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]RECOMMENDED The idea of a musical tribute to Gertrude Stein is, on its face, overwhelming. Anyone with passing familiarity of the late poet's propensity for playful and often anarchic verbos…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 02:00PM[SHARE]RECOMMENDED Starting a show by making audacious promises to the audience"you will laugh, you will be amazed, etc."is usually a misguided path to disaster. But host/MC Don Hall came off as mo…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 08:55AM[SHARE]By Loy Webb "I choose to reflect the times and situations in which I find myself. That to me is my duty. How can you be an artist and not reflect the times?" A poignant question raised by th…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 11:13AM[SHARE]RECOMMENDED The show opens beautifully, with the witches translated into chic young hipsters who, perhaps having tired of yoga, are now into necromancy. They fuss about with rune stones and …
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 05:25PM[SHARE]RECOMMENDED Dream Theatre Company has made a name for itself putting on unique performances that list strongly to the sardonic side, and “Alligator” is no different. Jeremy Menek…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 11:45AM[SHARE]I went to Palatine Friday night to hear Rossini's "Barber of Seville." Telling myself I had no expectations, I had been hoping for at least a fifteen-piece orchestra of solid musicians. That…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 09:15AM[SHARE]RECOMMENDED If a joke is clever and a scene is comedic then by what name do you call an entire production that assumes, with winking sincerity, a conceit so potentially dubious that one migh…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 12:45PM[SHARE]RECOMMENDED Despite being set thousands of miles"and possibly many years"away, I was unsurprised by director Robin Witt's reference to Baltimore in her notes on "Brilliant Adventures," which…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 11:42AM[SHARE]Polarity Ensemble Theatre's eighth Dionysos Cup Festival of New Plays, featuring four plays written by local playwrights, began last night at the Greenhouse Theater Center. Originated in 200…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 08:35AM[SHARE]By Dennis Polkow "You know, you should start thinking about symphonic suites from your shows because you're going to need them someday," conductor and longtime Stephen Sondheim collaborator …
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 10:35AM[SHARE]The Gift Theatre announced Monday the addition of nine new playwrights, directors and actors to their ensemble, expanding the group to thirty-one full-fledged members. The new ensemble membe…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 08:45AM[SHARE]Dear theater-goer, as "The Titus Andronicus Project" at The Public House Theatre demonstrates, never pay good money to see any theatrical production with the word "project" in its title. Tha…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 04:00PM[SHARE]"If the thunder don't get you then the lightning will." Or so the song says. If you were to apply that wisdom to "Matawan," the latest from The Ruckus, you might throw in germs, poverty, lon…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 01:35PM[SHARE]RECOMMENDED Still going strong after more than three years (and, in fact, expanded to multiple nights a week since opening), this sixty-minute showcase of Second City's improvisational skill…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 08:45AM[SHARE]RECOMMENDED "Moby Dick" is the leviathan of American literature, diving deeper than any other work into the mysteries of human nature and destiny. Shakespearean in scope, biblical in flavor,…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 01:00PM[SHARE]RECOMMENDED At first, given the emphasis on magic and the dirgey, chant-oriented music, one could be forgiven for thinking "Storm," a collaboration between international collective Moon Fool…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 08:45AM[SHARE]By Elle Metz Last year saw a surge of a certain type of film, the mid-life crisis, coming-home movie (see: "The Judge," "This is Where I Leave You," or “Are You Here” for example…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 09:51AM[SHARE]RECOMMENDED While many adolescents take their parents' values as a challenge, rarely do they grasp what's at stake for them. A child's success can completely reverse years of fatalistic cyni…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 01:06PM[SHARE]RECOMMENDED "The America Play" presented by Oracle Theatre is not for the faint of heart. Actually, scratch heart and insert the word mind. Playwright Suzan Lori Parks demands of her audienc…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 10:45AM[SHARE]Before we get into the meat of this review, I should make it clear that I love fantasy novels. I read George R.R. Martin's "Song of Ice and Fire" series back in 2005 and I've read it two mor…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 08:30AM[SHARE]RECOMMENDED While watching Second City alum Ithimar Enriquez, I couldn't help but think of "Geri's Game," the Pixar short film wherein an elderly man plays an increasingly erratic and high s…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 02:45PM[SHARE]I have to hand it to Underscore Theatre Company; their world-premiere production of "Borderlands: Three Chords and the Truth" is about as ambitious as it is long. And at more than two…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 02:58PM[SHARE]By Loy Webb, When I was younger my two sisters and I shared a room. One of our many Saturday rituals was flipping through magazines to find pictures to decorate our walls. Most of the pictur…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 05:30PM[SHARE]RECOMMENDED Who knew the composer Gian Carlo Menotti was a serious, prophetic social critic? Not I. I remember watching his charming fantasy, "Amahl and the Night Visitors," on black-and-whi…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 12:15PM[SHARE]The trouble with theories is that they never quite measure up to reality. The trouble with people is that they never quite live up to the expectations set by themselves and others. This fund…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 02:25PM[SHARE]RECOMMENDED Early on in "Miracle!" queen of queens Crystal Pain (David Cerda) makes a point of welcoming all the straight people in the audience. "Once you get a couple of drinks in you then…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 12:35PM[SHARE]RECOMMENDED Back in 2007, the film "Once" struck a chord with anyone who'd ever witnessed a mysterious, brooding stranger leave it all on stage at a small town open mic night. Likely it reso…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 12:15PM[SHARE]RECOMMENDED It has been at least seven-hundred years since the Pied Piper first began playing his (or maybe her) flute. In all that time, I doubt there have been many more imaginative retell…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 04:05PM[SHARE]RECOMMENDED For better or worse there has been no shortage of plays about the plights of living in Chicago lately. Yet Collaboraction's revisitation of their original work about violence in …
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 12:10PM[SHARE]RECOMMENDED In Regina Taylor's thrilling new play "stop. reset." aging businessman Alexander Ames (Eugene Lee) tells the story of his most precious possession"his family bible. This old tatt…
SOURCE: Newcity Stage at 10:35AM[SHARE]
