Home » Archive by Tags

Articles tagged with: Doug Peck

‘Sweeney Todd’ at Porchlight: Indulge yourself with the best meat pie in Chicago; it’s deep dish

Oct 22, 2014 – 9:25 pm
sub featured image

Review: The demon barber of Fleet Street is a bad one, that’s for sure; and Porchlight Music Theatre has a good one in David Girolmo. But the crucial ingredient of Stephen Sondheim’s macabre musical is that demonic purveyor of meat pies, Mrs. Lovett – and in Rebecca Finnegan, Porchlight boasts a beaut. ★★★★★

‘Juno’ at TimeLine: Good effort can’t redeem Blitzstein’s tepid musical on O’Casey classic

Jun 1, 2014 – 5:25 pm
The cast of 'Juno' performing 'We're Still Alive' at TimeLine Theatre. (Lara Goetsch)

Review: Sean O’Casey’s colorful play “Juno and the Paycock,” about a poor family’s bit of luck in strife-torn Ireland, has enjoyed unstinting popularity since its premiere in 1924. But when Marc Blitzstein turned it into a musical in 1959, the show flopped and has never recovered. TimeLine Theatre’s ambitious revival demonstrates why. Review:

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’.

Opportunist meets shrewd socialite, and his match, in Porchlight’s vivacious ‘Pal Joey’

May 1, 2013 – 5:39 pm
Adrian Aguilar as Joey Evans and Susie McMonagle as Vera Simpson in Pal Joey produced by Porchlight Music Theatre credit Brandon Dahlquist

Review: ★★★★

’Tis a bittersweet night of mirth and memories at Court, an Irish Yule to wake ‘The Dead’

Dec 4, 2012 – 11:06 am
James Joyce's The Dead cast feature image Court Theatre 2012 credit Michael Brosilow

Review: High spirits rule at a gathering of friends and family in “James Joyce’s ‘The Dead,’” a play with music by Richard Nelson and Shaun Davey after the famous short story. But ghosts of past, present and future have crashed the party. ★★★★

The New Season: To be or not to be (truthful) proves question of the year at Writers’ Theatre

Aug 17, 2012 – 1:15 pm
Hamlet to open Writers' Theatre season 2012-13 image courtesy Writers

Eighth in a series of season previews: Words, words, words. Are they the stuff of truth or the fabric of prevarication? Writers’ Theatre will bookend its 2012-13 season with both possibilities, swinging the spotlight from Shakespeare’s Hamlet in his quest for veracity to Corneille’s feigning manipulator in “The Liar.”