Other Professional Theater Reviews

5 Stars! Highly Recommended!  Exceptional and poignant, “Rasheeda Speaking” is a four-person tragicomedy, based on the late Joel Drake Johnson’s well-crafted script. The dialogue—sad, funny, and very real at the same time—is so well performed that you feel as if you could enter the stage yourself and interact with each of the characters in a real doctor’s office.

Just in time for spring, the Chicago Children’s Theatre is back in bloom. Returning to live, in-person productions, Carmela Full of Wishes is a charming tale about the importance of imagination. Adapted for the stage by Alvaro Saar Rios from the children’s book by Matt de la Pena with illustrations by Christian Robinson. The quartet of actors here playing an array of characters. The primary, Carmela, is describe by Rios as a “fierce Latina with an awesome imagination”. More on that in just a moment. The show’s official opening attended by a cornucopia of ages, genders and races.

Steve Martin’s creation pits a 23-year-old Picasso against a 25-year-old Einstein. Each Is on the threshold of fame and both have enormous egos. The banter between them and the Lapin Agile “bar people” makes for fun and friction.  It was sort of like “The Million Dollar Quartet” meets “Cheers”, and that’s not bad!

Highly Recommended  Those looking for a new show in the style of the old classic musical comedies will find a winner in "The Prom." It’s the story of a group of once-successful Broadway performers who try to build their reputations by getting involved in the efforts of a girl from a small Indiana town to attend her high school prom with her girlfriend. Certainly most of the audience members who would attend this show are likely to be on the side of this young girl, "The Prom" gently pokes fun at woke culture as well – and also at the celebrities who embrace social causes.