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Seanachai’s ‘Seafarer’ taps into human comedy with earthy charm and touch of grace

Jan 1, 2014 – 1:35 am
Everybody's laughing but the troubled Sharky (Dan Waller, right) in this 'Seafarer' alternate feature with Brad Armacost, Ira Amyx and Kevin Theis. (Joe Mazza)

Review: It’s hard to imagine a sweeter greeting for the New Year than Seanachai Theatre’s announcement that it will extend its luminous production of Conor McPherson’s “The Seafarer” – originally scheduled to close Jan. 5 – for another four weeks. Lovely, lads, lovely. ★★★★★

Goodman’s ‘Christmas Carol’ brings Yuletide treasure in magical form of Yando’s Scrooge

Dec 12, 2013 – 11:51 pm
Old Ebenezer Scrooge (Larry Yando, left) observes his younger self (Robert Hope) in a happy moment with Belle (Atra Asdou). (Liz Lauren)

Review: The sixth time is a charm for Larry Yando as that grasping, covetous old sinner Ebenezer Scrooge in the Goodman Theatre production of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.” Or I should say, a charm again — just like Yando’s previous five outings in the part. His irascible but salvageable and very funny misanthrope remains a Scrooge for the young in heart and imagination. ★★★★

‘Detroit ’67’ at Northlight: When the dream turns into nightmare, hope’s song keeps its groove

Dec 6, 2013 – 5:50 pm
'Detroit '67'cast members, from left, Coco Elysses, Kamal Angelo Bolden, Kelvin Roston, Jr., and Tyla Abercrumbie. (Michael Brosilow)

Review: A piece of the American dream. That’s really all the ambitious, optimistic Lank wants for himself and his sister Chelle in Dominique Morisseau’s blistering – and touchingly funny – drama “Detroit ’67,” currently illuminating the stage at Northlight Theatre. ★★★★

‘Clybourne Park’ at Redtwist: In a tight space, prejudice runs riot and hurt explodes in rage

Nov 22, 2013 – 3:15 pm
Michael Sherwin, Frank Pete and Kelly Owens in 'Clybourne Park' by Bruce Norris Redtwist Theatre 2013 (Kimberly Loughlin)

Review: There’s garden variety theatrical intimacy, and then there’s the astonishing, welcome-to-the-family tumult of Bruce Norris’ “Clybourne Park” in the living room space that is Redtwist Theatre. ★★★★★

Theater 2013-14: Victory Gardens, predictably unpredictable, gets rolling with two premieres

Nov 15, 2013 – 12:16 pm
'Appropriate,' by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, opens Victory Gardens 2013-14 season

17th in a series of season previews: Victory Gardens is a theater company built on new plays, says artistic director Chay Yew: “Our audiences comes expecting to see the unexpected.” Thus the 2013-14 season opens Nov. 15 with the “co-world premiere” of Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ “Appropriate,” about three adult siblings circling – and colliding – over the division of their deceased father’s estate. And that’s followed by the world premiere of Marcus Gardley’s “The Gospel of Lovingkindness.”

‘Motortown’ at Steep: Danny comes marching home, but the emotional shelling doesn’t stop

Oct 29, 2013 – 7:25 pm
Danny (Joel Reitsma) tries to fan the old flame with Marley (Julia Siple) in 'Motortown' at Steep Theatre (Lee Miller)

Review: Danny has no visible scars, no missing limbs, but this former British soldier bears deep wounds from his tour of duty in Iraq. He is the tormented, dangerous antihero of playwright Simon Stephens’ “Motortown,” now in a riveting North American premiere run at Steep Theatre. ★★★★

‘We Will Rock You’ wraps Queen in sweet vibe for supercharged romp back to bohemian roots

Oct 26, 2013 – 10:16 am
Ruby Lewis and Brian Justin Crum in We Will Rock You Broadway in Chicago 2013 (Paul Kolnick)

Review: The first rule regarding “We Will Rock You,” winding up a whistle-stop week at Chicago’s Cadillac Palace at the beginning of an eight-month U.S. tour: If you’re not a Queen fan, you need to bone up. Not that this is difficult. ★★★

‘Smokefall’ at Goodman: Behind worldly veil, tears and contentment fuse into force of life

Oct 23, 2013 – 2:42 pm
Mike Nussbaum at the center of a conflicted birthday party in 'Smokefall' by Noah Haidle at Goodman Theatre. (Liz Lauren)

