Chicago Theatre Review

Author: Kevin Curran

Light Years Away

May 22, 2019 Comments Off on Light Years Away

Take Me – Strawdog Theatre Company

Shelley works in a call center for a less than great telephone company. She used to be an architect, but following a plane crash that leaves her husband in a coma and the disappearance of her son, the task of punting people’s complaints is all she can handle. In her search for stability and meaning, she stumbles into a group of people who say they have been abducted by aliens, and that those aliens want her to build an amusement park in Roswell, New Mexico.

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Another Day at the Office

May 20, 2019 Comments Off on Another Day at the Office

Below the Belt – Hundo4u Productions

Below the Belt is about three men living and working in an unnamed factory in some distant desert. What their job is exactly or what the factory actually makes is never stated, but it’s very important that it be done. A new arrival upsets the seasoned veteran who must now share his room again, and both, whether they want to or not, must jockey for the approval of their boss.

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A List of Dates

May 19, 2019 Comments Off on A List of Dates

Fight, Flight, and Freeze – The Agency Theater Collective

Hannah Tar’s one-person show centers around about dozen important dates in her life and how they all connect to each other. I’m not spoiling things by saying that several involve sexual assault and domestic violence, since they give a similar warning at the start of the show.

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We Should Totally Hang Out Sometime

May 14, 2019 Comments Off on We Should Totally Hang Out Sometime

Amicable – Theatre Above the Law

Amicable, Theatre Above the Law’s final show for its third season, finds a group of six people on a Metra train. Each seems to coincidentally know or have met one or two of the other people on the train. One pair of friends or one pair of exes running into each other on their morning commute is a common coincidence. But every person on this train making one of these connections, sometimes more than one? Something strange is going on here…

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In My Day…

May 10, 2019 Comments Off on In My Day…

The Undeniable Sound of Right Now – Raven Theatre

Kids today. With their haircuts and their music.

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Going Off Road

May 7, 2019 Comments Off on Going Off Road

Mad Beat Hip & Gone – Promethean Theatre Ensemble

I have a confession to make. I have never read Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. It didn’t make it into a reading list in high school or college, and I think that’s the window for reading it. After that, it’s just never going to float to the top of my perpetually lengthy To Read list. Like Mark Twain once said, a classic is a book everyone wants to have read but no one wants to read.

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Two Shows for the Price of One

April 29, 2019 Comments Off on Two Shows for the Price of One

Two Days in Court – City Lit Theater

One act shows don’t get much love in modern theater. The average theater-goer expects at least the average length of a movie for the price of their ticket. Even most shows that lack an intermission are usually more than one scene presented without that intermission rather than an entire show presented in one short burst. City Lit has solved this problem by presenting two such shows in one evening with a common thread, with both centering on court room dramas.

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Turning into Your Parents

April 28, 2019 Comments Off on Turning into Your Parents

I’m Gonna Pray for You So Hard – First Floor Theater

They say you are supposed to write about what you know. That’s probably why so many plays (and movies for that matter) are about writers and writing. If nothing else, writers know about that.

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Just Another Day

April 11, 2019 Comments Off on Just Another Day

Utility – Interrobang Theatre

Amber and her family live in a small town in East Texas. Like many families, they are perpetually just short of making ends meet. Amber works two jobs but is still always trying to pay off last month’s bills. The play finds her trying to balance providing a life for her children that she wants them to have, while deciding if she should give her well-intentioned, but less than competent, husband another chance.

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Family Resemblance

April 9, 2019 Comments Off on Family Resemblance

Iron Kisses – Theatre Above the Law

I think everyone remembers where they were the first time they hear their parents’ words coming out of their own mouths. It eventually happens to us all. Some turn of phrase we associate with them, maybe some well-worn piece of advice or the thing your parents said to you that you swore you would never say to your kids, will fall out of your mouth with exactly their cadence and intonation. It almost feels like they were speaking through you, as if it weren’t really your voice. Theatre Above the Law’s new production of Iron Kisses takes the phenomenon to new heights by casting a pair of actors as siblings, but also casting both siblings at various times as both of their parents.

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