PicksInSix Review: Come From Away - Marriott Theatre

Where The River Meets The Sea …
PicksInSix® Gold Review | Ed Tracy

It is startling to realize that twenty-five years have passed since a savage attack on America changed the world as we know it. Ask anyone born before 1996 and they can tell you where they were that fateful day, how shocked and saddened they felt in the weeks and months that followed, and how they grieved for the nearly 3,000 souls lost at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

And on Wednesday evening, a truly stunning production of “Come From Away” opened at the Marriott Theatre in Lincolnshire. Director Jessica Fisch and choreographer Katie Spelman have assembled an unmatched Chicago-based ensemble of stage veterans presenting a tapestry of true stories of compassion and kinship in the days following the 9/11 attacks. This show is electric, inspiring and fits the Marriott Theatre’s in-the-round-stage like a glove.

In the moments following the terrorist attacks, life as we know it came to a full stop. All air traffic within the United States was grounded. International travel was immediately restricted and commercial passenger flights that had sufficient fuel to return to their city of origin in Europe or Asia did so. Those that could not were forced to land wherever they could.

Three locations in Canada—Halifax Stanfield International Airport in Nova Scotia, Vancouver International Airport in British Columbia, and Gander International Airport in Newfoundland— served as a safe haven for thousands of international travelers until operations could be restored.

Gander was a small provincial town of approximately 10,000 when 38 planes landed on September 11, 2001 with nearly 7,000 passengers aboard. As residents quickly mobilized resources, food, medical care and services, all of the passengers were not allowed to deplane for nearly 24 hours. In the days that followed, the “plane people” of all nationalities—known as “come from aways”—received an epic outpouring of support from the Newfoundlanders. Together, over the hours and days that followed, everyone learned the universal language of patience, compassion, and generosity.

We might not know as much of this heartfelt story if the husband and wife team of Irene Sankoff and David Helm had not attended a reunion in 2011 and conducted hundreds of interviews. That source material forms the core of their brilliant 2017 Broadway musical “Come From Away,” distilled into dozens of composite characters of immense warmth and humor, each with a strong sense of resilience and pride. It is a substantial piece for 12 actors in a fast-paced 100-minute format which in the capable hands of Fisch and Spelman is quite literally a work of art.

Marriott’s “Come From Away” is also a bit of a professional homecoming all its own. The key romantic storyline is the heartfelt relationship of Diane and Nick, served up perfectly by Heidi Kettenring and Matt Crowle, both returning to the Chicagoland stage after recent national tours. Sharriese Hamilton is marvelous reprising the role of Hannah that she played recently in the Australian touring production of the show. The extraordinary talent and wide-ranging stage skills—and dialects—of Alex Goodrich, Devin DeSantis and Sarah Bockel are on full display, as are Justin Allbinder, Denise Devlin, Madison Kauffman, Michael Earvin Martin and Jonathan Shaboo. Lexie Dorset Sharp shines in the role of Captain Beverley Bass, the first female commercial pilot.

The story develops organically on Scott Penner’s scenic design that incorporates a stage revolve, tables and industrial stair units that are all integrated seamlessly in the flow of the piece. From the rousing “Welcome To The Rock,”“38 Planes,”“Screech In,” and “On the Edge,” to the more contemplative “Stop the World,”“Prayer,” and “Me and the Sky,” this is musical emotion in motion under Music Director Ryan T. Nelson. Celia Villacres conducts nine musicians through a score that features nearly twenty instruments nested squarely in traditional themes and melodies.

“Come From Away” serves as a vivid reminder that even in the grip of an international tragedy, ordinary people from all walks of life are capable of acts of kindness and generosity well beyond our imagination. It also speaks to our own capacity to overcome adversity for the new life that awaits us and assurance that the newfound relationships forged during difficult times will give us comfort and hope for the future.

PHOTO|Justin Barbin

Marriott Theatre
presents
Come From Away
Ten Marriott Drive
Lincolnshire, IL
through October 18, 2026

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PicksInSix Review: The Notebook - Broadway in Chicago

Love Notes: For Better Or Worse.
PicksInSix® Review | Guest Contributor | Sarah Frances Fiorello

The musical “The Notebook” has returned to Chicago, ready to meet all new audiences and be reacquainted—and reintroduced—with theatregoers who found themselves at Chicago Shakespeare Theatre’s pre-Broadway production in the fall of 2022.  The musical, based on the book by Nicholas Sparks and subsequent 2004 hit film, plays now through August 16th at the Nederlander Theatre at Broadway in Chicago.

The story weaves through the lives of star-crossed lovers Noah and Allie, played in the musical by three actors for each character—Younger, Middle, and Older—jumping from present day to their carefree youth and everywhere in between. Older Noah and Older Allie recall and revisit their love story through the center inanimate character, a notebook, read from Noah to Allie as she grasps and struggles with deteriorating dementia. “The Notebook” is a beautifully told story of fleeting time and fervent love, one that you have not seen told in the current format—the touring production has undergone changes from the Broadway production and, of course, from its pre-Broadway run. Easter eggs only here for those who have seen previous versions of the show; I encourage you to head to the Nederlander to see for yourself.

On to this production, which deserves a review in its own right. Directed by Schele Williams alongside Broadway juggernaut and five-time Tony Award nominee Michael Greif (“Rent”, “Next to Normal”, “Dear Evan Hansen”) with choreography by Katie Spelman, “The Notebook” serves a visual treat to audiences, with staging and storytelling that often feels like poetry in motion. Multiple versions of Noah and Allie exist simultaneously on stage throughout much of the musical; what transpires at the expert direction of Williams and Grief is a journey through time, memory, while taking honest stock of our relationship to our past and future selves.

“The Notebook” marks the theatrical and Broadway debut of singer/songwriter Ingrid Michaelson, alongside book writer Bekah Brunstetter (most notably television’s “This is Us” writer, story editor, and producer). The duo have created a musical that is as strikingly unique as it is true to the original book while also somehow capturing fan-favorite moments from the film starring Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams.

The cast is replete with Broadway veterans, each as fantastic as the next. Alysha Deslorieux as “Middle Allie” soars vocally in her full-throated 11 o’clock number “My Days” while Beau Gravitte as “Older Noah” delivers a sincere, earnest, and loving performance as the idyllic spouse any married person would be lucky to have. Connor Richardson as Johnny, the physical therapist to Older Allie and the Gen Z point-counterpoint to Baby Boomer Older Noah offers a delightful performance, highlighting the power of platonic love alongside the romantic love of our main characters.  Sharon Catherine Brown as Older Allie brings this story home with her devasting portrayal of life while suffering with dementia.  Brown brings both a gentleness and fierceness to the role and gives us a heartbreaking glimpse into what it feels like to navigate this disease—constantly searching for answers while also searching for yourself.

I never read the Sparks novel but when I saw the film all those years ago, I immediately fell in love with what it stood for: real love can persist and stand firm in the face of life’s hardest struggles and most difficult tests. All these years later, as I’m sure is true for most of us, life has a way of testing that belief. Perhaps that’s why we go to the theatre. To be reminded of what is possible in life and in love, and that what we see beyond the footlights, even on our most difficult days, might find its way across the threshold.

GUEST CONTRIBUTOR | SARAH FRANCES FIORELLO is a graduate of Shenandoah Conservatory with a BFA in Music Theatre and a Chicago-based poet, writer, and performer. 
Instagram: @writtenbysarahfrances

PHOTO | Roger Mastroianni

Broadway in Chicago
presents
National Tour
The Notebook

James N. Nederlander Theatre
24 W. Randolph St.

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PicksInSix Review: The Outsiders - Broadway in Chicago

‘The Outsiders’—Sound and Fury to Spare!
PicksInSix® Review | Guest Contributor | Catey Sullivan

By the time I read it in 1972, S.E. Hinton’s 1967 novel “The Outsiders” was already a classic—the plaudit was in bold letters right on the cover blurb. At nine, I wasn’t entirely sure what that meant. But I did know that the coming-of-age story of poor vs. rich kids in Tulsa, Oklahoma stirred up powerful emotions and a snapping irritation at anyone who interrupted my reading. Nearly 60 years after a teenage Hinton’s book was published (using only her first initials because she knew revealing her gender would have greatly diminished her chances at success), its powers are undiminished.

Running through Aug. 16 at Broadway in Chicago’s Cadillac Palace Theatre, the Jamestown Revival’s musicalization (music and lyrics by Jonathan Clay, Zach Chance and Justin Levine; book by Adam Rapp, with Levine) of Hinton’s novel is a brutal, beautiful show. Literary adaptations are a tricky beast (“Bright Lights, Big City” anyone?) especially when the source material has been beloved. But director Danya Taymor’s staging both respects the aesthetic of Hinton’s original and retains its pile-driving, heart-racing plot. The music soars and stabs and grooves and pops and twangs to gorgeous impact. The book captures the violence and the vitality of Hinton’s indelible characters.

