CHICAGO – The funny meter of Netflix went off the scale last week, as the animated series “Chicago Party Aunt” made its debut on September 17th. What began as a Twitter account by comic actor Chris Witaske (who also provides his voice talent) has morphed into the cartoon adventures of Aunt Diane Dumbowski, her nephew Daniel, and an array of familiar Chicago-isms and characters.
HollywoodChicago.com Theater Reviews & Interviews
Theater Review: Drury Lane’s ‘Sweeney Todd’ Deals Deftly With Demonic Passenger
Submitted by HollywoodChicago.com on September 1, 2011 - 10:44pmCHICAGO – In Chicago’s continuing trend of borrowing from Broadway high-accolade actors rather than drawing upon the profusion of genius in our own backyard, at least now-Broadway star and New York local Gregg Edelman is a Chicago native. And the TV voice of the peanut M&M.
Theater Review: Real Chicago in Timeline Theatre’s ‘The Front Page’
Submitted by PatrickMcD on April 25, 2011 - 4:45pmCHICAGO – The popular image of the newspaper reporter screaming into the phone with a hot scoop most likely began with the popular and oft-produced stageplay, “The Front Page.” Timeline Theatre of Chicago presents an essential restaging of the classic with superior attention to period detail.
Theater Feature: Casts of ‘Hair,’ ‘Million Dollar Quartet’ Benefit Marriage Equality
Submitted by PatrickMcD on March 19, 2011 - 8:26amCHICAGO – The casts of two current theater spectaculars in Chicago lent their talents to benefit Marriage Equality in the United States. The “Be-In for Marriage Equality” took place on March 14, 2011, and featured performers from the road show Broadway version of “Hair” and the current cast of “Million Dollar Quartet.”
Theater Review: Magnificent ‘Macbeth’ at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater
Submitted by PatrickMcD on January 28, 2011 - 10:00pmCHICAGO – One of the jewels of Chicago is right on Lake Michigan. The Chicago Shakepeare Theater within Navy Pier continues to illuminate the immortal Bard resplendently for contemporary audiences. “Macbeth,” playing through March 5th, is part of their ‘Short Shakespeare!’ series.
Theater Review: Steppenwolf’s ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?’ With Tracy Letts Redefines Edge-of-Your-Seat Captivation
Submitted by HollywoodChicago.com on December 21, 2010 - 4:07pmCHICAGO – Amy Morton says she’s afraid of Virginia Woolf, but she’s actually terrorized violently – and masterfully – by her stage husband, Tracy Letts.
HollywoodChicago.com Hookup: 45 Pairs of Bailiwick Theatre Tickets to Chicago Musical ‘Departure Lounge’
Submitted by HollywoodChicago.com on November 23, 2010 - 12:26amCHICAGO – In our inaugural Chicago theatre edition of HollywoodChicago.com Hookup: Theatre, we have 45 admit-two Chicago theatre tickets up for grabs to the new musical “Departure Lounge” at the Royal George Cabaret Theater from Bailiwick Chicago!
Theater Review: ‘Rock of Ages’ Ain’t Nothin’ But a Good Time
Submitted by Alissa Norby on September 25, 2010 - 2:46pmCHICAGO – “I wanted to explore deep, thoughtful theatre,” deadpans a giddily vitriolic narrator, played here in a last minute swap-out by Mitchell Jarvis, during the eleventh hour of “Rock of Ages”. Although referring to any aspect of this rollicking, trenchantly self-aware jukebox ride in classical terms may either be mawkishly generous or downright offensive to its recalcitrant intent.
Theater Review: ‘Shrek the Musical’ Still in the Swamp
Submitted by Alissa Norby on July 27, 2010 - 6:01pmCHICAGO – “Fairytales should really be updated,” muses the puckish Shrek during a final plea for the affections of a reluctant princess. It is one of those startlingly honest and quietly irreverent insights that “Shrek the Musical” is all too wary to boast, but is a welcome dagger into the cavalcade of childhood morality tales that, year after year, infiltrate the bulk of shooting star wishes and Barbie dream-houses.
Theater Review: Bailiwick Chicago Rediscovers a Buried ‘AIDA’
Submitted by Alissa Norby on July 21, 2010 - 12:10amCHICAGO – When the initial production of Elton John and Tim Rice’s “Aida” made its foray to the Broadway stage, following what was surely a tempestuous artistic adolescence, the public hurrah with which it was met signaled the birth of two eminent stage relations. First, that of John’s with both Broadway and West End investors, a collaboration that has far outstretched the boundaries set forth by “The Lion King”.
Theater Review: ‘Sins of Sor Juana’ is Hollowed History
Submitted by Alissa Norby on July 4, 2010 - 1:39amCHICAGO – Lauded as the first great poet of Latin America, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz served as both an artistic and philosophical trailblazer in the most consequential of orders. A self-instructed scholar of Baroque thought, Sor Juana piloted a course of unprecedented intellect as well as feminist ideology during her brief years. What has rightfully garnered the scribe a nonpareil reverence was her audacity to posit such work in a time of a most restrictive piety.
Theater Review: Beguiling ‘Lookingglass Alice’ Tumbles Back Down the Rabbit Hole
Submitted by Alissa Norby on July 3, 2010 - 3:05pmCHICAGO – “It really doesn’t matter which direction you go,” counsels one of Wonderland’s mischievous denizens at the onset of Alice’s most transmogrifying of journeys. For David Catlin, the cunningly innovative adaptor and director of Lookingglass Theatre’s take on Lewis Carroll’s treasured canon, it matters not whether the real Alice Liddell traveled upward, downward, backward or sideways on the famed rowing boat trip that would later bear her whimsical stories. At Lookingglass, adventure is the only direction worth taking.
‘Suicide, Incorporated’ Explores Mortality’s Worth, Will
Submitted by Alissa Norby on July 1, 2010 - 6:17pmCHICAGO – The eponymous subject matter of Andrew Hinderaker’s enthralling new work “Suicide, Incorporated” is hardly a newfangled muse to dramatists. The concept of one’s self-sanctioned execution has inspired the minds of media architects from Poe to the executives at Lifetime Television Network (the latter of which tends to default to the exertion habitually). The question of an individual opting to terminate his life, especially when the meaning of which plagues the majority of us, is nary an easy one. Hinderaker’s take on the matter, both in stylized approach and explication, proves to be one of the most cerebrally exigent of the lot.
