an American first, and also waiting in the wings is a world premiere. Steppenwolf opens with the Chicago unveiling of “The Night Alive” by Conor McPherson, as hot a playwright as you’ll find in the theater world today. If you haven’t seen “The Seafarer,” or if it isn’t at the top of your must-see list, raise your hand. Thought so.

Theater 2014-15: Packed Broadway in Chicago season brings 3 premieres and hit ‘Newsies’

Sep 23, 2014 – 1:10 pm
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16th in a series of season previews: Is Broadway in Chicago flourishing, or what? Whether you look at this high-profile presenter’s 2014-15 season in terms of sheer quantity or with an eye to its scope of appeal, the fall lineup alone – never mind what’s to come in the season’s second half — pops off the page with three premieres and the mega-hit “Disney’s Newsies.”

Theater 2014-15: Raven revisits Miller tragedy, stages a world premiere in its 32nd season

Sep 21, 2014 – 1:32 pm
Chuck Spencer plays a man with a heavy conscience in Arthur Miller's 'All My Sons' at Raven Theatre. (Dean LaPrairie)

15th in a series of season previews: Out of what co-artistic director Michael Menendian calls “a lot hand-wringing,” Raven Theatre has fashioned a family-business themed season that begins with a company reprise of Arthur Miller’s “All My Sons,” includes a world premiere and ends with a play about Armendian genocide that’s close to Menendian’s heart. “It’s the greatest challenge to pick the season,” he says, “The goal is to balance the tone without essentially repeating the same story.”

Riccardo Muti’s starry Beethoven Ninth opens Chicago Symphony season in cosmic fashion

Sep 19, 2014 – 10:08 pm
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Review: The cantata Beethoven composed to Friedrich Schiller’s “Ode to Joy” – that is, the grandiose finale to the Ninth Symphony – may be a rousing crowd-pleaser, but it’s also a good deal more. It’s the peroration of a sweeping dialectic on man’s fate, a closely and tumultuously argued essay spun out in wordless majesty for three-quarters of an hour before the first syllable is uttered.Such was the sum and the magnificence of music director Riccardo Muti’s season opening performance of the Ninth Symphony with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on Sept. 18 at Orchestra Hall.

Theater 2014-15: World premieres, ‘Smokefall’ reprise crown plans for Goodman’s 90th year

Sep 18, 2014 – 3:48 pm
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14th in a series of season previews: Goodman Theatre has a bountiful 90th season in store, punctuated by a pair of world premieres, an early remounting of Noah Haidle’s “Smokefall” from last season — with returning featured actor Mike Nussbaum, also 90! — and a revival of August Wilson’s “Two Trains Running” that will be enhanced by several related events.

Chicago Opera Theater buffs up neglected jewel in high-tech staging of Bloch’s grand ‘Macbeth’

Sep 17, 2014 – 3:12 pm
Nmon Ford in title role of Ernest Bloch' 'Macbeth' at Chicago Opera Theater (Keith Ian Polakoff)

Review: When Swiss-born Ernest Bloch began to contemplate the creation of his first and only opera, “Macbeth,” he was an untested 25 and would turn 30 before his opus found footing at the Opéra-Comique in Paris. The opera then slipped into oblivion. What is surprising is how staggeringly good Bloch’s result is — for an opera that almost no one knows. ★★★

When leviathan turns fury on ‘Whaleship Essex,’ it’s a rough voyage to salvation in tiny boats

Sep 16, 2014 – 4:32 pm
Essex feature 2

Review: Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of Shattered Globe Theatre’s ambitious staging of “The Whaleship Essex,” ensemble member Joe Forbrich’s retelling of an early 19th-century whaling catastrophe, is the sheer scope and rigor of the enterprise. It is a tale of man’s hubris meets nature’s fury on the high seas. And to put it mildly, the greedy, ravaging interlopers get sprayed. ★★★

‘Isaac’s Eye’ at Writers: In genius’ rarefied realm, Newton’s high-flying boy meets Captain Hooke

Sep 14, 2014 – 1:03 pm
Young, impetuous Isaace Newton (Jurgen Hooper, left) lashes out at the famed scientist Robert Hooke (Marc Grapey). (Michael Brosilow)