The plot follows 14-year-old Ponyboy Curtis (Nolan White), one of Tulsa’s teenage “greasers.” In Tulsa’s rigid teenage caste system, the impoverished greasers are forever being targeted by their wealthy, well-dressed peers, the “socs” (short for “socialite”). The greasers—led by the charismatic Dallas (Tyler Jordan Wesley)—are also frequent targets for the cops. (File under The More Things Change, The More They Stay the Same: The socs are white, the greasers are not.) Stomach churning brawls leave two kids dead and the kind of trauma that gets passed like a malevolent heirloom. Ponyboy’s struggle to nurture family, art and forge a future is the narrative thread at the center of the tightly woven plot.

So is Rick and Jeff Kuperman’s extraordinary choreography, which has the cast dancing on rolling tires and endlessly reconfigured scaffolding in a vibrant, industrial wasteland (set by AMP featuring Tatiana Kahvegian). Prepare to be gobsmacked by the second act’s “Trouble”—it stops the show with a bone-crunching, skin-splitting climactic brawl delivered with a gasp-inducing merger of rampaging ferocity and extraordinary, paradoxical beauty.

White makes Ponyboy's journey compelling throughout, but when Wesley’s Dallas is on stage, he’s the one you’re watching. When Dallas launches “Little Brother”—a lament about a young man he could not save—up to the gods, it feels like he’s actually singing about many, many others. Another prime highlight is “Stay Gold,” which has Ponyboy and his best friend Johnny Cade (Bonale Fambrini) duetting to transcendent effect to the words of Cade’s favorite poet, Walt Whitman.

The show isn’t perfect. The socs are one-note villains. Ostensible heroine Cherry Valance (Emma Hearn) is little more than a cliched poor-little-rich-girl trope. Cherry doesn’t just flunk the Bechdel Test, she never even makes it to the exam room. Yet Cherry looks like Anna Karenina compared to her boyfriend Bob (Andrew Cekala), whose character begins and ends with his fists. Finally, the all-important “greaser” wigs look more like helmets than hair in a few cases. That said, there’s sound and fury to spare in “The Outsiders.” Not for nothing did the show win four Tonys, including best musical, in 2024. Its lessons are as powerful as they were in 1967: Life isn’t fair. Loss is devastating. Penury can suck you into a morass of rage and despair. And this above all: It’s ultimately up to you and your family—blood or otherwise—to figure out how to carry forth and stay gold.

GUEST CONTRIBUTOR | CATEY SULLIVAN has been covering Chicago theater for more than 30 years. Her work has been published in the Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago Reader, Windy City Times, Playbill, Chicago Magazine, Chicago Tribune and New City, among others. She has an MFA in creative writing from the University of Illinois. 

PHOTO|Matthew Murphy

Broadway in Chicago
presents
The Outsiders
Cadillac Palace Theatre
151 West Randolph
through August 16, 2026

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PicksInSix Review: Avenue Q - Dunes Summer Theatre

Dunes’ ‘Avenue Q’ Finds Its Purpose!
PicksInSix® Gold Review | Ed Tracy

There is no denying that you can do anything with a puppet in your hand and no better example on stage right now than the terrific revival of the 2004 Tony Award–winning musical “Avenue Q” playing at the Dunes Summer Theatre. The hilarious send up of the adult-themed Sesame Street is the inspiration of Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx who wrote the lyrics and music. The book by Jeff Whitty is set on a block in lower Manhattan where neighbors Princeton, Kate Monster, Rod, Nicky, Trekkie Monster, Lucy, Mrs. T, Brian, Christmas Eve and the superintendent, Gary Coleman, all deal with life’s challenges from jobs, relationships, and racism, and sex to love, responsibility and the importance of helping others.

The show, directed by Danny Kapinos, a Chicago-based director and co-Artistic Director of Blank Theatre Company, has assembled one of the finest ensemble casts seen here in recent years, led by Quinn Kelch (Princeton) and Mika Wurf (Kate), playing two twentysomething loners who find friendship, love and their own purpose together. Kelch, a rising talent who is well-known to Chicago audiences, is terrific here, playing both Princeton, the newly-minted college graduate and Rod, the closeted gay neighbor. Wurf, a senior at the Boston Conservatory of Music with an extraordinary voice, is perfect as the shy, demure Kate who breaks away from her quiet existence to find that there is more to life when you share it with someone you love. The two are wonderfully matched together, displaying wide-ranging versatility in a challenging show that demands precision in movement, timing and comic delivery.

The young lovers are influenced by everyone who live on Avenue Q. There’s Rod (Kelch) and Nicky (Josh Bernaski and Maya Moreau) who are sorting out Rod’s conflicted lifestyle; Trekkie Monster (Bernaski) whose passion is internet porn; Lucy (Moreau), the vixen who seduces all in her path; and, the humans: the aspiring comedian Brian (Clay W. Muir) and his partner Christmas Eve (Aubrey Malito), an Asian phycologist and Gary Coleman (Micah Hughs) the super with a bit of an attitude about his rocky road after TV stardom. It is all for laughs with a dash of clever technology that pays homage to the Sesame Street educational themes along the way.

The delightful score overflows with musical gems from Wurf’s sweet and beautifully sung ballad “There’s A Fine, Fine Line” and Malito’s stellar “The More You Ruv Someone” and “I Wish I Could Go Back To College” by the trio of Kelch, Wurf and Bernaski, to the rollicking “Everyone’s A Little Bit Racist,” “The Internet Is For Porn,” and “There is Life Outside Your Apartment.” Music director Aaron Kaplan with Associate Music Director/Conductor Sachio Nang and seven musicians knock Steven Oremus’s full-bodied arrangements out of the park. Credit goes to Jake Tillman for an outstanding sound design, balancing the superb vocals of this enormously talented ensemble with the musicians effortlessly.

Scenically, Michael Lasswell has again designed and constructed an impressive, multi-story Lower East Side street scene with textured brick facades and a cityscape in the distance. With Arturo Pozos’s evocative lighting design and Emily Chidalek’s colorful costumes, “Avenue Q” is visually bright, festive and fun.

Combining live action with music and puppets in not an easy task for actors and the special puppet training by Andrew Lund is expertly evidenced throughout and in particular with some subtle—and some not so subtle—activities that give “Avenue Q” its’ R-rated guidance, spurred on by a couple of devious Bad Idea Bears.

Each of the ensemble members assume multiple roles throughout, but the performance of the night belongs to the enormously talented and versatile Kelch who, on more than one occasion, is required to exit as one puppet character and return immediately as another. I was confounded by an especially clever sequence where Kelch is literally in two places at the same time. A phenomenal sleight of hand in a production that is sure to be a colossal hit for Artistic Director Steve Scott, Managing Director Elise Kermani and everyone on board for the Dunes Summer Theatre’s 75th Anniversary Season.

PHOTO|Tony Martin

Dunes Summer Theatre
presents
Avenue Q
288 Shady Oak Drive
Michigan City, IN
through August 9

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PicksInSix Review: SUFFS - Broadway in Chicago

‘The Young Are At The Gates!’
PicksInSix® Review | Ed Tracy

Political activism of any kind, especially the Suffragists Movement and the crusade for the right for women to vote, requires the kind of universal commitment and passion that is at the heart of Shaina Taub’s brilliant Tony Award winning musical “Suffs” directed by Leigh Silverman. Two factions—the wives, mothers and daughters of the socially elite who are members of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) led by Carrie Chapman Catt (Marya Grandy), and a youthful, spirited group of protesters headed by Alice Paul (Maya Keleher) demanding immediate change—each contribute in their own way to the cause even, as they are constantly at odds with each other on the answer to the big question: How long must we wait?

For Catt and the women of the NAWSA, it was already over 65 years since Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton founded the National Woman Suffrage Association who opposed the 15th Amendment— allowing Black men to vote—unless it extended to women. A rival organization—the American Woman Suffrage Association—was formed to support a state by state initiative. The two groups merged decades later in 1890 to form NAWSA. The movement for equality then took a major step forward in 1913 when Paul organized and led the first national march on Washington.

It is at this historical turning point that “Suffs” takes shape, with Paul, her college classmate Lucy Burns (Gwynne Wood), a public personality, Inez Milholland (Monica Tulia Ramirez), who becomes the face of the cause, along with a Polish immigrant Ruza Wenclawska (Joyce Meimei Zheng) and writer Doris Stevens (Livvy Marcus) organize the march to pressure President Woodrow Wilson (Merrill Peiffer) for federal legislation. Their efforts draw national attention and thousands, including Ida B. Wells (Danyel Fulton), whose stunning anthem “Wait My Turn” pushes back at the racist undertones in the movement in both camps.

