It may not be the “country” but for city-dwelling Chicagoans, it’s close enough. Writers’ Theatre in Glencoe, just outside the city, concludes their twentieth season with Sondheim’s pastoral classic, A Little Night Music. Writers’ Theatre is one of the suburbs’ foremost theaters, recently notable for David Cromer’s successful revival of A Streetcar Named Desire. Though considerably lighter in subject matter, this new mounting of Night Music is still pretty revelatory, more so than the …more…
Arts America Blog
The lie of a pipedream: ‘The Iceman Cometh’ at Goodman Theatre
May 4, 2012 by
It’s difficult to find humor in a Eugene O’Neill play, but The Iceman Cometh was inspired by a vaudeville-era joke. In typical O’Neill fashion, the joke is mined down past the comedy to its tragic source in this nearly five-hour epic. From the same director that brought The Goodman’s production of O’Neill’s Desire Under the Elms to Broadway in 2009, comes this star-studded revival of The Iceman Cometh. Featuring …more…
A Living History Lesson: ‘The March’ @ Steppenwolf Theatre
April 27, 2012 by
In the grand tradition of historical reenactment, comes a stirring epic from the same team that brought The Grapes of Wrath to Broadway in the early 90’s. Steppenwolf company member Frank Galati adapted and directed E.L. Doctorow’s 2006 PEN/Faulkner award-winning novel about Sherman’s destructive march across the Confederate South. Like so many novels, movies and plays about the Civil War, The March is less about the battlefields and more about the …more…
Real Love is Never Ambivalent: ‘Angels in America’ @ Court Theatre
April 15, 2012 by
If you’ve taken any basic college drama class in the past twenty years, hopefully you’ve come in contact with Tony Kushner’s Pulitzer-Prize winning play, Angels in America. Originally presented in repertory on Broadway from 1993 to 1994, this two-play, commissioned work became a national sensation. Through the beauty of his original and memorable dialogue, Kushner astutely puts the Reagan-era, AIDS-era and Cold War-era of American history into a fantasy situation in …more…
A Heart as Big as a Baby’s Head: ‘Camino Real’ @ The Goodman Theatre
March 29, 2012 by
You know you’re experiencing good theatre when patrons are walking out because of moral objection rather than poor quality. The Goodman Theatre serves up a very intriguing interpretation of a lesser known Tennessee Williams gem. Camino Real (pronounced re-AL) is a complex drama with a short production history since its initial 1953 debut. This rare production is the brainchild of Goodman artistic director Bob Falls’ pairing of Calixto Bieito …more…
A ‘Pygmalion’ in Africa: ‘The Convert’ @ Goodman Theatre
March 15, 2012 by
“I was thinking one day, and I was like, I want to make a play that’s sort of … an adaptation of Pygmalion, about Zimbabwe, because I just feel like there are so many parallel themes,” says playwright Danai Gurira in an NPR interview, whose newest work The Convert is currently holding its world premiere at The Goodman Theatre. This commissioned work began at The McCarter Theatre Center in New Jersey in late January and was transfered to The Goodman in late February. ...more...