Review: Life sucks, and then you die. If that dark existential view sometimes can seem like the only certainty, taxes being at least negotiable, it is repudiated – with gentleness and magical wit — in Noah Haidle’s new play “Smokefall,” presented in its “co-world premiere” at Goodman Theatre. ★★★★★

Theater 2013-14: Premieres and new vitality energize the intimate stage at A Red Orchid

Oct 19, 2013 – 5:03 pm
'Trevor' poster (A Red Orchid Theatre)

16th in a series of season previews: New faces, new energy, new generation. Kirsten Fitzgerald, artistic director of A Red Orchid Theatre, says the company’s 2013-14 season – consisting of three plays all new to Chicago – reflects the forward-looking spirit of its 21st anniversary on the theme of coming of age.

Musical ‘We Will Rock You’ to test the embrace of Queen’s charm beyond adoring British home

Oct 18, 2013 – 9:51 pm
We Will Rock You Act 1The musical by QUEEN and Ben EltonCredit Photo: Paul Kolnikstudio@paulkolnik.comnyc 212-362-7778

Preview: To the British, the rock band Queen is a lifelong friend. To most Americans, it’s a group from the 1970’s that put out a few good songs back in the day. It remains to be seen how this differing perception will affect “We Will Rock You,” the touring musical featuring Queen’s songs that runs Oct. 22-27 at the Cadillac Palace Theatre under the aegis of Broadway in Chicago.

Role Playing: Karen Woditsch shapes vowels, flings arms to perfect portrait of Julia Child

Oct 16, 2013 – 5:42 pm
Karen Janes Woditsch

Interview: “Terror is a good place to start,” Karen Janes Woditsch was saying about her beguiling performance as cooking icon Julia Child in “To Master the Art.” “And I started there. I added the ingredients of her character very slowly.”

Theater 2013-14: Next’s season of premieres starts with Chicago link to Anne Frank story

Oct 15, 2013 – 7:07 am
Anne Frank as a marionette is the center of attention in 'Compulsion' at Next Theatre. (Michael Brosilow)

15th in a series of season previews: Next Theatre explores the elusive stuff of secrets and lies in a season of Midwest and Chicago premieres that opens Oct. 15 with Rinne Groff’s “Compulsion,” based on the story of a Chicagoan who spent three decades pursuing the real story of Anne Frank.

‘4000 Miles’ at Northlight: To Grandmother’s house he goes, and she’s worth the long ride

Oct 13, 2013 – 10:45 pm
Leo (Josh Salt) and his grandma Vera (Mary Ann Thebus) get high together in '4000 Miles' at Northlight Theatre. (Michael Brosilow photo)

Review: Leo crashes Vera’s apartment in the middle of the night, a sort of grown up waif, lost to the world, clutching the bicycle he has just ridden cross-country from the Northwest to New York’s East Village. They’re a lot alike, Leo and Vera, rebels with or without cause – except that she’s his grandma. Mary Ann Thebus’ savvy, frank, altogether delightful performance provides something real and lasting to take away from Amy Herzog’s semi-developed play “4000 Miles” at Northlight Theatre. ★★

‘Pullman Porter Blues’ at Goodman: Rails hum song of black men’s pride and sacrifice

Oct 8, 2013 – 1:42 pm
'Pullman Porter Blues' at the Goodman (Liz Lauren)

Review:It is redolent of Chicago, eloquent of a shadowed time that was, Cheryl L. West’s song-filled “Pullman Porter Blues” at the Goodman Theatre. It is a gritty, pulsing, sweet hymn to the generations of black men who made train-travel hum back in the day. ★★★★

On grand new stage, ‘To Master the Art’ still whips up Julia Child’s zeal for French cuisine

Oct 1, 2013 – 9:39 pm
Julia Child (Karen Janes Woditsch) gets her first lesson from chef Bugnard (Terry Hamilton) in To Master the Art. (Giorgio Ventola)

Review: It is like properly prepared scrambled eggs, this rebuilt production of “To Master the Art,” the story of how a tall, kitchen-clueless Californian became the famous Julia Child: basic, sumptuous, irresistible. If this lovely play, written by William Brown and Doug Frew, possessed an intimate charm in its original 2010 staging at TimeLine Theatre that cannot be replicated in the Broadway Playhouse’s grander proscenium venue, its essential warmth and honesty remain undiminished. ★★★★

To corporate raider, the blood is just business in ‘Other People’s Money’ at Shattered Globe

Sep 27, 2013 – 10:33 pm
They call him Larry the Liquidator (Ben Werling) and he's proud of it in Shattered Globe's Other People's Money (Emily Schwartz)