Wilson relents and meets with the Suffs, but no action is forthcoming. Years pass and the threat of war and other national priorities add to the delay until Paul’s group forms the National Woman’s Party (WAP) and rallies to oppose Wilson’s reelection. Though unsuccessful, Baum’s story then turns as Wilson gets the message and begins to aggressively take political steps to stonewall the upstarts.

The universally superb all-woman cast with exceptionally powerful voices are a perfect fit for Baum’s elegant and complex sung-through score. Silverman and choreographer Mayte Natalio have staged a striking visual masterpiece on the Christine Peters designed tour set based on Riccardo Hernandez Broadway version with resplendent costumes by Paul Tazewell, Lap Chi Chu’s stunning lighting and Jason Crystal’s crisp sound design.

There must be something in the water in the Green Mountains of my home state of Vermont. Baum, a Waitsfield native who ten years ago appeared as one of the Fates in “Hadestown”—written by another Vermont native, Anaïs Mitchell—created a remarkably, cinematic treatment of the suffragist movement that reflects sharply on the present moment. “Suffs” is and will always be, a rallying call to the next generation and to the legions of mothers and grandmothers who came before and were in jubilant solidarity on Wednesday night at the CIBC and is not to be missed. It is a nod to the past and an ode to the future, all summed in the lyric: “The old way always dies. The young are at the gate!”

PHOTO|Joan Marcus

Broadway in Chicago
presents
National Tour
SUFFS
CIBC Theatre
18 W Monroe
through July 19, 2026

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PicksInSix Review - Water for Elephants-Broadway in Chicago

‘WATER FOR ELEPHANTS’ IS TRUNKING AMAZING!
PicksInSix® Review | Guest Contributor | Catey Sullivan

Chicago’s Nederlander Theatre may well be the most thematically appropriate venue in the country for the first national tour of “Water for Elephants.” The endlessly ornate venue opened in 1926, a scant five years before the musical based on Sara Gruen’s 1931-set novel about a travelling circus trying to outrun the Great Depression. There are literally elephants in the vestibule of the 100-year-old Nederlander, their tusked heads holding orb-like lamps. There’s also at least one elephant built into the house, a fanciful pachyderm amid the sea of gryphons and other fantastical creatures sculpted into the walls around the seats.

It’s a marvel of an interior, and a place that ups the ambiance in the stellar production (book by Rick Elice, music and lyrics by Pigpen Theatre Co.) running through July 5. There are a few significant departures from the novel, including the inexplicable decision to excise a pivotal plot point involving the Brookfield Zoo. Directed by Ryan Emmons (original direction by Jessica Stone) “Water for Elephants” is a whiz-bang of a show, beguiling, jaw-dropping, and irresistible.

Crucially, an astounding array of circus acts are incorporated into a story that takes the brutal impact of the Great Depression and wraps it around a star-crossed romance, a host of indelible circus folk and, obviously, an elephant. Shana Carroll’s circus design has cast members flying on wings of billowing silk, spinning on gleaming hoops and acrobat-ing up and down 15(ish)-foot pools. There are jugglers, burlesque dancers, roustabouts and extraordinary puppet creatures (designed by Ray Wetmore, JR Goodman and Camille LaBarre) that look every bit as sentient as the humans on stage. Rosie is the showpiece with massive lumbering legs, a swinging trunk and expressive, saucer-large eyes.

The cast knows its business: As Jacob Jankowski, who joins the circus after his parents die, Zachary Keller delivers just the right mix of vulnerability and leading man bravissimo. The love interest is Marlena (Helen Krushinski, navigating the score’s treacherous modulations with ease) who performs, trains, befriends and tries to protect Rosie. Working against her: the villainous ringmaster August (Connor Sullivan), whose final confrontation with Rosie is immensely satisfying. But arguably the most memorable member of this rag-tag troop is Walter the clown. Tyler West is a hilarious showstopper, combining physical slapstick and rapid-fire wit and impeccable comic timing. West has one of the best, most ridiculous death scenes I’ve seen in 35 years of reviewing musicals. (He’s actually got a couple of death scenes, it’s the first one that’s snort-level side-splitting.)

Pigpen’s score is a terrific mix of up-tempo, energized, stunt-filled numbers (the all-hands on deck opening “Prologue”) slower, fluid ballad-like tunes (Krushinski’s flowing “Easy”) that come with a dream-like quality.

“Water for Elephants” unfolds as a memory, bookended by Jacob as an elderly man (Robert Tully) from the nursing home he is desperate to get out of. The show then gracefully vacillates between soft-focus beauty and vivid detail. Either way, the production is—if not the most spectacular show on earth—surely one of the best musicals on the tour circuit.

GUEST CONTRIBUTOR | CATEY SULLIVAN has been covering Chicago theater for more than 30 years. Her work has been published in the Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago Reader, Windy City Times, Playbill, Chicago Magazine, Chicago Tribune and New City, among others. She has an MFA in creative writing from the University of Illinois. 

PHOTO|Matthew Murphy for MurphyMade

Broadway in Chicago
presents
WATER FOR ELEPHANTS
James M. Nederlander Theatre
through July 5, 2026

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PicksInSix Review: Catch as Catch Can - Steppenwolf Theatre Company

Diabolically Clever “Catch” Turns On Dime
PicksInSix® Review | Guest Contributor | Ronald Keaton

What a challenging piece of theatre this is. Three actors play six different characters in Mia Chung's diabolically clever play “Catch as Catch Can,” now playing at Steppenwolf's Downstairs Theatre through July 12. In director Amy Morton’s eloquent staging, the solid trio of actors play two characters each. They offer an adult child and a parent—a son to the mother or a daughter to the father. We jump genders and ages, even while standing alone.

There are two families, close friends and all, the Phelans and the Lavecchias. They welcome home a kind of prodigal son, setting off an evolving crisis that reshapes their lives and, as we discover, the play itself. In Mia Chung’s play, three actors perform across race, gender, and generation—a family drama that doubles as a theatrical tour-de-force. It's a fascinating stew of six disparate personalities who are a lot of fun to observe—until they cease to be.

A startling shift kicks into gear midway into this trip through a history of the families, when Tim shares an unnerving revelation about his fiancée Mingjin with Daniela that changes everything. It shades the play toward a much more sobering, sad realization. The family dynamics here intertwine and are as changeable as the weather. But as we discover the secret, we also witness this man's hellbent personal self-destruction and mental illness. It's uncomfortable to observe and hard to follow. The mental, emotional breakdown throws the entire story askew, and we are asked to live now in a different kind of reality.

What seems at first like a family comedy takes a sharp turn that rips apart not only the person who suffers from it, but the fabric of the play itself.  The sudden, emotional separation from the comedic turns is damned scary and often disorienting. Confusion does indeed reign, as the work of communicating a sense of chaos only makes blurry the lines of the dual identities the actors are asked to do.  And that double-casting, as utilized here, aspires to be more than a gimmick. It is, in fact, central to what the show wants to share about what people do or do not get from family.

When all is said and done, we wonder why. This is indeed challenging material that few theatres in existence would try so fully. There are three of the best onstage, too—Gary Cole, Tim Hopper and Audrey Francis. The stagecraft, the acting, the technical aspects, all of these are up to Steppenwolf's expected brilliance. Director Morton is a veritable genius in helping her actors delineate character, often in the same body playing two different people.

But the play itself—and from one of our great, innovative playwrights in the theatre—trips over such cleverness and innovation. “Catch as Catch Can” is well worth seeing. But what one takes from it might be as strange and difficult as the situation itself. Then again, maybe that's the point. Humanity is, after all, often a chaotic condition, which would then make such creativity here worthwhile.

GUEST CONTRIBUTOR | RONALD KEATON received an Equity Jeff Award for the performance of his one-man show CHURCHILL at: www.solochicagotheatre.com.  Coming soon, his new solo play about Ben Franklin, THE FIRST EMBASSY.

PHOTO|Michael Brosilow

Steppenwolf Theatre Company
presents
Catch as Catch Can
Downstairs Theater
1650 N. Halsted St.
through July 12

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PicksInSix Review: Leopoldstadt - Writers Theatre

Stoppard’s ‘Leopoldstadt’ Brings History To Life.
PicksInSix® Review | Guest Contributor | Catey Sullivan

Like the rest of his dazzling work, Tom Stoppard’s final play “Leopoldstadt” contains worlds within worlds within worlds. Like “Arcadia,” “Leopoldstadt” is silvered through with the arcs of mind-bending poetics of physics and higher mathematics. Like “Rock n Roll,” it illuminates the unfathomable cruelty and slaughter of genocidal fascists. And like every drama Stoppard penned, family, death, philosophy, history, art history and existential crisis skein together to create a dense, intense depiction of humankind that’s both general and acutely specific. 

