RECOMMENDED

“Ireland isn’t idyllic, and the Aran Islands aren’t meant to be a tourist trap… Inishmaan isn’t supposed to be an escape but a prison–something nasty, brutal and short.” So says the dramaturg’s note on the playbill of Redtwist Theatre’s newest production. The near-claustrophobic theater space, with stark grey stone for the walls and floor and a spartan collection of set pieces, makes for an immediate confrontation with Inishmaan’s nastiness. Read the rest of this entry »

Northlight Theatre announces the final selection for its 2012-13 season, the World Premiere of Stella & Lou by Bruce Graham

Previously announced titles include Woody Sez—The Life & Music of Woody Guthrie, The Odd Couple, The Whipping Man and Stones in His Pockets

Northlight Theatre, under the direction of Artistic Director BJ Jones and Executive Director Timothy J. Evans, announces the final selection for its 2012-13 season: the World Premiere of Bruce Graham’s Stella & Lou, directed by BJ Jones. Read the rest of this entry »

Kate Buddeke and Kevin Stark/Photo: Liz Lauren

RECOMMENDED

A powerful work of dystopian agitprop, “The North Plan” depicts a grim and far too plausible nightmare in which America’s Department of Homeland Security is exercising totalitarian powers under the guise of restoring order after some unnamed “incident.” As disturbing as Jason Wells’ play is, it’s just as hilarious. That’s because, in a part that could have been written for her, Kate Buddeke roars and soars as Tanya, a South Missouri redneck who stumbles into a situation far more intense than she imagined when she soberly turned herself in for what would otherwise have been an unobserved act of drunk driving. Though her cellmate is far too serious to match her over-the-top antics, Kevin Stark’s Carlton manages to hold his own as the State Department official “gone rogue” in the name of preserving human rights. Tom Hickey and Brian King, as the DHS agents who take him into their “care,” are frighteningly stern feds channeling Laurel and Hardy. Read the rest of this entry »

Writers’ Theatre announces 2012/13 Season to feature Hamlet, Sweet Charity, Corneille’s The Liar adapted by David Ives and Midwest premieres by John W. Lowell and David Greig

Michael Halberstam, Stuart Carden, William Brown and Kimberly Senior slated to direct

Glencoe, IL—Writers’ Theatre Artistic Director Michael Halberstam and Executive Director Kathryn M. Lipuma announce the 2012/13 Season, which includes Shakespeare’s Hamlet directed by Michael Halberstam with Scott Parkinson in the title role; the Midwest premiere of John W. Lowell’s play The Letters, directed by Kimberly Senior; Sweet Charity, directed by Michael Halberstam with Musical Direction by Doug Peck and choreography by Jessica Redish; the Midwest premiere of David Greig’s Yellow Moon directed by Stuart Carden; and David Ives’ modern adaptation of Corneille’s The Liar, directed by William Brown.  Read the rest of this entry »

REMY BUMPPO ANNOUNCES 16TH SEASON AND FIRST UNDER ARTISTIC DIRECTOR NICK SANDYS
2012/2013 Season Theme is The Marriage Game: Truth and Consequence?
CHICAGO–Remy Bumppo Theatre Company announces its 16th season, the first under the new leadership of longtime company member Nick Sandys. The 2012/2013 season is replete with the type of plays that the group has become renowned for producing, modern classics full of thought-provoking ideas, passionate debates, and sophisticated wit. The season kicks off with the company’s third foray into the works of Edward Albee, the Pulitzer-Prize-winning Seascape (rights pending), directed by Nick Sandys. Remy Bumppo returns for the holiday season to the dazzling wit and social critique of George Bernard Shaw and his delightful romantic comedy of mis-matched parents and children, You Never Can Tell. The production will be directed by Artistic Associate Shawn Douglass, who also helmed the company’s 2010 box-office hit, The Importance of Being Earnest. The season concludes with the Midwest premiere of David Greig’s critically-acclaimed new adaptation of the savagely witty “comedy,” Creditors, by August Strindberg. A smash hit in both London and New York, this taut psychosexual thriller will be directed by one of Chicago’s finest directors, Kimberly Senior. All shows will be presented at the Greenhouse Theater Center at 2257 N. Lincoln Ave., Chicago. Subscriptions go on sale March 28, 2012 at www.remybumppo.org or by calling the box office at 773-404-7336. Single tickets go on sale Aug. 1, 2012.  Read the rest of this entry »

