RECOMMENDED Where: Remy Bumppo at the Greenhouse Theater Center, Upstairs Mainstage, 2257 N. Lincoln Ave. When: through Nov. 10 Tickets: $37.50-52.50 Phone: 773-404-7336 If you’re looking for light-hearted entertainment with a literary bent, Remy Bumppo’s lively production of “Northanger Abbey” is a good bet. Adapted by Brit Tim Luscombe and directed by Joanie Schultz, Jane […]
RECOMMENDED Where: Lookingglass Theatre Company, Water Tower Water Works, 821 N. Michigan Ave. When: through Nov. 10 Tickets: $36-$70 Phone: 312-337-0665 Might as well admit it: I don’t really “get” Marguerite Duras. Maybe that’s why I can appreciate the care and complexity of Lookingglass Theatre Company’s world premiere stage version of “The North China Lover,” but […]
RECOMMENDED Where: Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Navy Pier When: through Nov. 10 Tickets: $48-$78 Phone: 312-595-5600 By ANNE SPISELMAN Theater Critic If what you remember most about Edmond Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac is the tragic Cyrano-Roxane-Christian love triangle, the current production at Chicago Shakespeare Theater will come as a surprise. Using a translation/adaptation by Anthony Burgess, […]
SOMEWHAT RECOMMENDED Where: Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Downstairs Theatre, 1650 N. Halsted St. When: through Nov. 10 Tickets: $20-$82 Phone: 1-312-335-1650 By ANNE SPISELMAN Theater Critic If you go to Steppenwolf Theatre’s American premiere of “The Wheel” just to see Joan Allen on stage there for the first time in more than two decades, you won’t […]
RECOMMENDED Where: Goodman Theatre, Owen Theatre, 170 N. Dearborn St. When: through Nov. 3 Tickets: $10-$40 Phone: 312-443-3800 By ANNE SPISELMAN Theater Critic Is life worth living and what makes it so? Those are the metaphysical questions at the core of Noah Haidle’s imaginative, engaging and often very funny “Smokefall” in the Goodman Theatre’s Owen […]
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED Where: Upstairs at Chicago Shakespeare, Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Navy Pier When: through Oct. 27 Tickets: $35 Phone: 312-595-5600 ANNE SPISELMAN Theater Critic The magic of theater is magnificently on display in “The Table,” the World’s Stage Series season opener at Chicago Shakespeare Theater. Created by Great Britain’s Blind Summit Theatre, this 70-minute show […]
RECOMMENDED Where: PinPen Theatre Co. at Writers Theatre, 325 Tudor Court, Glencoe When: through Nov. 10 Tickets: $35-$70 Phone: 847-242-6000 ANNE SPISELMAN Theater Critic Imaginative storytelling and inventive stagecraft come together in the Midwest premiere of “The Old Man and The Old Moon,” PigPen Theatre Co.’s charmingly homespun play with music at Writers Theatre in […]
SLIGHTLY RECOMMENDED Where: Victory Gardens Biograph Theater, 2433 N. Lincoln Ave. When: through Oct. 27 Tickets: $45-$65 Phone: 773-871-3000 A musical about the Nazi ghetto of Theresienstadt (Terezin in Czech) is bound to be a tough sell, and unfortunately “Signs of Life” doesn’t pull it off. Originally commissioned by Virginia S. Criste, who visited to […]
RECOMMENDED Where: Oriental Theatre, 24 W. Randolph St. When: through Oct. 27 Tickets: $27-$95 Phone: 800-775-2000 By ANNE SPISELMAN Theater Critic I was charmed by the 2007 indie film, “Once,” written and directed by John Carney and starring Glen Hansard as an Irish singer-songwriter “stopped up” by a romance-on-the-rocks and Marketa Irglova as the Czech […]
RECOMMENDED Where: The House Theatre of Chicago at Chopin Theatre, 1543 W. Division St. When: through Oct. 20 Tickets: $20-$40 Phone: 773-769-3832 By ANNE SPISELMAN Theater Critic At one point in “The Crownless King,” the second part of The House Theatre of Chicago’s fantasy-adventure trilogy that started last year with “The Iron Stag King,” our royal hero, […]