Review: ★★★ As a clinical study of narcissism, even autism, in a budding young genius, Lucas Hnath’s play “Isaac’s Eye,” an imaginary clash between the obscure 25-year-old Isaac Newton and the celebrated British scientist Robert Hooke, is clever and sometimes brilliant theater. But as drama, it comes off at Writers Theatre as, well, a clinical study. ★★★

Chicago Symphony’s new chief is battle tested by long, productive career in orchestra world

Sep 8, 2014 – 7:01 am
Jeff Alexander becomes president of the CSOA in January 2015 (East Side Epix Studios)

Profile: Jeff Alexander may seem a low-profile long-shot for those who were handicapping the search for a new president of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association. But as a closer look at the secret and highly selective search process reveals, Alexander, who heads up the Vancouver Symphony, scored high in two areas deemed paramount: the potential for a simpatico relationship with CSO music director Riccardo Muti, who required passion and knowledge of music first, and a proven track record as an orchestra’s No. 1 decision-maker.

Theater 2014-15: American Blues parlays pluck and alliance to create new take on ‘Native Son’

Sep 6, 2014 – 3:06 pm
At American Blues Theater, 'Side Man' by Warren Leight is set for 2015.

13th in a series of season previews: Season themes can sometimes seem like a loose fit, but American Blues Theater’s 2014-15 overarching concept of “Lost and Found” looks well-tailored from a world-premiere adaptation of Richard Wright’s tragic “Native Son” to Warren Leight’s “Side Man,” a dark riff on family alienation that infects the life of a jazz trumpeter. But artistic director Gwendolyn Whiteside also offers a larger label that sums up American Blues’ 29-year history: “We’ve got pluck. We don’t have a lot of money, but we go for the stars.”

Theater 2014-15: Death, travel, Alice and Ahab shape and reshape images at Lookingglass

Sep 3, 2014 – 11:17 pm
Deanna Dunagan, in 'Death Tax' by Lucas Hnath, opens the Lookingglass 2014-15 season. (Sean Williams)

12th in a series of season previews If theater should be an adventure, then Lookingglass offers something akin to safari into unknown regions every time out. The company’s premiere-laden 27th season reflects that ever-changing dramatic topography — from Lucas Hnath’s family-challenged “Death Tax” to a brand-new ropes-and-spars vision of “Moby Dick.”

Theatre 2014-15: Rebirths and revisitations dot calendar as Redtwist opens with 9/11 premiere

Aug 31, 2014 – 11:11 pm
At World Trade Center ground zero, the bones lie below, but they resurface in the world premiere of 'Another Bone.' (Wikipedia)

11th in a series of season previews: Redtwist Theatre has dubbed its 2014-15 season “Rising From the Ashes,” and it begins literally with precious objects scooped from the debris of the catastrophe of 9/11 – in the world premiere of Cathy Earnest’s play “Another Bone.” In the aftermath of the Twin Towers attack, as human bones are sorted and identified through DNA testing, families receive these certified remembrances of their loved ones. The widowed Marie has been the recipient of many culled bones when a woman contacts her, claiming Marie has been getting the wrong bones, and that she must hand them over. What follows is a surreal and ghostly game at high psychological stakes.

Theater 2014-15: Greek tragedy, 2 premieres, musical spell excitement in Court’s 60th year

Aug 28, 2014 – 5:46 pm
Jerod Haynes is Bigger Thomas in 'Native Son,' which opens the Court Theatre 2014-15 season. (Joe Mazza)

10th in a series of season previews You can hear the phrase resonate in his voice when Charles Newell, artistic director of Court Theatre, says the company wanted to do something “very exciting” this season in observance of its 60th anniversary. It has turned out to be not one thing but more like a menu, spanning centuries and cultures, classics to modern explorations. The season opens with Nambi E. Kelley’s world-premiere adaptation of Richard Wright’s novel “Native Son,” about a young black man trapped by desperate circumstances in a white world. The project is a joint venture by Court and American Blues Theater.

