SOMEWHAT RECOMMENDED Where: Auditorium Theatre, 50 E. Congress Parkway When: through March 30 Tickets: $28-$85 Phone: 800-775-2000 Everybody loves a show about drag queens that reaffirms family values. It makes them feel safe and promises a sequined spectacle replete with double entendres and sarcasm. “Priscilla Queen of the Desert” delivers. Based on the 1994 film,(…)
RECOMMENDED Where: Royal George Theatre, 1641 N. Halsted St. When: through April 14 Tickets: $60-$65 Phone: 312-988-9000 By ANNE SPISELMAN Theater Critic Hershey Felder has carved out a niche crafting portraits of famous dead composers, and Chicago audiences have enjoyed his individualistic interpretations of George Gershwin, Frederic Chopin, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Leonard Bernstein in(…)
SOMEWHAT RECOMMENDED Where: Chicago Shakespeare Theater Couryard Theater, Navy Pier When: through March 24 Tickets: $58-$78 Phone: 312-595-5600 By ANNE SPISELMAN Theater Critic Julius Caesar” never has been one of my favorite Shakespeare plays, and Chicago Shakespeare Theater’s latest production, from British director Jonathan Munby, does nothing to change that. My basic problem with the(…)
RECOMMENDED Where: Writers’ Theatre, 325 Tudor Court, Glencoe When: through March 31 Tickets: $35-$75 Phone: 847-242-6000 Writers’ Theatre in Glencoe has been developing a fine track record for scaling back musicals for its intimate space, but “Sweet Charity” presents challenges that Director Michael Halberstam and his talented ensemble don’t quite overcome. Unlike, say, last season’s(…)
VERY SLIGHTLY RECOMMENDED Where: Goodman Theatre Owen Theatre, 170 N. Dearborn St. When: through March 3 Tickets: $14-$45, students $10 Phone: 312-443-3800 The world premiere of Christopher Shinn‘s “Teddy Ferrara” in Goodman Theatre’s Owen Theatre raises some thought-provoking issues, but the poorly focused two-hour-and-40-minute play needs serious pruning. And despite some strong acting, the shortcomings(…)
RECOMMENDED Where: American Theater Company, 1909 W. Byron St. When: through March 10 Tickets: $38-$43 Phone: 773-409-4125 By ANNE SPISELMAN Theater Critic American Theater Company’s world premiere of the revised version of “columbinus” is a powerful documentary-style performance piece and a call to step up efforts to stop the horrible violence plaguing our schools and(…)
SLIGHTLY RECOMMENDED Where: Victory Gardens Theater, 2433 N. Lincoln Ave. When: through Feb. 24 Tickets: $20-$50 Phone: 773-871-3000 With a story line suited to a television sitcom and dialogue worthy of a Second City skit, Anapama Chandrasekhar’s “Disconnect” isn’t the ideal vehicle for heavy observations about consumerism and cultural differences or for the rather tragic,(…)
RECOMMENDED Where: Northlight Theatre, North Shore Center for the Performing Arts, 9501 Skokie Blvd., Skokie When: through Feb. 24 Tickets: $25-$72 Phone: 847-673-6300 By ANNE SPISELMAN Theater Critic The Whipping Man” at Northlight Theatre tackles such an intriguing and unfamiliar subject that it’s relatively easy to forgive a few shortcomings. Ignoring the old injunction to(…)