News
Scaramouche" Is a Swashbuckling Good Time
17+ hour, 16+ min ago (312+ words) by Mary Wisniewski | May 13, 2026 "He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad. And that was all his patrimony." "Scaramouche" by Rafael Sabatini is one of the twentieth century's most entertaining novels. It…...
A Theater That Focuses on Stories From the Past Makes a Future in Uptown
1+ week, 1+ hour ago (907+ words) by Mary Wisniewski | May 6, 2026 Time Line Theatre Company's new Uptown home wasn't quite ready for patrons when I took a tour in late March'you still had to walk around ladders. There was the smell of paint and the roar of…...
Stage Top 5: May 2026
1+ week, 5+ day ago (185+ words) by Todd Hieggelke | May 1, 2026 A design rendering of Time Line's new home, nearing completion at 5035 N. Broadway in Chicago's Uptown neighborhood. /Image: HGA 1 An Enemy of the People (Time Line Theatre) Time Line debuts its long-awaited new theater on Broadway with…...
Fault" Is in the Scars: Battling Couple Comedy Crackles and Cracks
1+ week, 6+ day ago (85+ words) Newcity Stage by Ted C. Fishman | April 30, 2026 Shaun, at first, is an object of Jerry's wrath, his sword and handcuffs. Soon, however, he is enlisted to referee the he-says-she-says argument the couple have about which of the two has been, among…...
Ghostlight Ensemble's "The Dover Road," Staged at the Glessner House, Is a Bittersweet Trip to the Past
2+ week, 6+ day ago (301+ words) by Hugh Iglarsh | April 23, 2026 Of course, it's the plush, thoroughly Disneyfied figure of Winnie the Pooh that we now associate with A. A. Milne, and very little else. Milne wasn't happy that his tales and poems about the "hunny-loving bear of very…...
Shakespeare's Raucous Farce Is Filled with Puns, Pratfalls and Pleasures
1+ mon, 1+ hour ago (461+ words) Chicago Shakespeare Theater stages "The Merry Wives of Windsor," a comedy that is produced less often than others in the Bard's canon, but worth catching. It reads "There are no jokes in "Merry Wives," only situation and character; bacchanalian laughter…...
Mohanad Elshieky's Comedy Journey Brings Him to the Den Theatre
1+ mon, 1+ week ago (375+ words) by Carl Kozlowski | April 3, 2026 Mohanad Elshieky is happy to be playing the Den Theatre again on April 10, and he's taken what is likely the most unique life journey of any comic to play there. The New York-based comic was born…...
Comedian Jimmy Pardo Returns to His Chicago Roots
1+ mon, 4+ week ago (431+ words) by Carl Kozlowski | March 16, 2026 Now he's coming to Zanies Rosemont for a show that will also feature longtime local favorite Vince Maranto as the feature act and Pardo's own eighteen-year-old son Oliver as MC. "I love matinee shows because you give…...
City Lit's "Changing Channels" Finds Comedy in the Shadow of the Blacklist
2+ mon, 1+ day ago (253+ words) by Mary Wisniewski | March 12, 2026 Television in the early 1950s is remembered as a golden age. The medium was new and networks were willing to try anything, from wacky variety shows to high culture. But the Red Scare and the blacklist cast…...
Holiday" Blends the Past and Present at Goodman Theatre
3+ mon, 1+ hour ago (67+ words) Newcity Stage by Charles Kenney | February 13, 2026 The Goodman Theatre's staging of Richard Greenberg's adaptation of Philip Barry's Holiday" is not dissimilar in character from the theater itself. Holiday" runs at Goodman Theatre, 170 North Dearborn, through March 1. Tickets are $34-$104, available at…...