Theater 2014-15: Five premieres shape season as Victory Gardens observes 40th year

Aug 27, 2014 – 10:54 am
'Rest,' by Samuel D. Hunter, received its world premiere in March 2014 at South Coast Repertory. Feature Image No. 2

Ninth in a series of season previews: Two world premieres anchor the 40th-anniversary season at Victory Gardens Theater, which opens with the Midwest premiere of “Rest,” company ensemble member Samuel D. Hunter’s story of senior citizens and their youthful attendants at a retirement home trapped by a blizzard and forced to confront the chasm between their generations. A second Midwest premiere follows with Colm Tóibín’s one-woman show “The Testament of Mary,” a re-imagined narrative by Mary on the last days of Jesus.

Theater 2014-15: Two world premieres, dear jewel keep Northlight true to its 40-year form

Aug 21, 2014 – 11:57 pm
'Shining Lives,' a new musical about the radium dial painters, anchors the Northlight Theatre's 2014-15 season.

Eighth in a series of season previews: Northlight Theatre enters its 40th anniversary season with a group of plays that exactly fits the model this company has refined through four decades of success. It’s what veteran artistic director BJ Jones describes as “a blend of new work and refreshed classics.” At season’s end comes the world premiere of “Shining Lives: A Musical,” with lyrics by Jessica Thebus and music by Andre Pluess and Amanda Dehnert. It’s based on Melanie Marnich’s play “These Shining Lives,” about women in the 1920s who painted radium faces on clocks only to become fatally ill from exposure to the paint.

Theater 2014-15: Women finding power set tone for romance, mystery, superheroes at Lifeline

Aug 20, 2014 – 10:20 am
Fatale, the cyborg, as envisioned here by Lifeline, is a starring character in 'Soon I Will Be Invincible,' a world premiere musical based on Austin Grossman's novel.

Seventh in a series of season previews: A thematic thread of young women connecting with their strength as adults runs through the three main-stage plays of Lifeline Theatre’s 2014-15 season. But what jumps out just as clearly is the wide – or maybe the right word is wild – range of stories sharing that motif.

Theater 2014-15: Writers maps reduced season as company focuses on drama of new digs

Aug 18, 2014 – 11:16 pm
Jurgen Hooper and Marc Grapey in 'Isaac's Eye,' which opens the Writers Theatre 2014-15 season. (Saverio Truglia)

Sixth in a series of season previews: “We have a challenging year coming up,” says Writers Theatre artistic director Michael Halberstam. Yes, and an exciting one — on an electric scale. Writers, in case anyone has missed this, is building a $31 million new home on the site of the company’s former main stage in Glencoe. So the 2014-15 season will be miniaturized , with the main drama focused on the grand house that’s projected to have its grand opening in winter 2016.

Theater 2014-15: Chicago Shakespeare bounty runs gamut from ‘Lear’ to Jane Austen musical

Aug 17, 2014 – 1:18 pm
Larry Yando in the title role of 'King Lear' at Chicago Shakespeare autumn 2014. (JeffSciortino)

Fifth in a series of season previews: Chicago Shakespeare Theatre honors its namesake this season with an autumn production of “King Lear,” the fantastic adventures of “Pericles” and a contemporary sequel to “Macbeth” that wryly ponders the chaos that befalls Scotland upon that usurper’s demise. Capping the season will be the world premiere of the musical “Sense and Sensibility,” composer-lyricist Paul Gordon’s adaptation of the Jane Austen novel.

Theater 2014-15: Profiles opens a new chapter with familiar face of LaBute and world premiere

Aug 15, 2014 – 10:58 pm
'Reasons to Be Happy,' by Niel LaBute, at Profiles 2014 feature image 2

Fourth in a series of season previews: With 25 years on the books and a second performing space established and offering new flexibility, Profiles Theatre heads into its second quarter-century this season with an opening production of resident artist Neil LaBute’s “Reasons to Be Happy.” Also on tap is the world premiere of Kate Walbert’s “Genius,” intertwining the secrets and alliances of two creative couples from different generations who find their lives changed at a dinner party.

Theater 2014-15: Shattered Globe hoists sail with historic saga of Pacific whaling disaster

Aug 14, 2014 – 10:44 pm
The Whaleship Essex thumbnail, feature image 2

Third in a series of season previews: The 24th season at Shattered Globe Theatre opens in the spray, rage and terror of Joe Forbrich’s new play “The Whaleship Essex,” a sea thriller that dramatizes an incident in 1820 when the whaling vessel Essex was attacked and destroyed by a giant whale.