Spanning roughly 56 years from 1899 through 1955, “Leopoldstadt” shows the impact of two wars on a sprawling wealthy Jewish family that is brutally stripped of both wealth and decimated almost entirely by the Holocaust. Leopoldstadt, Vienna is the family home in 1899, but Stoppard crosses oceans with this epic, intimate drama. After the Anschluss, the fortunate go into exile. The rest are herded to the death camps. It falls to the family’s few survivors—scattered across Britain, New York and Europe—to remember the dead, come to terms with their losses and forge futures.

With a 24-person ensemble (plus five understudies), a nearly three-hour run time and more than 400 Alex Jaeger costume elements, “Leopoldstadt” is one of the largest productions Writers Theatre has tackled over the course of its 35-year history. Running through August 9 at the Glencoe venue, the drama’s dense thickets of exposition are at times overwhelming, and a bit laborious. Despite that, director Carey Perloff’s staging cuts to the quick more than a few times. “Leopoldstadt” brings history to life through a remarkable, relatable family.

That said, “Leopoldstadt” can be frustrating here, especially when it comes to keeping track of characters as they age from infancy to retirement. It’s a richer, more gratifying experience if you’re well-versed in the family tree contained in the program. But if you’re not, “Leopoldstadt” remains a compelling dive into humankind’s most grotesque and hateful inclinations as well as its ability to survive even when your government is openly campaigning to destroy you and everyone you hold dear.

This all sounds grim, but—as ever with Stoppard—“Leopoldstadt” is often undeniably humorous. Writer’s cast is a league of champions. Among the many standouts: Barbara E. Robertson as matriarch Grandma Emilia, a steely and regal figure. Kate Fry is heartbreaking as Gretl, a Christian who married into the family. Before the first world war, Gretl is a glamorous young woman who sits for Klimt, one of the most important artists to come out of Vienna. (Gretl’s portrait becomes a key plot late in the story). When we see Gretl decades later, she’s transformed: Wild-haired and mentally ill, newly escaped from a mental institution. The traumas she endured are not specified, but anyone with a grasp of basic history will grasp the nature of what she’s surely endured. And as Rosa, one of the family’s few survivors, Jessie Fisher gets the last passage of dialogue, and it is a gut-punch. In a monotone and with a face of near stone, she lists the names of each family member who died during the Holocaust, and where they were ultimately killed.

The Writers production of “Leopoldstadt” doesn’t have the grandeur (or, ostensibly, the budget) of the Broadway production, especially in the 1899 scene when the burgeoning family has gathered for Christmas.  Set designer Ken MacDonald doesn’t quite capture the expanse or lavishness one would expect from the (initially) wealthy family. That’s not a major issue. Writers does a competent, often dazzling, job with “Leopoldstadt.”  The history it tackles is currently being denied by wide swaths of the population—which makes the challenging, engaging drama all the more important. 

GUEST CONTRIBUTOR | CATEY SULLIVAN has been covering Chicago theater for more than 30 years. Her work has been published in the Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago Reader, Windy City Times, Playbill, Chicago Magazine, Chicago Tribune and New City, among others. She has an MFA in creative writing from the University of Illinois. 

PHOTO|Michael Brosilow

Writers Theatre
presents
LEOPOLDSTADT
325 Tudor Court
Glencoe, IL
EXTENDED through August 16, 2026

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PicksInSix Review: Brokeback Mountain - Chicago Shakespeare Theater

‘BROKEBACK’ – There Is Never Enough Time.
PicksInSix® Review | Ed Tracy

The North American premiere of Ashley Robinson’s "Brokeback Mountain" now playing in Chicago Shakespeare Theater's Courtyard Theater, directed by Jonathan Butterell, stays meticulously true to Annie Proulx’s short story that appeared in the New Yorker in 1997, a publishing event that transformed the mainstream platform for gay and queer storytelling forever after. Eight years would pass before Ang Lee’s 2005 film adaptation starring the late Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal which was nominated for eight Academy Awards winning three for Adapted Screenplay, Original Score and Ang’s direction.

As much a tragic gay love story as it is a reflection of the consequences of the chilling homophobic mores of the times, "Brokeback Mountain" is set in 1963 in the American West and follows the 20-year affair of two men, living separate, unfulfilled lives except for their regular liaisons that began on Brokeback when they were tending a sheep herd. It is a fragile and fraught long-range plan because, as one prophetically mourns, "There is never enough time."

The two men—Ennis Del Mar (Harrison Ball) and Jack Twist (Jack Cameron Kay—share troubled histories. Jack aspires for a career in the rodeo and makes ends meet picking up what work he can along the way. Abused and grossly humiliated as a child, when Jack meets Ennis he sees and feels an irresistible attraction for the introspective camp cook who is engaged to be married and appears to be conflicted on many levels. Ennis is under-employed as a cook and aspires for a farm and spread of his own. With their shared futures and the isolation of the situation, they forge a meaningful connection and one thing leads to another on Brokeback. The story then jumps forward four years when the two reunite at Jack’s urging. As the years roll on, it becomes less likely that a life together will dispel Ennis's fear of the kind of retribution his father was capable of when he was growing up. Ball and Kay give fine performances, with Ball’s reserved, guilt-ridden demeanor seeming to melt away with Kay’s carefree, eager, yet vulnerable, insistence keeping some lingering hope alive that things might work out.

Ennis's wife Alma Del Mar (a powerful and moving performance by Cordelia Dewdney) and Joe Aguirre (Thomas Cox), the sheep rancher, hold the key to the evolving drama of the story. Both discover the affair in different ways and impart as much to Ennis and Jack. It is Jack who becomes increasingly frustrated by Ennis's indifference, even as it is Jack's persistence that drives every decision Ennis makes to the point that he is stuck in a life that he largely does not want.

As for the musical elements of the show, if you are expecting a back-in-the-saddle-again-type soundtrack to these themes you would be better served to know that this is a play that incorporates Dan Gillespie Sells melodic score as a transitional element with folktale messaging. It is lyrical, performed by a small onstage band with pieces that are quite beautifully sung by the Balladeer (Kat Eggleston), who also plays a significant role at one point on stage. Cox covers multiple roles and Alina Jenine Taber rounds out the cast as Jack’s ex-wife Lureen.

Tom Pye’s multi-functional scenic design, set at a sloped angle to the Courtyard thrust stage, suggests the mountain scenes with real fire and weather elements and transforms into various other interiors. David Finn’s pastoral lighting and a somber soundscape by Christopher Shutt fit the pace that director Butterell has established for the weighty 90-minute production that has already been extended through June 28 with an additional performance added on June 16.

PHOTO|Kyle Flubacker

Chicago Shakespeare Theater
presents
North American Premiere
Brokeback Mountain
Courtyard Theater
Navy Pier
Extended through June 28, 2026

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PicksInSix Review: Clue - Broadway in South Bend

Dying For Laughs In Riotous “Clue”
PicksInSix® Review | Ed Tracy

What will strike you most at the top of the second national tour of “Clue” currently crisscrossing the country, is the massive foyer of a mansion where, in quick succession, the ensemble of characters arrive with invitation in hand and are then whisked off into a non-stop, comic murder mystery. And at the Broadway in South Bend opening on Friday night at the Morris Performing Arts Center, the audience was ready, willing and thoroughly entertained.

Yes, it’s a whodunit and bodies are popping up again and again until you realize there is no real mystery here, it is all for fun. This fine ensemble of comic actors who each define the familiar characters of the famous board game and 1985 film are now, well, for the most part, alive, until they are not. It is not a matter of who but when, how, and by whom, of course.

Unlike the Hasbro board game, there is only one possible conclusion in this production—original screenplay by Jonathan Lynn and book by Sandy Ruskin with additional material by Hunter Foster and Eric Price—that allows endless avenues and rabbit holes to explore along the way. Just as you think that it is all chaos and confusion, you are wrangled back on course with a twist of the knife or a fatal conk on the noggin that leads to another highly-stylized group romp from room to room.

Director Casey Hushion has the spirited company operating on full throttle for a precise 90 minutes, a mix of shock, awe and riotous antics you would expect when bodies are dropping left and right. It all unfolds on Lee Savage’s impressive and elegant mansion set with hidden doorways, expanding rooms, and spilt-second changes awash in the sights and sounds of a dark and stormy night courtesy of Ryan O’Gara’s stellar lighting design, Jeff Human’s keen sound design and all gussied up in Jen Caprio’s outrageous costumes.