Review: Larry Garfinkle lives by the numbers, as in quarterly profits and losses. He’s a practical guy, all business, with a nose for blood. When he sees a company in trouble, he moves in, goes for the kill, let the working stiffs fall where they may. And Larry Garfinkle is thoroughly inhabited, from his three-piece suits to his vulgar charm, in Ben Werling’s portrayal at the center of Jerry Sterner’s wry comedy “Other People’s Money” for Shattered Globe Theatre. ★★★★

‘Raisin in the Sun’ at TimeLine: Family dreams confront reality in a journey back to the future

Sep 25, 2013 – 2:20 pm
Karl (Chris Rickett, left) tries to talk the Youngers out of moving to all-white Clybourne Park. TimeLine's 'A Raisin in the Sun' 2013 (Lara Goetsch)

Review: The disturbing thing about Lorraine Hansberry’s 1959 play “A Raisin in the Sun,” a sharply drawn portrait of America’s racial divide and one black family’s resolve to cross that chasm, is how current it still feels in the season-opening production at TimeLine Theatre, potently and humanely crafted by director Ron OJ Parson. ★★★★

‘The Mountaintop’ at Court: In Dr. King’s final hours, coffee served from a cup of revelation

Sep 17, 2013 – 4:39 pm
David Alan Anderson and Lisa Beasley in 'The Mountaintop' by Katori Hall at Court Theatre 2013 (Michael Brosilow)

Review: On his last night on earth, exhausted from his civil rights campaign, the threat of assassination constantly before him, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., perhaps hinted at a premonition of his own end when he declared that he had “been to the mountaintop” and “seen the Promised Land.” Playwright Katori Hall spins that intimation into luminous fantasy in “The Mountaintop,” a transmigrational arabesque for two players that now irradiates the stage at Court Theatre. ★★★★

Theater 2013-14: Redtwist bundles premieres and extends hand to young actors, directors

Sep 10, 2013 – 10:12 pm
'Clybourne Park' will receive its first Chicago storefront production at Redtwist Theatre in October 2013 (image courtesy of opheliasjump.org)

14th in a series of season previews: What Redtwist Theatre artistic director Michael Colucci calls “the storefront premiere” of Bruce Norris’ “Clybourne Park” and the world premiere of ensemble member Tommy Lee Johnston’s “Geezers” will bookend the company’s 2013-14 season. Redtwist also will embark on a two-fold expansion program designed to create new opportunities for directors and actors just out of theater school.

Theater 2013-14: B’way in Chicago spotlights ‘Phantom,’ ‘Wicked’ and new Motown musical

Sep 9, 2013 – 10:29 am
Earl Carpenter and Katie Hall in The Phantom of the Opera - UK Tour (Alastair Muir)

13th in a series of season previews: Even as “The Book of Mormon” nears the end of its Windy City run, Broadway in Chicago is preparing for three more hit musicals — a new UK touring import for the 27-year-old “The Phantom of the Opera,” the 10th anniversary tour of “Wicked” and the first national tour of “Motown the Musical,” the story of Detroit vinyl mogul Berry Gordy, who made famous The Supremes, The Four Tops, Stevie Wonder and The Jackson 5. There’s also a local angle in this season’s lineup of shows.

Theater 2013-14: Lookingglass will populate stage with people in off-balance moments

Sep 6, 2013 – 11:49 am
The young Marguerite Duras

12th in a series of season previews: When theatrical characters step out of their comfort zones, you have the makings of keen-edged drama. That’s the essence of a Lookingglass’ Theatre 2013-14 season that boasts two world premieres among three productions.

Theater 2013-14: ‘The Mountaintop,’ Dr. King poised at mortal precipice, opens at Court

Sep 5, 2013 – 2:29 pm
David Alan Anderson, as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in "The Mountaintop" by Katori Hall at Court Theatre 2013

11th in a series of season previews: “It’s been a long while since I read a play and without hesitation said, ‘We have to do this,’” says Court Theatre artistic director Charles Newell about Katori Hall’s “The Mountaintop,” which imagines Martin Luther King’s last night on earth. King had given a speech that day in Memphis in which he famously touched on a premonition that he would die soon. Hall’s play catches up with him a few hours later in his hotel room, a weary man who strikes up a conversation with the chamber maid.

Theater 2013-14: The lure of a different life links Raven trips to ‘Bountiful’ and beyond

Sep 4, 2013 – 2:25 pm
Millie Hurley as Carrie Watts in 'A Trip to Bountiful,' which opens the Raven Theatre 2013-14 season.

