Jacob Davis

Jacob Davis came to Chicago fresh out of college and reviewed for ChicagoCritic.com from 2014 to 2016, writing 351 reviews in two years by his own count, mostly theatre along with opera and other live performance. He went on to review for Around the Town Chicago.

Douglass

by

In Thomas Klingenstein’s world premiere play Douglass, about an episode from the life of famed author, orator, and escaped slave Frederick Douglass, Klingenstein explores what he interprets as one such situation his subject encountered in New Bedford, Massachusetts prior to the Civil War. It could be a fascinating episode from the life of one of America’s most dramatic personalities, but unfortunately, the play is mostly static.

The Portrait

by

A common complaint about one-person shows is that the speaker tends to be poorly motivated to monologue to the audience for over an hour. Susan Padveen’s The Portrait, about Austrian Art Nouveau painter Gustav Klimt, suffers from the opposite problem.

Our Lady of 121st Street

by

Stephen Adly Guirgis’s early work Our Lady of 121st Street is one of the most popular sources of scenes and monologues for actors in training. With a large, diverse cast of troubled and bizarre characters, it provides ample opportunity for performers to make memorable impressions in just a few minutes. The play is also a snapshot of a community, instead of a traditional story, and therefore, it’s interesting to see how a professional production handles it.

Squeeze My Cans

by

Schenkelberg is a former Scientologist, and in a show that is as hilarious as it is sad, she details her whole journey into and away from the religion, minus eight hundred thousand dollars and all of her personal relationships.

Twelfth Night (Chicago Shakespeare in the Parks)

by

After a few changes to the script and re-staging for a park environment, Kirsten Kelly and Chicago Shakespeare have revived their short version of Twelfth Night for this summer’s city-sponsored Shakespeare in the Parks program. Featuring some of the same cast members as the production that played earlier this year in Chicago schools, Kelly’s Twelfth Night is endearing, funny, and light-hearted with just the right amount of intelligence.

Tomorrow Morning

by

For people who old enough to have been married, or are in their late twenties and considering it, the show has obvious emotional resonance. In its current staging under the direction of John Glover, it also is surprisingly theatrical for that’s basically just two conversations.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream (First Folio)

by

Few Shakespeare plays are better suited to outdoor performance than the seasonally appropriate fantasy romance A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Now at the Mayslake Peabody Estate, First Folio’s production, directed by Haley Rice, is an amusing romp through the woods, with a talented group of actors who are mostly new to the company.

David Carl’s Celebrity One-Man Hamlet

by

Why do a show about a possibly brain-damaged actor interpreting every role in Hamlet with the aid of puppets, projections, facial spasms, and acronyms? The answer, “Busey” says, is to prove that he can. And for a hilarious seventy-five minutes, we can watch a slow-rolling disaster interlaced with occasional flashes of genius as Carl pars down Shakespeare’s longest play into a rapid-fire series of commentaries, deluded sidetracks, and high tragedy.

Wastwater

by

By Simon Stephens

Directed by Robin Witt

Produced by Steep Theatre, Chicago

A Little Bit of the Lake District Brought to Heathrow

While Hamilton is dominating the coverage of the upcoming Broadway in Chicago tours, another hotly-anticipated event later in the year is British playwright Simon Stephens’ stage adaptation of Mark Haddon’s novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime. Followers of Steep Theatre Company are already familiar with Stephens, since three of his works have enjoyed American or Midwestern debuts there. His works have gained a following in some circles, but also gained contempt in others, because they are often episodic and feature seedy characters in mysterious situations. Wastwater is another one of those, and in Steep’s production, is directed by Robin Witt to deliver the atmosphere Stephens fans expect.

Read more

The Importance of Being Earnest

by

By Oscar Wilde

Directed by Jim Schneider

Produced by Dead Writers Theatre Collective, Chicago

At the Athenaeum Theatre, Chicago

“The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means.”

A year after their visually sumptuous production of Lady Windermere’s Fan, Dead Writers Theatre Collective returns to Oscar Wilde with their production of his most famous and final play, The Importance of Being Earnest. The company defines itself as adhering as closely as possible to the author’s intent, and their productions, which so far have tended to focus on either Wilde or Noël Coward, often showcase elaborate costumes and set pieces. But Earnest’s aesthetic is somewhat different from last year’s show, in that Dead Writers utilized a grant from The Saints to construct sets, designed by Eric Luchen, which resemble the miniatures in the toy theatres of Wilde’s day. The result takes some getting used to, but combined with the old-fashioned exaggerated style of acting, it produces a cohesive whole and an amusing production.

Read more

Explore

Discover

About

© 2026 ChicagoCritic.com · Independent Chicago theater coverage since 2001.