Heartbreaking and Hopeful

Mary Jane

Northlight Theatre’s play for the New Year is about caregiving, friendship and about the fragility of our lives. Evoking endless empathy, Pulitzer Prize-nominated playwright, Susan Herzog creates a powerful portrait of the helpless world for a single mother and her sick child. Both heartbreaking and hopeful, this 100-minute one-act luminously depicts the life of a parent whose life completely changes when she must suddenly center her entire world around a seriously ill infant. This moving drama is about a mother, her fragile little baby and the power of love. Herzog presents all manner of unimaginable complications and challenges that a caregiver must selflessly face. And through their network of generosity and solidarity her new, chosen family offers strength and care for both Mary Jane and baby Alex.

The Rhythm Is Gonna Get You

On Your Feet

Drury Lane’s first production of the New Year is a musical that’s exciting, often heartfelt and filled with pulsating, Latin-infused music and songs that everyone will recognize. The show offers two hours of comedy, drama and pure escape, where we can all enjoy and fall in love with Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine, all over again. It’s also a musical that had its tryout in Chicago, when it premiered back in 2015. This is the first local professional production for Chicagoland audiences and this new version offers some wise script changes, something that most reviewers suggested eleven years ago. But Drury Lane’s production is wonderful, overflowing with infectious rhythms that leave the audience pulsating with a desire to just “Get On Your Feet.” But a warning to every future theatergoer: “The Rhythm is Gonna Get You!”

Salome at the Lyric Opera is an Unsettling Dream

In 1902, Richard Straus saw Oscar Wilde’s Salomé. He went home that night and wrote his opera. It debuted in Dresden just two years later. Audiences were immediately taken with the shocking, salacious story of a homicidally obsessed teenaged girl. One hundred and twenty years later, this dark, uncomfortable show is still packing houses.

Gender Bias and Racism

The Confederates

Throughout this mesmerizing, award-winning one-act by Dominique Morisseau (AIN’T TOO PROUD, SUNSET BABY, SKELETON CREW), now playing appropriately during Black History Month, we find that time is fluid. As the play unfolds, we discover ourselves immersed in two gripping stories that focus on gender bias and racism. And this riveting play, set both during the Civil War and in modern day Academia, often defies categorization by genre. In Ms. Morisseau’s play, there are equal elements of comedy and satire balanced by drama and pure surprise.

Bonded Over Birding

Birds of North America

Anna Ouyang Moench’s powerful one-act play is being given a beautiful production by A Red Orchid Theatre. This is a quietly sweet and reflective story about family relationships. It’s about two generations, a father and an adult daughter, who have bonded over birding through the years. Set in the backyard of John’s longtime, rural Maryland home, the leaves have turned color and, with each scene, time passes and the falling leaves accumulate on the lawn. As the years pass, Caitlyn and her father spend quality time together at home, searching for birds while also searching for a deeper appreciation and understanding of each another.

Patti LuPone Made the World Go Round

Matters of the Heart

After the frigid temperatures and an awful lot of snow, January in Chicago has thankfully come to a bone-chilling end. But in a magnificent, mellifluous concert performance that warmed the soul, thousands of Windy City music and theatre aficionados were treated by a special performance by the Queen of Broadway. The one and only Diva Divine, Ms. Patti LuPone took to the stage for almost two hours of melodious magic. And for that brief couple of hours, Patti LuPone cranked up the temperature with her astounding, almost acrobatic vocals, and for this audience, Made the World go Round.