Tenth in a series of season previews: From the season opener, Horton Foote’s “The Trip to Bountiful” to the finale with Tennessee Williams’s “The Vieux Carré,” the 2013-14 lineup of plays at Raven Theatre centers on what artistic director Michael Menendian calls “that little ache in our heart, the secret longing for a different life.”

Theater 2013-14: Fantasy ‘Old Man, Old Moon’ opens Writers’ season; new home draws near

Sep 3, 2013 – 2:53 pm
PigPen Theatre's 'The Old Man and the Old Moon,' an off-Broadway hit in 2012, is being re-mounted and re-thought with Stuart Carden at Writers' Theatre

Ninth in a series of season previews: As artistic director Michael Halberstam began putting together the 2013-14 season at Writers’ Theatre with associate artistic director Stuart Carden, one coincidence seemed too good to be true: Halberstam’s right-hand man had been the teacher, at Carnegie-Mellon University, of an eclectic group of seven buddies called the PigPen Theatre Co., who were the buzz of Greenwich Village for their folksy fable called “The Old Man and the Old Moon.” The charming off-Broadway saga now comes to Writers’.

Theater 2013-14: Joan Allen’s return and five premieres will light marquee at Steppenwolf

Sep 2, 2013 – 3:27 pm
Edgar Miguel Sanchez, Demetrios Troy, Scott Stangland, Joan Allen and La Shawn Bank in rehearsal for 'The Wheel' at Steppenwolf (Thomas Weitz)

Eighth in series of season previews: In a 2013-14 season that artistic director Martha Lavey promises will “make you laugh out loud and think deeply about how we live and love,” Steppenwolf Theatre offers two world premieres and two Chicago premieres – and to open the season an American premiere featuring the long-deferred homecoming of company co-founder Joan Allen.

‘Hamlet’ at American Players Theatre: Agony and wit, and clear view of a timeless tragedy

Sep 1, 2013 – 5:49 pm
Matt Schwader is Hamlet at the American Players Theatre 2013 (Carissa Dixon)

Review: As summer turns into fall, it’s worth making time to catch Chicago actor Matthew Schwader as that restlessly inquisitive and acid wit, Hamlet, who comes magisterially unhinged in Shakespeare’s masterwork. “Hamlet” is enjoying a gloriously long reign at American Players Theatre in Spring Green, WI. ★★★★★

Theater 2013-14: Irish world premiere tops lineup of 5 shows in Northlight’s 39th year

Aug 29, 2013 – 11:50 pm
John Mahoney

Seventh in season preview series: Northlight Theatre’s marquee for 2013-14 promises a world premiere turn by actor John Mahoney, the company directing debut of Ron OJ Parson in a Midwest premiere and director Kimberly Senior’s inauguration in her new role as the 39-year-old company’s first artistic associate.

Theater 2013-14: The few, the proud (actors) will fight and fight again in Lifeline war zones

Aug 27, 2013 – 10:20 pm
The Killer Angels comes to TimeLine

Sixth in a series of season previews: Lifeline Theatre’s 2013-14 season, bannered as “War and Redemption,” will be played out on large canvases indeed – with opening salvos from the Civil War and the French Revolution. The season boasts two world premiere adaptations and a major component of staged tumult.

Theater 2013-14: Shattered Globe puts deposit on edgy season with ‘Other People’s Money’

Aug 23, 2013 – 2:49 pm
Other People's Money saturate montage

Fifth in a series of season previews: The stuff of Shattered Globe Theatre’s season planning might be described as polar opposites: The issues that concern us all and the issues that pull as apart. Perfectly matched to that conflicted perspective is the company’s 22nd season opener, the double-edged comedy of Jerry Sterner’s “Other People’s Money.”

Shakespeare rules the playbill as Stratford unveils plans for its 2014 summer festival

Aug 22, 2013 – 11:19 am
Shakespeare c 1610, the recently discovered Cobbe portrait, believed to have been created  while he was alive (Getty Images - Wiki)

Report: While the Stratford Festival has shed its branding association with the Bard of Avon, any concerns that the festival might really be loosening its traditional ties with Shakespeare should be allayed by newly announced plans for the summer of 2014. The Bard abounds. The festival’s five Shakespeare productions will include two takes on “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” — a full-scale account and a “chamber” version for just four players directed by one of the world’s most innovative masters of stagecraft, Peter Sellars.