FLORIDA REVIEW: SMOKEY JOE’S CAFE — The Songs of Leiber and Stoller Ok, we never do meet anyone named Smokey Joe. We are never in his cafe or, for that matter, anyone else’s. In addition, there is neither plot nor dialogue in this musical revue based on the title of one of their songs. NONETHELESS […]
With the same caveats as my Top 10 Productions list—I’ve only had the site going for three months, so this list can only cover the final quarter of 2017—here are some of the finest performances I have seen in the sixty-something shows I have reviewed. First, in alphabetical order, the Top 10: Dana Black (Alice, […]
It’s that time of year when critics create sometimes arbitrary “Top 10” lists, and (being a bit of a list nerd) I feel like adding my own to the ever-growing mix. However, I have a bit of a problem: 2017 was the year in which I launched this site, and it only launched at the start […]
“There’s something intrinsic about a couch in black culture,” Aziza Barnes, the author of BLKS, the hilarious and often powerful play about being young, female, and black, says in an interview published in the play’s program. “It’s like a porch for city dwellers…It’s really evocative of a pioneer life and what matters and what mattered was a place that you or anyone could […]
“I was kind of upset. You could tell there was not a transgender person within twenty yards of the rehearsal room” Delia Kropp, one of Chicago’s preeminent transgender actors and advocates, is speaking of theatres trying to tell trans stories without actually consulting trans people. “What the directors usually say is ‘I have a friend […]
Potted is a slang term that means drunk, and while it is certainly true that the two actors who star in Potted Potter, now playing at the Broadway Playhouse, are loose and having a grand time, in this case, the word is a British term that means to condense, as in to contain in a […]
Tucked way up on the north side is a grungy little storefront theater. This theater usually houses the performances of the NeoFuturist theater company (the geniuses behind Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind). As a special holiday treat, though, Barrel of Monkeys has revived its hit That’s Weird, Grandma: Holiday Stories. This company does […]
When the Carole King songbook compilation musical Beautiful first came out, I wasn’t all that excited by the prospect of seeing it, though I have always loved her music. I’ve just seen one too many musicals loosely stitched together from a given artist’s oeuvre to want my intense memories of days spent listening to “Tapestry” and […]
A firebrand is, according to google.com’s dictionary, a person who is passionate about a particular cause, typically inciting change and taking radical action. Dictionary.com goes further, adding “agitator” and “troublemaker” to the definition. Somehow I don’t think that any of these would be offensive to Harmony France, co-founder and Artistic Director of Firebrand Theatre, Chicago’s only Equity […]
The British slang term “gobsmacked” means utterly astonished, and that’s a pretty good way to describe how I felt after watching the touring UK sensation at the Broadway Playhouse on East Chestnut. This is not your grandfather’s a capella show; the Gobsmacked crew practically redefines the medium, telling stories through the songs and the sounds […]