Articles in Theater + Stage
Role Playing: City boy Michael Stegall ropes wild cowboy in Raven Theatre’s ‘Bus Stop’
Interview: Michael Stegall, who looks and sounds every inch a ropin’ cowboy in the Raven Theatre production of William Inge’s “Bus Stop,” grew up in the West. No surprise there. But wait a minute. Not that West. The 6-foot-3, 23-year-old actor hails from Palm Springs, CA, where the buffalo do not roam.
Da capo al fine, sharply accented ‘Bernstein’ sketches life of a great American conductor
Maestro at the Royal George. 3 stars
Motley travelers looking to get their tickets punched at Raven’s snowbound ‘Bus Stop’
Engagingly off-kilter charms. 3 stars
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Role Playing: Brent Barrett’s glad he joined ‘Follies’ as that womanizing, empty cad Ben
Interview: At the center of Stephen Sondheim’s acerbic musical “Follies”stands Benjamin Stone, worldly, rich, the envy of his old acquaintances gathered at this reunion of theater folks. Ben is all of that, and one more thing — miserable. Veteran actor Brent Barrett offers a candid analysis of the self-centered cad and womanizer.
Profiles’ ‘Behanding in Spokane’ bundles laughter and terror in the same dark bag
Sardonic, but clear-sighted. 3 stars
Role Playing: Sadieh Rifai zips among seven characters in one-woman ‘Amish Project’
Interview: Actor Sadieh Rifai thought Jessica’s Dickey’s play “The Amish Project,” at American Theater Company, would be a pretty straight-forward one-woman show. The plays is based on the 2006 shooting of 10 school girls in Pennsylvania. Rifai would be switching among seven characters, but she didn’t see that as a big deal. She was in for a big surprise.
The Doyle & Debbie Show: Singin’ hits that’ll warm you up like hog rasslin’ in the July sun
At the Royal George Theatre. 4 stars!
Role Playing: Kirsten Fitzgerald inhabits sorrow, surfs the laughs in ‘Clybourne Park’
Interview: Actor Kirsten Fitzgerald portrays two very different characters amid the hurlyburly of “Clybourne Park, the double-edged drama by Bruce Norris now playing at Steppenwolf Theatre through Nov. 13. She’s a grieving mother in 1959 and a self-interested lawyer 50 years later.
It’s a theatrical tour de force that Fitzgerald likens to acting in two different plays the same night.
Sondheim’s ‘Follies’ at CST: Broadway glitz and glamour, with all the endearing bruises
At Chi. Shakespeare Theater. 5 stars!
After slaughter and heartbreak, radiant grace
Jessica Dickey’s “The Amish Project,” echoes of a massacre at ATC. 5 stars!
Chicago’s fast burn is a dramatic flame-out
John Musial’s “The Great Fire” flames up at Lookingglass. 2 stars
TimeLine gets Theatre Wing grant as one of nation’s Top 10 emerging companies
Company to get check for $10,000.
Images of Rothko, on canvas and in the mind
“Red” paints a master-apprentice face-off at the Goodman. 5 stars!
John Malkovich stalks sopranos who suffer in song
John Malkovich plays a modern-day Jack the Ripper who has come back from death to make a charmingly creepy case for himself in “The Infernal Comedy: Confessions of a Serial Killer.”
Role Playing: Janet Ulrich Brooks on nailing the style of a wily Russian in ‘A Walk in the Woods’
Portraying an experienced arms negotiator during the 1980s missile crisis for TimeLine, Brooks manages to be sly, funny and serious — in precisely accented English she learned from an interview with a Russian opera star.
CST will stage remixed ‘Othello’ in London at Cultural Olympiad
“Funk It Up About Nothin'” team creates work for pre-Olympics festival.
Amid flounces and bustles, good vibes bring rosy cheeks
High-voltage effects “In the Next Room” at Victory Gardens. 4 stars
Art, and artists, mined from an unsuspected vein
“The Pitmen Painters” at TimeLine is a charming mine of creativity. 4 stars!
Love, reality and other disquieting intrusions
In “The Real Thing” at Writers’ Theatre, love’s a moving target. 5 stars!
A journey into the daunting forest of arms diplomacy
“A Walk in the Woods” at TimeLine.
Cold War contretemps. 4 stars!
Protecting the old neighborhood, but redefining the threat
“Clybourne Park” at Steppenwolf. Bias on the block. 5 stars!