The talented company who are in lock step all night are: Sarah Mackenzie Baron (Mrs. White), Adam Brett (Wadsworth), Camille Capers (Miss Scarlet), Nate Curlott (Colonel Mustard), Joseph Dalfonso (Mr. Boddy and others), TJ Lamando (Mr. Green), Madeline Raube (Mrs. Peacock), AT Sanders (The Cook and others), Zoie Tannous (Yvette), Kebron Woodfin (The Cop and others) and Kyle Yambiro (Professor Plum). Brett’s Wadworth has one of the longest and most hilarious death scenes ever. You can see that kind of thing in every character all night long. It’s over-the-top, just-for-laughs and it all flies by.

Coming up in the week ahead: the “Clue” tour travels to the Weill Center in Sheboygan, Wisconsin (6/1-2); the Ferguson Center for the Arts in Newport News, Virginia (6/4); the Clay Center in Charleston, West Virginia (6/5); and, the Koger Center for the Arts in Columbia, South Carolina (6/6-7) where they will be dying for laughs every night.

PHOTO | Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade.jpg

Broadway in South Bend
presents
Clue
Morris Performing Arts Center
211 N Michigan Street
South Bend, Indiana
through May 31, 2026

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PicksInSix Review: DEATHTRAP - Dunes Summer Theatre

Dunes Lands with Comically Macabre ‘DEATHTRAP’
PicksInSix® Review | Ed Tracy

The Dunes Summer Theatre, northwest Indiana’s longest-running summer theater program, kicked off the 75th season this weekend in high style with Ira Levin’s “DEATHTRAP” directed by Michael Lasswell and starring Kevin Lee Giese as Sidney Bruhl, the washed-up playwright who will do anything to get back to Broadway with a hit.

The 1978 play ran for four years on Broadway and still stands as the longest running comedy-thriller in Broadway history. At the Dunes, you can certainly see why the show has made such a mark over the years. It is a fast-paced series of surprising plot-twists and chilling turns that take place a few hours north of Manhattan in the study of the Bruhl’s carriage house in Westport, Connecticut that has been meticulously designed by Lasswell including an impressive array of weapons and a fair amount of surprises all its own. It is here that Bruhl and his wife Myra (Jann Iaco) discuss the play that Bruhl’s former student Clifford Anderson (Michael Bond) has sent to him for review and comment. That all leads to Anderson coming later in the evening and the wrapping—and unravelling—of the story.

Early on, Helga ten Dorp (Janet Davies), the Bruhls’ eccentric Dutch neighbor, arrives and quickly reveals her psychic abilities, sensing the present and hinting at what lies ahead. From there, the play within the play seems to unfold in a familiar way—or does it?

At the center of the story is Giese’s Bruhl who is consumed by the brilliant work that Bond’s Anderson has created, urging him to join forces to insure a successful Broadway production. Levin uses Bruhl’s desperation and excessive actions as a mirror mixed with satire of the toxic, competitive atmosphere at the time where wealth and greed challenged creativity at every level. Bond is terrific in the role of the talented newcomer, affable and engaging at the outset, a perfect counter to the brooding and manipulative Griese whose tightly wound Bruhl threatens to explode at any minute.

The play hinges on Iaco’s Myra and the Bruhl’s attorney, Porter Milgrim played by Steven Kozelka, but the sparkling performance of the night goes to the effervescent Davies who plays Helga with unbridled passion and a comic sheen that is truly captivating.

Lasswell’s superb set design is enhanced by Arturo Pozos’s unmatched lighting, a brilliant soundscape by Jake Tillman and a warehouse of interesting properties by Sarah Brown that make this show another stunning visual feast for the Dunes Summer Theatre.

PHOTO|Tony V. Martin

Dunes Summer Theatre
presents
DEATHTRAP
288 Shady Oak Dr
Michigan City, IN
through June 14, 2026

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PicksInSix Review: South Pacific - Paramount Theatre

“There Is Nothin’ Like A Dame!”
PicksInSix® Review | Ed Tracy

The first decade of the impressive creative collaboration of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II spawned “Oklahoma! (1943),” “Carousel (1945),” “Allegro (1947),” “South Pacific (1949)” and “The King and I (1951).” Many followed—including “The Sound of Music (1959),” shortly before Hammerstein’s death—characterized by lush vocal arrangements, robust orchestrations and stories that challenged social norms. These stories, in some cases based on real people, changed how their audience viewed musicals, peeling back our own biases and revealing the raw, powerful emotions of love, loss and survival.

“Oklahoma!” received a special Pulitzer Prize Citation in 1944 for elevating the art form, but it was “South Pacific” that earned the 1950 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, one of only ten musicals to date to hold that distinction. Beyond the memorable score and compelling story adapted from James A. Michener’s own Pulitzer Prize winning novel “Tales of the Pacific” with the steady hand of Joshua Logan, the musical was controversial, epic and a colossal success, running for 1,925 performances.

And now, over 75 years later, the soaring melodies at the heart of “South Pacific,” as evidenced by the exceptional production now playing at the Paramount Theatre in Aurora, still stay with you long after the final curtain. The Devon Hayakawa|Trent Stork directed revival stars the diminutive powerhouse Allsun O’Mallory as Nellie Forbush and a commanding performance by Devin Archer as Emile De Becque who find love on a south seas island during World War II.

The other love story, the developing relationship between Lt. Joseph Cable (Anthony Maggio) and Liat (Louisa Darr), leads to De Becque and Cable forming an alliance and teaming up for a dangerous mission to gather information on enemy positions and movements in the region, a serious departure from the fun and frivolity early on.

With a cast of over thirty, many making their first appearance at Paramount, and more than a dozen musicians under the musical direction of Kory Danielson who conducts, this is as massive a production of this classic that you will see. With Morgan DiFonzo’s fast-paced choreography, particularly in the O’Mallory-led ensemble numbers “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair,” and “I’m In Love With A Wonderful Guy,” and in the high-flying “Honey Bun” showcasing the belly-dancing skills of Matthew Michael Janisse who shines as the hilarious wheeler-dealer Seabee Luther Billis. Competing for Billis’s business is Liat’s mother Bloody Mary played by Cindy Chang, who pushes grass skirts and shrunken heads for a price while scheming to match her daughter with a husband. Mary’s tender homage to the mysterious island of “Bali Ha’i” lures Cable there to find and fall for Liat, that has all the signs of an ill-fated match.

It is Cable’s somber “You’ve Got To Be Carefully Taught” that strikes at the prejudicial core of “South Pacific,” both in his relationship with Liat and between Nellie and Emile. O’Mallory’s “A Cockeyed Optimist” and Archer’s “Some Enchanted Evening” and “This Nearly Was Mine” are terrific. And the always boisterous and bawdy “There Is Nothin’ Like A Dame” does not disappoint, amped up a bit here by some very buff Seabee-like types who have definitely been on an island by themselves too long. It’s all in good fun and what makes Paramount Theatre’s “South Pacific” an enchanting evening out for the whole family.

PHOTO|Boris Martin

Paramount Theatre
presents
Rodgers and Hammerstein’s
SOUTH PACIFIC
23 East Galena Boulevard
Aurora, IL
through June 14, 2026

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PicksInSix Review: The Merry Wives of Windsor - Chicago Shakespeare Theater

Delightfully Devious Duo Meets Rotund Rapscallion!
PicksInSix® Review | Ed Tracy

Directed with comic zeal by Phillip Breen and featuring Jason Simon in a terrific performance as the rotund rapscallion Sir John Falstaff, Chicago Shakespeare Theater’s lively production of “The Merry Wives of Windsor” is a rip-roaring farce if ever there was one. Set in modern times that often stretch the imagination, the sparkling cast delivers a robustly-paced theatrical gem on Navy Pier!  

Breen’s familiarity with the challenging material pays off. He has certainly discovered every intended comic opportunity—and countless others for good measure—and hits the mark at every turn, all centered around the dubious exploits of Simon’s Falstaff that fail like clockwork, not once, but three times at the hands of the delightfully devious duo of Mistress Ford (Issy Van Randwyck) and Mistress Page (Ora Jones). From the moment they receive identical love letters from Sir John, the two work in tandem to cook his goose while remaining undetected by their husbands, Master Page (Chiké Johnson) and Master Ford (Timothy Edward Kane), despite suspicions to the contrary. Aye, there’s the rub!

