5 Chicago tours: ‘Must-See’ to Second City
Summer in Chicago often feels like the season of big-ticket items — from Grateful Dead farewell concerts to Taste of Chicago to Lollapalooza. But get away from the crowds, and...
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“Black River Falls” strives to answer the big questions
It's Thanksgiving, 1978. Horrifying images of the Jonestown massacre flood the airwaves. But in Dousman, Wisconsin, smaller-scale sorrows and unspoken nightmares fill the chilly air. In "Black River Falls," Bryn...
‘Matawan’ by Ruckus is about fear
Long before "Jaws" (let alone "Sharknado") ever existed, a series of shark attacks off the New Jersey coast in 1916 rattled the nation. But as Dan Caffrey's "Matawan" suggests, there...
Review: Drury Lane’s ‘Beaches’ finds its wind
In the pantheon of tear-duct-depleting buddy films, 1988's "Beaches," starring Bette Midler and Barbara Hershey, is up there with "Brian's Song." But instead of the gridiron, the battlefield for the...
Exploring turmoil of gay men during Holocaust, ‘Bent’ feels fresh
Timing is everything, and The Other Theatre Company's current revival of Martin Sherman's 1979 drama "Bent," about gay men in Germany during the Holocaust, undoubtedly resonates more strongly in the...
A Lincoln impersonator in Suzan-Lori Parks’ ‘The America Play’
The image of a black man as Abraham Lincoln seemingly haunts the fertile imagination of Suzan-Lori Parks. She won a Pulitzer Prize for 2002's "Topdog/Underdog," in which a black man...
Chinese immigrant’s story in Chay Yew’s insightful ‘Porcelain’
Long before he became the artistic director at Victory Gardens Theater, Chay Yew won plaudits for his 1992 play, "Porcelain," which jumped from London's Royal Court Theatre to numerous productions...
‘A Work of Art’: Echoes of Vietnam in the latest in war trilogy
Earlier this year at 16th Street Theater, Elaine Romero unveiled "Graveyard of Empires," the first play in her "U.S. at War" trilogy, which took an elliptical but ultimately poignant journey...
A clear and resonant ‘Mockingbird’ under the trees in Oak Park
Harper Lee's novel packs a wallop at any time. But seeing Christopher Sergel's adaptation of "To Kill a Mockingbird" at Oak Park Festival Theatre the night after the hate-crime shootings...
Women’s Funny Festival: Nothing to prove but funny
The late Christopher Hitchens' infamous 2007 screed for Vanity Fair about why women aren't funny reads today as a quaint artifact — almost like coming across a Victorian tract warning...