RECOMMENDED More scary than conventional horror is the play that preys upon its audience with an almost plausible storyline, framed by the believable extremism that lurks in the margins …
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 03:30PM[SHARE]Since it was first produced more than sixty years ago, N. Richard Nash's "The Rainmaker" has aged into a kind of blanket statement on the condition of being an American. In the twenty-first …
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 03:45PM[SHARE]You know what they say: Every time a mime speaks a Dickensian orphan gets sucked into a jet turbine and blasted out the other side as just a scream. However, it is that cozy time of year whe…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 09:00AM[SHARE]You know what they say: Every time a mime speaks a Dickensian orphan gets sucked into a jet turbine and blasted out the other side as just a scream. However, it is that cozy time of year whe…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 08:45AM[SHARE]By Elle Metz On a warm, sunny Tuesday night, the founders of a new theater company have retreated into the cool, dark Jackalope Theatre in Edgewater. The large storefront windows are covered…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 10:04AM[SHARE]In the world premiere of Juan Francisco Villa's "Don Chipotle" it's difficult to distinguish between the real and the fantastical. And while that may work for Cervantes in "Don Quixote," it …
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 05:30PM[SHARE]A dark and occasionally funny thriller opens the twenty-seventh season at Profiles Theatre. At first glance, Beth Henley's "The Jacksonian," a surreal Southern Gothic tale, seems like an ide…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 10:45AM[SHARE]RECOMMENDED There's a scene in Myla Goldberg's "Bee Season" where a character explores a storage locker. Instead of finding the typical packrat arrangement, he discovers a museum of trinkets…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 10:45AM[SHARE]RECOMMENDED Strawdog Theatre Company lives up to the theme of their twenty-eighth season, "The Tipping Point," by thrusting audiences into the basement kitchen of an English aristocrat just …
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 05:10PM[SHARE]RECOMMENDED "This House Believes the American Dream is at the Expense of the American Negro" is a lengthy title for Zachary Baker-Salmon's well condensed, seventy-minute adaption of the hist…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 09:00AM[SHARE]I'd like to offer an analogy that I think Joan Schenkar, the rare American playwright at the European-leaning Trap Door Theatre, would approve of: "The Universal Wolf" is theater as ouroboro…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 02:15PM[SHARE]RECOMMENDED Earlier this year Newcity ran a story about the opening of the Windy City Playhouse and the launch of their first season. In it, artistic director Amy Rubenstein called it "the g…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 07:45PM[SHARE]RECOMMENDED Before the performance of "In Love and Warcraft" began on Sunday night, one of the show's actors explained Halcyon Theatre's philosophy of radical hospitality: the cast, crew and…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 02:00PM[SHARE]RECOMMENDED For the most part, The Inconvenience's sixth annual "The Fly Honey Show"'s blatantly burlesque and abounding pop cultural references can make it feel specifically millennial. How…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 05:00PM[SHARE]RECOMMENDED I've never been one to keep a consistent journal, but judging by the expressive content of the readings at Under The Gun Theater's new monthly show "#TBT," my infrequent entries …
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 03:00PM[SHARE]Under The Gun Theater is rife with catchy concepts. Their "Comedy Against Humanity" show was so popular that – despite an informal agreement – Cards Against Humanity objected, fo…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 01:00PM[SHARE]By Elle Metz On a bright stage in a dark room at The Annoyance Theatre in Lakeview, two men, bouncing slightly on their toes, peer into the audience. Seventeen people"mostly young and casual…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 10:35AM[SHARE]By Hugh Iglarsh At a time when pop culture often seems like the only game in town, First Floor Theater's annual literary festival is a refreshing reminder of drama's richer possibilities. Fo…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 10:08AM[SHARE]RECOMMENDED Harold Pinter’s plays famously hint at something ominous below the surface of dialogue that poetically chases itself around but ends up nowhere (“They believe in me.&…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 02:00PM[SHARE]The premise of The Public House Theatre's "Ready for Hillary: The Musical" is simple, if wacky: On the eve of the 2016 presidential election, candidates Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren, an…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 12:15PM[SHARE]RECOMMENDED To some extent, every Cirque du Soleil show is dreamlike. Writer/director Michel Laprise's "Kurios"Cabinet of Curiosities" is the first I have seen that makes that scenario expli…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 02:30PM[SHARE]RECOMMENDED Chicago worships its food, from the temples of fine dining to the red-cooler bar tamales. Every resident has food woven inextricably into their life story, whether it's joyful, n…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 03:45PM[SHARE]With the rowdily interactive dinner theater show "We Gotta Bingo" Chicago Theater Works throws itself into the Belmont theater district with gusto, launching a new space (near Stage 773 and …
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 04:30PM[SHARE]What better way to pass the dog days than with Shakespeare's canine comedy? This early, patchy and problematic work " whose dramatic summit is the appearance of Crab, the melancholic mutt " …
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 08:45AM[SHARE]By Loy Webb "This is turning into a therapy session," says actress Angela Alise as she wipes the tears from her eyes. "Which it always does with Erasing the Distance," Erasing the Distanc…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 10:10AM[SHARE]RECOMMENDED Walking into the MCL Chicago space for "VAMP: A Music Comedy Drinking Show" is like walking into a raucous house party that's just getting started. A four-piece band (Doc McCullo…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 04:15PM[SHARE]RECOMMENDED A brand since 1984, in Chicago since 1987 and in their current digs on Belmont since 2007, ComedySportz has clearly hit on a winning formula, proudly maintaining the title of lon…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 11:00AM[SHARE]RECOMMENDED Something tells me old Anton might have rather enjoyed "Stupid Fucking Bird" if his body had aged as well as his work. Sideshow Theatre Company's lofty yet godless (re)vision of …
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 08:45AM[SHARE]RECOMMENDED Ever the crowdpleasers, the folks at Hell in a Handbag follow the touchy and pushy "Miracle!" with a loving tribute to Bette Midler, a longtime ally and prominent cultural icon i…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 01:00PM[SHARE]RECOMMENDED "To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment." Ralph Waldo Emerson's words sum up life's most difficult struggle…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 09:00AM[SHARE]Rarely in my experience has a play that starts so well gone so flat by the end. The opening scenes of "A Perfect Ganesh" are perfectly hilarious, from the moment old friends Kitty (Jeannie A…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 10:45AM[SHARE]