Who could blame them for their playful mischievousness? Falstaff’s overt desires turn away his entourage (the entertaining trio of Bardolph (Teddy Gales), Pistol (Colin Huerta), and Nym (Zack Bloomfield)—leaving him vulnerable to the combined forces of the merry wives and the spirited Mistress Quickly (a charming role for Nancy Voigts). As a result, Falstaff must unwittingly fend for himself, eluding discovery by the jealous Ford (Kane) by stuffing his magnificence in a laundry box that is later tossed away in the Thames and then forced to don lady’s clothing and endure an unseen thrashing during a hasty retreat. Throughout, Simon’s Falstaff is never the victim, but rather a hapless fop, like a dog with bone, easily swayed by flattery and the promise of passionate fulfillment. When he concedes a third time to a meeting in Windsor Park, now in the guise of “Herne the Hunter” with everyone in on the ruse, Falstaff is finally, and publicly, humiliated for his transgressions, and must makes amends.

In addition to the brilliant performances by Randwyck, Jones and Kane, the cast is loaded with Chicago talent from top to bottom including Nick Sandys (Sir Hugh Andrews), Paul Oakley Stovall (Justice Shallow), Alex Weisman (Slender), Nate Burger (Dr. Caius) and Bret Tuomi (Host of the Garter Inn). In the love story, Oliva Pryor is an earnest Anne Page, whose marital future lies with one of three suitors, Caius, Slender and Fenton, who is played by Sam Bell-Gurwitz, and is the true object of her affections.

Rich scenic and lavish costume designs by Max Jones—particularly the Ford’s elegant home, the Garter Inn and in the haunting Windsor Park—are visually striking with notable surprises dropping down from above and phoning in from below. The Jentes Family Courtyard Theatre is awash in Marcus Doshi’s crisp lighting design and the lush soundscape by Lindsay Jones, with the clever use of some contemporary songs that bust out along the way.

All in, Shakes “Merry Wives” is at its’ very merry best when Simon is uproariously navigating the fine line of reckless passion and the resulting over-the-top antics set in motion by the far superior wives who keep us rooting for his inevitable comeuppance. From his larger-than-life grand entrance to his humbling demise, Simon delivers a flawless performance and rightly receives a glorious and genuinely warm last laugh for his efforts, sprinkled with a tender touch of finality for one of Shakespeare’s most enduring characters.

PHOTO|Kyle Flubacker

Chicago Shakespeare Theater
presents
The Merry Wives of Windsor
Navy Pier
through May 3, 2026

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PicksInSix Gold Review: Ma Rainey's Black Bottom - Goodman Theatre

Stunning ‘Ma Rainey’ Revival at Goodman!
PicksInSix® Gold Review | Ed Tracy

The 1982 drama “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom”—August Wilson’s study of Black music and culture in Chicago during the tumultuous 1920s—is the only one of ten plays in Wilson’s landmark Century Cycle set outside of Pittsburgh. The epic 1997 Goodman production, directed by Chuck Smith in collaboration with Wilson, looms largely at the top of a list of bold and inspiring productions in the rich 100-year history of the theater.

It’s difficult to discern if Wilson’s brilliant work shines brighter through Chicago’s gritty undertones or if the heart of Chicago theater beats more profoundly by Wilson’s attention. One thing is clear: the powerful force of Wilson’s legacy has helped to both expose and define the harsh realities of racial inequality and social injustice in America, whenever and wherever his plays are performed. And this production, at this time in Chicago with its phenomenal cast, provides a brilliant opportunity to experience the emotional thrust, the preciseness of the lyrical dialogue and the realization of Wilson’s complex characters.

Both director Smith and associate director and music director Harry Lennix, who played Levee in the 1997 production, have returned to forge the stunning revival that opened Monday night in the Albert. It is a story about the true-to-life presence of Ma Rainey (E. Faye Butler) whose unequalled talent and rebellious influence on the music of the era reflects the challenges that run through all of Wilson’s work. It is also a piece that has stood the test of time, as powerful and gripping a drama today as then with a dream team of a cast.

It’s March 1927 and Ma Rainey and her band—Sylvester (Jabrai Khaliq), Levee (Al’Jaleel McGhee), Toledo (Kelvin Roston Jr.) and Slow Drag (Cedric Young)—are gathering at a Southside recording studio run by Sturdyvant (Matt DeCaro) to record a new album. Ma’s manager Cutler (David Alan Anderson) must deal with Sturdy’s impatience when Ma and her entourage—nephew Irvin (Marc Grapey) and the sultry Dussie Mae (Tiffany Renee Johnson)—who are nowhere to be found.

In the meantime, Slyvester, Toledo and Slow Drag get along well in the rehearsal room, each loyal to Ma’s powerful influence and committed to doing the job they have been hired to do. The dynamic changes significantly when Levee arrives, decked out in his new shoes and emboldened by Sturdy’s commitment to use his arrangements with a promise to record other songs with a band of his own. The others don’t buy it, even when Cutler tells them that the decision to use Levee’s arrangements has been made.

That conversation sets the stage for Ma’s blistering arrival and the realization that there is only one opinion that matters in the room. Ma Rainey arrives in a whirlwind of commotion, driven by the presence of policeman (Scott Aiello) who wants to arrest Ma for a traffic accident on the way to the studio. To nobody’s surprise, the unfolding plans for the session do not jive at all with Ma either. The band is sent back down for rehearsal with Irvin, who will be doing things Ma’s way, despite Irvin’s pronounced speech impediment.

The conflict comes to a head when Ma and Levee face off on the direction of the recording of her signature piece “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.” Levee represents a new and innovative talent in jazz music but blindly resists the notion that white recording producers are only in it for themselves. Ma Rainey and her contemporaries in the band recognize that they will receive only token payments and little respect for their work, while Levee’s hopes continue to be dashed at virtually every turn, fueled by deep-seated images of his youth that eventually prove to be inescapable.

The true power of Wilson’s work lies in Levee’s struggles. McGhee’s commanding performance fires on every cylinder in the challenging role, as the emotionally unhinged Levee shifts on a slow burn from impassioned musician to deranged psychopath, the helpless victim of his own violent and embattled childhood.

The production runs expertly through Butler’s super-charged performance as Rainey, alternating between her larger-than-life presence, striking fear in virtually everyone within earshot, to her mesmerizing vocal’s and the touchingly quiet reflective moments where Butler peels back the public image and shares Rainey’s innermost feelings with Sylvester. Director Smith’s pacing expertly elevates the lighthearted exchanges and so solidly stages this drama that, at the most gripping moments, you can hear a pin drop.

It all unfolds on Linda Buchanan’s gritty set design, an urban, tri-level structure capped by a control room above the main recording studio that is connected by stairs to a lower level rehearsal room. Jared Gooding’s stylized lighting design defines the areas and extends beyond the staged interior providing a reminder of the Chicago streets just outside the door. Evelyn M. Danner’s costumes expertly evoke the period, especially Ma Rainey’s resplendent ensemble. The music direction under Lennix features orchestrations by Dwight Andrews and sound design by Rob Milburn and Michael Bodeen, all placing Goodman Theatre’s “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” at the top of the list for shows to see right now in Chicago.

PHOTO|Justin Barbin

Goodman Theatre
presents
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
Albert Theatre
170 N Dearborn
Extended through May 3, 2026

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PicksInSix Q & A: Mrs. Doubtfire's Craig Allen Smith and Ava Rose Doty

Mrs. Doubtfire's Craig Allen Smith and Ava Rose Doty
PicksInSix® Q & A | Ed Tracy

When “Mrs. Doubtfire” sweeps into the Morris Performing Arts Center in South Bend for four shows March 13-15, Craig Allen Smith will be heading up a company that has been on the touring circuit for well over seven months. Smith, who lives in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, leads the company in his first national in the titular role made famous in the film by Robin Williams and on Broadway by Rob McClure. Smith freely admits that those are large shoes to fill but has approached the role from a fresh perspective all his own developed with director Stephen Edlund.

When we met on a recent Zoom call, we were joined by a mighty mite named Ava Rose Doty, who hails from Downers Grove, Illinois, and shares the role of Natalie Hillard in the show. Brimming with energy for the early morning chat, Ava, whose regional credits include Tiny Tim in “A Christmas Carol” and Young Tommy in The Who’s “Tommy,” both at Goodman Theatre, is indeed one of the most charming young performers you will ever meet and a font of information about her own first road tour experience.

Our conversation was a unique opportunity to explore a generational perspective of the tour from two performers who get along as well off stage as on.

The following conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

E Tracy: What was it like the first day you did the show and then knowing that you have to do another show tomorrow in another city?

CA Smith: It was definitely a learning curve in terms of trying to figure out how to pack for your life on tour in terms of making sure you have all the things you need, and then realizing I didn't need half of the things that I packed! Being on the bus for like six hours, then getting into the theater, having to do soundcheck, and then an hour later to just be on and do the show. That was a new thing for me.