Usman Ally, Alana Arenas, Lee Stark, Benim Foster/Photo: Michael Brosilow

RECOMMENDED

Amir is an American of Islamic heritage, his parents from the part of the world now known as Pakistan. He seems fully assimilated in all the ways mainstream America would want him to be: he’s disavowed the religion of his people, married a white woman and, most important of all, become an asshole corporate lawyer who wears $600 shirts. For what aspiration is more American than to be an asshole corporate lawyer?

But no one wants the assimilated Amir. Not his nephew who still clings to the Koran. Nor his wife, who’s using Islam in a  contemporary version of radical chic to establish her career as an artist. And in the ultimate act of identity suppression, he’s immersed himself, it seems, in a world of American Jews—at his law firm, among his social circle. Read the rest of this entry »

Fox Valley Rep’s Second Season at Pheasant Run Mainstage announced for 2012;
Offering a 5-show subscription of Fox Valley area premieres with Chicago’s top directors; Summer Theater Festival with Playwrights from around the country; totaling over 200 performances in 2012

October 10, 2011, St. Charles, IL – Fox Valley Rep, in residence at Pheasant Run Resort, announces an exciting line-up for their calendar-year 2012 season, many new to the Fox Valley community, including the comedy behind “Gone with the Wind” during golden age of Hollywood, Moonlight and Magnolias, the romantic musical featuring Neil Sedaka’s hits of the 1960′s, Breaking Up Is Hard To Do, Theo Ubique’s critic-acclaimed Chicago revue of Rodgers and Hammerstein, Some Enchanted Evening, Deborah Zoe Laufer’s modern empty-nesters comedy, Sirens, and the holiday musical, The Winter Wonderettes.  Read the rest of this entry »

John Henry Roberts, Michaela Petro and Abigail Boucher

RECOMMENDED

A wonderful thing that can occur in a production in an intimate space like Strawdog’s is that moment when characters, and maybe even the audience, feel an overwhelming urge to escape, and yet there seems to be nowhere to go. Despite the two doors and window on Michael Mroch’s symmetrical set, there are definitely moments like that in this Pinter revival. It’s those moments when Kate (Abigail Boucher) looks like she’s been caught in a lie. She has invited her old friend Anna (Michaela Petro) to come visit her and her husband Deeley (John Henry Roberts) at their seaside home after some twenty years. Yet if they were such good friends, Deeley points out, he should have heard of her before now. Read the rest of this entry »

Photo: Johnny Knight

RECOMMENDED

Clifford Odets’ 1935 play centering around a cab drivers’ union planning a strike, first staged by the massively influential Group Theatre in New York, has become one of those plays you read in history and literature classes but rarely see produced these days, when most theater companies tend to believe that audiences are allergic to overly political theater. American Blues Theater’s production–tightly directed, passionately acted by a committed ensemble, perfectly paced–succeeds all the more for keeping the material from feeling even a little dated, almost a century later. Read the rest of this entry »

Terry Hamilton gets Fatt

By Brian Hieggelke

When the American Blues Theater ensemble was gathered in the spring of 2010 to vote on the next season, the idea to produce Clifford Odets’ “Waiting for Lefty” spawned a spirited debate over the relevance of its subject. “We were like, ‘Does anyone even care about unions?’” says producing artistic director Gwendolyn Whiteside.

“And then after we selected ‘Waiting for Lefty,’ all hell started to break loose in Wisconsin,” Whiteside says. “I was fascinated and I couldn’t believe what was going on. And then Indiana erupted, and Ohio, and everything that was going on in world politics. I probably learned more about union politics because of these events in the past year than I had in school.”

School starts early, in mid-August, for the cast of “Lefty.” It’s the opening night of rehearsals and about three dozen or so folks are gathered in a large room that is the Remy Bumppo Rehearsal Space in Lakeview.

Read the rest of this entry »