One of the most dynamic and cosmopolitan theater events of the year stages its thirteenth edition this month, with mainstays like its annual “Scratch Night,” plus productions from Peru, Argentina and ...

Don’t be surprised if you recognize Charin Alvarez, as her extensive career in Chicago theater and film continues to grow. Alvarez has been acting in Chicago since 1996, and it would be simpler to ...

During Peter Andersen’s time as producing artistic director of Oak Park Festival Theatre, the company has seen tremendous growth in audience and artist engagement. Says Andersen, “Audiences have been ...

Chicago stages have been described as petri dishes for talent development, with the city seen as a particularly fertile launching pad for the stars of tomorrow, whether in acting, comedy, writing or ...

Now in its thirty-first season, Writers Theatre continues its tradition of staging both new works and new interpretations of the classics. Artistic director Braden Abraham says that the Glencoe ...

The Marriott Theatre in Lincolnshire has reinvented classic musicals and produced Chicago premieres and new works for fifty years—but they’re not out of surprises. “Our favorite shows,” says Peter ...

I arrived late to the puppet cabaret, but my friend had kindly saved me a seat. A standing-room crowd filled the larger of two studios housed in an unassuming one-story brick building on Western ...

Visceral Dance Chicago’s mixed-rep program remounts favorites including two by founder and artistic director Nick Pupillo, an ode to the trials of early motherhood by Micaela Taylor and the joyful, ...

The Saints have been a pillar of support for the cultural community for more than forty years, providing volunteer ushers to medium and small performing-arts companies throughout the Chicago area. The ...

It’s 6:30 in the morning, and Jackie Taylor is a bundle of high energy and vibrancy. She greets me with a friendly, “Hi sweetheart!” at the newly built Black Ensemble Theater, a 59,000-square-foot ...

I went into “Marie and Rosetta,” a play about gospel and rock ‘n’ roll pioneer Sister Rosetta Tharpe, thinking it would be a typical jukebox musical. That’s the kind of play that features the hits by ...

In my early days as a journalist I learned a really important lesson from a veteran bulldog journo: not all writers can be journalists and not all journalists can be writers. Only a special few can be ...