AR Doty: It's my first tour too. We were in New York City, and then we went to Elmira, New York to do tech week, and then we went to Boston to do opening night. And when we were moving to those three cities—we were in New York City for a month—it was fun to go explore. When we were traveling to Elmira the tour hadn't really started yet. We were moving a lot after opening night. City to city to city. Those one-nighters are rough.

ET: Was that your first trip to New York, Ava?

ARD: I had been to New York for a lot for auditions, callbacks and seeing shows, but this was my first time in New York for rehearsals for a tour.

ET: And you are splitting the role?

ARD: Yes. Our show is double cast, so every other show a different kid goes on. The other girl is named Vivian (Atencio). We have four kids. We all do school, hotel, bus, airplane, theater and we have a tutor on tour and do online school programs.

ET: Craig, this is an ambitious role. You have not only 30 plus costume changes, but you have quite a legacy to live up to. How did you approach putting Mrs. Doubtfire together?

CAS: Well, when I first met (director) Steve Edlund, we had a Doubtfire Bootcamp week. I came in along with Chaz, my understudy, and we had a week-long, eight-hour-a-day work session with the production team, the music director, choreographer, and Steve. We worked through the show from top to bottom. Rob (McClure) had done this on Broadway and again on the first national tour. I purposely didn't watch (his performance on video) because I am such a sponge. I wanted to work with Steve and be a clean slate.

I know the movie very well, like everybody, and we wanted to pay tribute to Robin and his legacy. A lot of the stuff Steve and I worked together might still be what Rob did. I don't know. I still don't know to this day if we're doing the same kind of bits and stuff. It was a great working experience with Steve to put together the story and to be able to create both of those characters, not only Daniel, but also Mrs. Doubtfire. The respect that Steve has for both characters, especially Mrs. Doubtfire is really great… his love for the characters is just so infectious that the weight of “I'm playing Mrs. Doubtfire!” was almost lifted off of me because we're just going to work, the two of us together, and make this what it is.

ET: It is one of those all-consuming roles. You are on stage all the time. If you are not on stage, you are changing to go on stage.

CAS: And if something goes wrong you literally can't think about anything. You have to constantly stay in the moment for each scene because the minute you start thinking, “Oh, I screwed that up!” there's five other moments that have just passed that are getting missed because you're thinking about something else.

ARD: Yeah. When stuff happens, you just improv.

CAS: Just improv. We keep going. The show must go on.

ET: What is the biggest thrill for you, Ava? What part of the show do you like more than any other?

ARD: I really like doing ‘What the Hell’ the song that all the kids sing at the beginning when they first have Mrs. Doubtfire as their nanny. That one is always really fun to sing with all the kids. I also like the opening because there's so much stuff happening.

CAS: That opening number moves a lot. We have a lot of different pieces that have to come together to make that opening number work.

ET: Have you been dancing all your life?

ARD: When I'm home, I take dance lessons and I started taking them when I was littler. My sister does ballet now and I take jazz contemporaries with theater, hip hop, that type of stuff.

CAS: I was married to a dance instructor and then we split.

ET: Craig, there is additional background research you've already completed for this role.

CAS: Right.

ET: All of the things that are happening in the show, the longing for a family and acceptance pieces, they are all interwoven… and being an out-of-work actor probably is something just about every actor knows about.

CAS: Right? Yeah. Their original child wrangler who was helping in New York City came up to me one day and he said “Do you feel like everything in your life has led up to this moment in this role?” And, honestly, I never thought about that, but thinking about it now, yes, literally everything in my life. I'm a divorced dad with two kids from a previous marriage. At one point I'm throwing footballs… I’m playing with a loop machine on stage, and I used to make music in college with a four track! Any actor would be like you're going to throw football, you're going to record this stuff. I was not afraid of anything except for the quick changes because that was a timing thing. You have to get these changes in under 30 seconds. I've never done quick changes this fast in my life, but, fortunately, I have a team that helps me.

ET: I think as we get older—and we're a generation apart—we realize that almost everything you take on is the product of everything that has come before. We only just get better, hopefully. You get a little bit more used to it. I think Ava's going to find that out probably at the end of this tour when she starts to do the next tour.

ARD: Right, right.

ET: It is quite a thing to be of a certain age and be on tour. There are a lot of things that you are accomplishing that kids your age never have an opportunity to do. So that's really exciting.

CAS: It is very impressive. Not only do they have to do schoolwork, but then they have to be on every night to do the show. And even if they are not in the show, they are backstage in case something, God forbid, happens and they have to go on.

ARD: Knock on wood!

ET: Ava, do you have 30 costume changes too?

ARD: No, I only have one every scene and they are not that quick for me. Not as quick as Craig's. The only quick one is when we go from the nightmare sequence ‘Playing with Fire’ to ‘La Rosa.’

ET: Do you have fun every night, Ava? Do you get nervous before you go out or are you cool?

ARD: I have been doing this for seven months. I feel like I've gotten more used to my character and I can start adding more things and taking away.

CAS: And when you keep doing it for seven months, you're finding new ways to keep things fresh.

ET: I want to tell you that when I was your age, I was making choices between peanut butter or peanut butter and jelly.

CAS: Honestly. Same.

ET: So, Craig, how many people are on this changing team?

CAS: I have two dressers. One—they call her the ‘Star Dresser’—is Nicole, who is in charge of all of my costumes. And then I have a wig and the mask dresser. Her name is Emily and she helps me get in and out of the wig and mask for each change. And then, for each venue we go to, we acquire one local dresser who will help like zip-up and put shoes on. It's a well-oiled machine. We got it down.

ET: That mask is really an innovative piece of this puzzle. Not a part of regular musical theater.

CAS: No. And I was wondering because I never acted with any sort of prosthetics. I didn't know how it was going to feel and if I was going to be able to communicate the story well enough with this thing on my face. But it really does feel like a second skin. The way that they have crafted it, a nose piece with an opening for the mouth and there is a strap so you have access to my eyes and my mouth and everything. It is pretty impressive the way they came up with this design.

ET: Do you wear a mask, Ava?

ARD: No, I don't. I have hair clips if that counts!

ET: A national tour is a big deal for any actor at any level.

CAS: We have been going for seven months now. I broke my toe in December literally two weeks before Christmas. They sent me home. I kept going through the rest of the acts and because of having to get in and out of high heels, they decided that I just go home and heal. So, my understudy is a champion, went on and did four weeks up until the Christmas break so I had time to heal. We had a week-long sit down in Jacksonville and we got to go to Disney World for a day. We look forward to the week-long sit downs. You have to plan out things to look forward to down the road.

ET: Ava, do you look for a certain thing when you get to a city? The best place to eat, a museum or Disneyland?

ARD: If we are in a city long enough and we have a day off, or a day with only one show where we have time, we try to look for fun things for the kids to do. If there is a pool there or we might go bowling or Disney, museums, the aquarium and we went on a ghost tour once. The kids like to collect stickers from each city or something to remember the city or find a little souvenir to bring back to their family.

ET: Do the community members along the way reach out to the cast and include them in some local activities?

ARD: One time we did a canned food drive. We have lots of interviews. One time they cooked us all a meal.

DAS: In Jacksonville, I got to go as Mrs. Doubtfire to a lot of local businesses. There was a pie shop, funny enough, so we pretended to make a pie. There was a chocolate factory. I was dipping pretzels in chocolate. It was cool to explore these different communities.

ET: This is a really unique character, Craig. You get to play both sides of your life. You're an actor, but also you are playing this person on stage who is creating a new reality. What is the audience reaction to what you are doing on stage, the separation of these two characters? What is the most satisfying part of that for you?

DAS: The show moves so fast that I really don't have time to reflect on anything. I love getting the audience to laugh. That's my ultimate high. Making sure I hit each of those moments and get their response is very rewarding for me. I know Steve loves to come and watch when he can. There have been a number of moments, he says, where he absolutely thinks it is the most amazing reaction. One scene I'm tricking my ex-wife, doing all these different voices and she's getting annoyed because she's looking for a babysitter and I'm pretending to be all these terrible babysitters. And then finally, I drop the Mrs. Doubtfire voice. When I first come out after we do a number where I'm trying on all these different wigs and trying to figure out what Mrs. Doubtfire is going to look like. It's called ‘Make Me a Woman.’ The whole ensemble is dancing crazy.

And when the drop comes up, the front door opens, there's Mrs. Doubtfire. Our music director said at one point there was little girl behind him. She turned to her mom and whispered, “There she is.”

PHOTO|Shelby DuPont

Broadway in South Bend
presents
Mrs. Doubtfire
Morris Performing Arts Center
211 N. Michigan Street,
South Bend, Indiana
March 13-15, 2026

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PicksInSix Review: Dear Evan Hansen - Paramount Theatre

The Struggle to Feel Less Alone.
PicksInSix® Review | Guest Contributor | Kaitlyn Linsner

We are chronically online. Profit-maximizing algorithms fuel our social media compulsions. Phones serve as digital pacifiers to distract us from discomfort, inconvenience, and simple boredom. Poor teenagers face a growing mental health crisis thanks in large part to excessive screen time. How strange yet commonplace it is to feel isolated in a world where you can connect with others via email, text, a phone call, FaceTime, TikTok, you name it.

