Chicago Sun-Times

‘Veronica’s Room’ will creep you out

Tue, 01 Oct 2013 19:25:01 -0500

HEDY WEISS: Scares are certain as BoHo Theatre’s tightly spun story unfolds.

In ‘Broadsword,’ a metal band’s thoughts get heavy

Tue, 01 Oct 2013 02:17:32 -0500

HEDY WEISS: Marco Ramirez’ intriguing play, produced by the Gift Theatre, finds faded rockers reunited and contemplating success and failure.

Cautionary tale of concentration camp lacks true depth

Sun, 29 Sep 2013 11:45:42 -0500

The story of the Theresienstadt concentration camp in Czechoslovakia — one of the stranger and more perversely sinister chapters in Holocaust history — has been dealt with in several forms, including the 1980 film, “Playing for Time.” Now it has been turned into a musical.

War truths march on in engrossing ‘Killer Angels’

Fri, 27 Sep 2013 09:40:22 -0500

HEDY WEISS: Lifeline Theatre revives its superb stage adaptation of Michael Shaara’s 1975 novel about the Battle of Gettysburg.

Our ‘national’ humor the core of ‘Old Jews Telling Jokes’

Thu, 26 Sep 2013 04:03:09 -0500

So, where did Jewish humor begin? The Off Broadway comedy “Old Jews Telling Jokes” reveals it’s a lot closer than you might think.

‘4000 Miles’ a theatrical journey worth taking

Thu, 26 Sep 2013 02:21:08 -0500

HEDY WEISS: At Northlight, Mary Ann Thebus triumphs in Amy Herzog’s beautifully observed play about an elderly woman reuniting with her neo-hippie grandson.

Steppenwolf regular McCraney among 24 MacArthur Fellows

Thu, 26 Sep 2013 15:19:40 -0500

Tarell Alvin McCraney, the 32-year-old playwright, actor, director and Steppenwolf Theatre ensemble member, was on his way to the airport for a flight to New Haven, Conn., a few weeks ago, when he received a phone call from Cecilia Conrad, vice president of the MacArthur Foundation and director of its Fellows Program (more widely known as “the genius awards”).

“Pullman Porter Blues” rolls along with predictable purpose

Wed, 25 Sep 2013 08:27:34 -0500

‘Pullman Porter Blues,” Cheryl L. West’s play-with-music, receiving a lavish production at the Goodman Theatre, deals with a fascinating, once-iconic, but little-known subculture of African-American life.

Black Ensemble’s ‘Curtis Mayfield’ tale more than ‘all-right’

Thu, 26 Sep 2013 18:02:35 -0500

Black Ensemble Theater delivers a rousing tribute to the life of Curtis Mayfield in latest musical.

After 40 years with Goodman Theatre, Roche Schulfer still looks ahead

Sun, 22 Sep 2013 22:15:25 -0500

With his closely cropped hair and familiar “uniform” — navy blazer, khaki slacks and loafers — you could easily mistake Roche Schulfer for a prep school principal or golf club executive. As it happens, he has been a major force on Chicago’s cultural landscape, associated with the Goodman Theatre for 40 years, 33 of them as executive director. Earlier this month, when guests gathered in the Goodman lobby to toast Schulfer’s achievements — just moments before a gilded star bearing his name was unveiled on the sidewalk beneath the theater’s marquee at 170 N. Dearborn — they all chuckled at …

Joan Allen’s talents wasted in Steppenwolf war drama

Mon, 23 Sep 2013 02:15:21 -0500

HEDY WEISS: “The Wheel” a faux-surreal mashup weighted down by dull writing and heavy-handed symbolism.

ROCHE SCHULFER — in the words of his friends and colleagues

Sun, 22 Sep 2013 20:32:01 -0500

BRIAN DENNEHY, actor: “Has there ever been a more productive leader in the fiendishly difficult world of not-for-profit arts organizations? Has there ever been a more graceful organizer, fundraiser, hand-holder and massager of easily-bruised egos? Has there ever been a better dresser? Roche Schulfer, with his quiet smile, his self-effacing manner, his dogged determination, his great clothes, has presided over the mature development of one of the great arts institutions of this country. He has a unique combination of intelligence, taste and discipline; and ability to eat endless meals of rubber chicken, and sometimes humble pie; to drink enormous amounts …

THEATER — ‘The North China Lover’

Fri, 27 Sep 2013 16:01:52 -0500

Heidi Stillman, who has adapted and directed Marguerite Duras’ “The North China Lover,” for the Lookingglass Theatre, first read the quasi-autobiographical novel by the French writer and filmmaker about 18 years ago. “It was so incandescent, so intriguing, I remember I was almost shaking,” Stillman recalled. “I started an adaptation based on the first three chapters, we did a workshop of it [with a young Mary Zimmerman as the older Duras], and then I just let it go.” But the story told by Duras (1914-1996) — about the remembered love affair between an adolescent French girl in the colonial Indochina …

‘Evita’ served well by first-rate cast

Fri, 20 Sep 2013 15:54:01 -0500

“Evita,” the ever-thrilling Andrew Lloyd Webber-Tim Rice musical remains the sharpest and most searing work in the canon of both men.

Joan Allen — Steppenwolf’s prodigal daughter returns

Thu, 19 Sep 2013 11:57:53 -0500

After nearly 22 years, actress Joan Allen returns to the Chicago stage, in Steppenwolf Theatre’s production of “The Wheel.”

‘To Master the Art’ a scrumptious delight

Wed, 18 Sep 2013 20:47:15 -0500

“To Master the Art,” the utterly delicious play by William Brown and Doug Frew, about a defining decade in the life of Julia Child, is now at the Broadway Playhouse in a marvelous remount.

‘The Mountaintop’ challenges King legend

Mon, 16 Sep 2013 19:58:24 -0500

HEDY WEISS: Court Theatre’s “The Mountaintop” imagines an encounter between a motel maid and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the Memphis hotel on the night before King was shot. The crucial thing to remember: “The Mountaintop” is no documentary.

‘The Rite of Spring’ at the center of Joffrey program

Sun, 15 Sep 2013 18:21:57 -0500

For this year’s worldwide celebration of the 100th anniversary of “The Rite of Spring” (both Igor Stravinsky’s groundbreaking score and the shockingly primal choreography by Vaslav Nijinsky that put Paris into a tailspin), the Joffrey Ballet will perform the work as the centerpiece of a special “Russian Masters” program, Sept. 19-22 at the Auditorium Theatre. The Joffrey is renowned for its 1987 premiere of Millicent Hodson’s painstaking “reconstruction” of Nijinsky’s choreography for “Rite,” drawn from archival material and interviews, and featuring replicas of the original sets and costumes. Also on the program will be works by two other choreographers with …