Theater 2014-15: TimeLine kicks off 4 Chicago premieres with first drama on religious theme

Aug 12, 2014 – 11:54 pm
'My Name Is Asher Lev' (Concept art, courtesy of Performance Network, Ann Arbor)

Second in a series of season previews: Ask TimeLine Theatre artistic director PJ Powers what’s new this season, and you’ll get a one-word answer: everything. TimeLine will present three Chicago premieres at its intimate Wellington Avenue home and a fourth, Aaron Posner’s “My Name Is Asher Lev,” will open the season in the company’s auxiliary space at Stage 773.

Theater 2014-15: Strawdog doubles down, adds full-scale series to complement main-stage fare

Aug 10, 2014 – 10:42 pm
'The Arsonists' opens Strawdog's 2014-15 season (Jon Cole Media)

First in a series of season previews: Strawdog Theatre seriously ramps it up this season, with eight productions that will meet the criteria for Jeff Award consideration – double the number of qualifying shows last year. For the first time, all four plays offered in Hugen Hall, the company’s spacious bar venue, will meet Jeff production standards. “It is really ambitious,” says Strawdog artistic director Hank Boland with a mix of pride and apprehension.

Oscar Wilde’s ‘Earnest’ at American Players: Much ado about manners, wit and attire

Aug 6, 2014 – 6:29 pm
John, aka Earnest (Matt Schwader) is smitten by Gwendolen (Cristina Panfilio). (Carissa Dixon)

Review: Perhaps it’s because theater companies and audiences have always taken to heart Oscar Wilde’s subtitle for “The Importance of Being Earnest” that this silly, precious comedy of manners has remained a repertory fixture since its premiere in the Victorian world of 1895. Wilde slyly dubbed his play “A Trivial Comedy for Serious People,” and its triviality is indeed embraced seriously in this summer’s amusing romp at American Players Theatre in Spring Green, Wis. ★★★★

Martha S. Gilmer, longtime Chicago Symphony executive, named CEO of San Diego orchestra

Jul 31, 2014 – 6:18 pm
Martha S. Gilmer, Chicago Symphony VP for artistic planning and audience development (Todd Rosenberg)

Report: It’s off to San Diego’s warmer clime this fall for Martha S. Gilmer, the veteran executive of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra who now serves as vice-president of artistic planning and audience development. Gilmer becomes CEO of the 104-year-old San Diego Symphony effective Sept. 24.

Role Playing: Shannon Cochran found partners aplenty in sardonic, twice-told ‘Dance of Death’

Jul 30, 2014 – 12:03 am
Actress Shannon Cochran, who plays Alice in 'The Dance of Death' at Writers Theatre.

Interview: In working out her transfixing performance in the harrowing pas de trois that is August Strindberg’s “The Dance of Death,” now on the boards at Writers Theatre, actress Shannon Cochran says she got an indirect boost from Irish playwright Conor McPherson, who created the new English-language adaptation at hand.

CD Review: Guitarist Karadaglić trumpets his Ravinia concerts with desert-isle Rodrigo disc

Jul 10, 2014 – 12:35 am
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Review: When I chatted with the young Montenegrin classical guitar virtuoso Miloš Karadaglić last November, about an impending solo appearance at City Winery, he made a brief digression to a major project then in progress – a recordng with conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the London Philharmonic Orchestra that would pair Joaquin Rodrigo’s popular “Concierto de Aranjuez” and “Fantasía para un gentilhombre.” The CD has just been released, and it is a multifaceted beauty. ★★★★★

‘Brigadoon’ at Goodman: In musical’s bright mist, someone is lost and new meaning found

Jul 9, 2014 – 10:21 am
Clan dancers in 'Brigadoon' at Goodman Theatre 2014 (Liz Lauren)

Review: In this briskly refreshing theater season, the Windy City has performed a hat trick on behalf of the American musical. Three mainstage companies have each expertly revived a Broadway classic through a shrewd rethinking that paired careful respect for the original with sympathy for today’s audience and its contemporary state of mind in changing times. Following Chicago Shakespeare’s heart-stopping “Gypsy” and Lyric Opera’s gorgeous “The Sound of Music” comes Lerner and Loewe’s 1947 “Brigadoon,” which ran for 581 performances on Broadway and is now in resplendent bloom at the Goodman. ★★★★