Latest from Chicago Critic

Porchlight Music Theatre opens its 15th season with The Fantasticks–the 1960 Off-Broadway hit that ran for 42 years and 17,000 performances. This chestnut contains a great score featuring the haunting “Try To Remember

This easy to digest musical is full of charm that oozes from every movement and utterance from Tim Gregory who plays every character in Gospel. Gregory is a master storyteller at home with his material. He comes off as sincere, truthful and charming.

Shannon plays legendary Theatrical producer Felix Artifex. We see Felix in his shabby office (terrific set design by Tom Burch) as the fast-talking producer tries to cajole, persuade, trick, intimidate, motivate, maneuver, seduce and suggest…

You’ll enjoy the quirky Irish family and you’ll empathize with their search of love in this refreshingly new and surprisingly smart play. Rebecca Lenkiewicz is a talented playwright with a knack for characterization and a fine ear for language. The Night Season is a delight!

Garden of The Three is rough around the edges when it comes to the acting and presentation of the play, but the story is powerful and emotionally riveting. I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the scrip

The show does have fine wordplay, many zany characters and loads of humor that propels Hampstead into a quirky delight. Led by Ned Record as Punch and the show’s narrator, we find parodies of King Arthur (Sam Wootten)…

The Sugar Syndrome is an enjoyable dark comedy performed by a talented group of actresses and actors that have a great rapport with each other so that the timing is natural and the emotions are believable

While an intimate knowledge of the book is helpful, you do not need it to be effected by director Gary Griffin’s passionate and moving production. The Color Purple focuses on Celie (in a tour de force performance by Season 3 American Idol Fantasia), and 34 tumultuous years of her life.

Hammett’s last novel tells the story of Nick Charles (William Bullion), a droll heavy drinking retired private detective unwillingly drawn into solving a murder in 1932 (Prohibition Era) Manhattan

Miller presents a complex tale that unfolds as a haunting exploration of business ethics as well as a story about responsibility to one’s family verses the moral imperative to the larger society. Brilliantly, Miller coats the story with layers truth and ambiguity.