Amidst this shared experience backdrop, “Dear Evan Hansen” touches on relatable and noteworthy topics like distorted online realities, loneliness, grief, self-acceptance, and navigating mental health struggles. But, to me, despite its overwhelming appeal, the musical format does not serve the message well. This is not a critique specific to Paramount Theatre’s new staging of “Dear Evan Hansen” directed by Jessica Fisch which is the first produced by any Chicago-area theater since the musical’s national tour. Rather, this is a critique of a plot that fails to take a deep and constructive look at issues that need that level of care and attention. Especially considering the entire story centers on Evan Hansen (Cody Combs) exploiting the suicide of a high school classmate for social clout.

What could have been a heartfelt dark comedy or biting satire is instead a confusing, sometimes funny, but mostly serious, journey through arguably misplaced sympathies for a historically beloved, socially anxious protagonist who lies with good intentions. Perhaps that is the point of “Dear Evan Hansen.” For the audience to explore moral complexities and the gray spaces of loss, compassion, and forgiveness through song and dance. How much of this meaning, though, is a projection of the audience’s own desire to connect and be seen?

The music and lyrics by Benk Pasek and Justin Paul do offer some resonating emotional depth, and the Paramount Theatre company sings each anthem beautifully, namely in “You Will Be Found.” The production’s notable performances include Evan (Combs) in the powerful and revealing “Words Fail,” Zoe Murphy (Isabel Kaegi) in the honest and raw “Requiem” and Evan’s mother Heide (Megan McGinnis) in the tender and heartfelt “So Big/So Small.” Heide ultimately saves Evan from his unraveling and McGinnis’s display of strength and vulnerability in the difficult moments is inspiring.

The impressive and digitally-heavy set by scenic designer Andrew Boyce, lighting designer Greg Hofmann and projections designer Anthony Churchill elevates the narrative and does well to display the chaos of our tech-driven lives. Director Fisch’s staging also aptly places the characters in the foreground to bring us closer to real life and the tangible experiences not available on the internet.

All in, Paramount's “Dear Evan Hansen” is polished, entertaining, and highly recommended for those who love this musical and want to experience it again and for those interested in seeing a talented company deliver an emotionally charged and bittersweet performance. For everyone else, depending on who you bring along, be prepared for a frank discussion on the way home.  

Editor’s Note: Paramount’s content advisory: This show contains mature and potentially triggering content centered on mental health issues and teenage suicide. If you or someone you know is facing mental health struggles, emotional distress, alcohol or drug use concerns, or just need someone to talk to, the caring counselors at 988 Lifeline are available for you. Call or text 988, or chat at 988lifeline.org. You are not alone.

GUEST CONTRIBUTOR | KAITLYN LINSNER serves as an Assistant Attorney General in the Public Utilities Bureau of the Office of the Illinois Attorney General.

PHOTO | Boris Martin

Paramount Theatre
presents
Chicago Regional Premiere
Dear Evan Hansen
23 East Galena Boulevard
Aurora, IL
through March 22, 2026

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PicksInSix Review: Miss Julie - Court Theatre

Trapped, Strindberg Style: Aristocratic Summer Solstice
PicksInSix® Review | Guest Contributor | Sarah Frances Fiorello

It’s been a long, hard winter here in Chicago, but on the south side at Court Theatre it is currently the longest day of the year. August Strindberg's “Miss Julie” is encapsulated night after night at the turn of the 20th century and in the warmth of midsummer’s eve, for audiences to experience now through March 8th.

The play drops in on Julie’s servants, Jean and Kristine, discussing her wildish, reckless behavior during an otherwise garish (offstage) aristocratic summer solstice. Kristine respectfully heads to bed giving way for Julie and Jean to spend an evening jockeying for position, using status, sex, and social standing as levers to pull on each other to get what they want. The situation grows more dire and claustrophobic, as we slowly become privy to the inner workings of these characters—what haunts them, what moves them, and what traps them despite their agency and overwhelming desire to escape.

Mounting Strindberg in 2026 is an academic undertaking, one that requires care and attention to not only the spirit in which he created the work, but the implications that the piece—alongside Strindberg’s Naturalist theatre movement as a whole—had in the late 1800’s. Ironically, I was put at ease with this production's EDM overture, signaling an earnest understanding that Strindberg was allergic to a comfortable night at the theatre. It says, “Welcome to our psychological experiment, we hope you brought your thinking cap.”

Our three actors carry this play with poise and certainty. Kelvin Roston Jr. shines and makes it look easy as Jean, maneuvering between emotional heavy lifting and thinly veiled subtext, all while serving as a near constant presence on stage during this one hour and 40-minute one act.  Mi Kang as Miss Julie rises to the occasion without giving way to what could easily become a two-dimensional, misogynistic, overbaked fever pitch portrayal. She moves with nuance, allowing us to feel both sorry for her and disgusted by her, often at the same time. Rebecca Spence as Kristine delivers each line with surgical precision and dripping with intentionality, offering a master class in theatrical interpretation.

The creative team equally shines here. John Culbert’s stunning scenic design is as beautiful as it is claustrophobic, echoing the emotional notes of Strindberg’s writing. Raquel Adorno’s costume design is delicate and thoughtful while Abhi Shrestha’s dramaturgical work is a cornerstone to the foundation of “Miss Julie’s” resonance. All of this under the expert direction of Dr. Gabrielle Randle-Bent, whose fingerprint is over every inch of this production. No stranger to Court Theatre (directing “A Raisin in the Sun,” “Antigone,” and “The Island”), her scholarly understanding of the work and arresting theatrical storytelling style can be felt, transmuting as one within Culbert’s earthy, organic space.

Harry G. Carlson’s translation of “Miss Julie” does more than hold up at Court Theatre. You’ll be entertained, but that is hardly the point. The actors and creative team make this undertaking look effortless, doing all the requisite work to ensure that the 130-year-old play lands squarely in your lap, offering you a chance to think critically about the themes that are as relevant today as they were at the end of the 19th century.

GUEST CONTRIBUTOR | SARAH FRANCES FIORELLO is a graduate of Shenandoah Conservatory with a BFA in Music Theatre and a Chicago-based poet, writer, and performer. 
Instagram: @writtenbysarahfrances

PHOTO | Michael Brosilow

Court Theatre
presents
Miss Julie
Abelson Auditorium
5535 S. Ellis Ave
through March 8, 2026

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PicksInSix Review: Hamnet - Royal Shakespeare Company - Chicago Shakespeare Theater

‘Hamnet’: “A Wonderous Trick of Nature”
PicksInSix® Review | Ed Tracy

The Royal Shakespeare Company’s “Hamnet”—a stunning co-production with Neal Street Productions adapted for the stage by Lolita Chakrabarti based on the best-selling novel by Maggie O’Farrell and directed by Erica Whyman—opened the US tour in The Yard at Chicago Shakespeare Theater this weekend. The captivating play imagines the courtship, marriage and family life of William Shakespeare (Rory Alexander) and Agnes Hathaway (Kemi-Bo Jacobs) and provides a fascinating fictional portrait of how Shakespeare’s plays may have been influenced by their time together and the tragic death of their young son Hamnet (Ajani Cabey).

It is, of course, the story that has received recent, multiple Oscar Award nominations for the 2025 film—a separate adaptation by Chloé Zhao, who also directed, with O’Farrell that followed the 2023 play—and places Agnes as the central figure in a family coping with separation, grief and unfathomable loss. If you have seen the film, do not expect a true-to-form stage representation but rather a compelling and emotionally-charged production that shares the same emotional space, but is itself a unique story all its own and richly told.

Despite many theories, history is sparse on Shakespeare’s personal life. Shakespeare and his first wife met, married and Agnes gave birth to a daughter, Susanna (Ava Hinds Jones) and twins Judith (Saffron Dey) and Hamnet (Cabey) in Stratford-upon-Avon. As Shakespeare’s literary career in London began to flourish, he was often away from the day-to-day life of his family. Chakrabarti’s adaption expands O’Farrell’s vision of how those early days unfolded with Shakespeare serving as a Latin tutor to local children of Agnes’s brother Bartholomew (Troy Alexander) who is owed a large debt by Shakespeare’s belligerent father John (Nigel Barrett). During their brief, passionate courtship, Agnes, who is a healer and one with nature, experiences mystical visions of her family and Shakespeare as her soulmate. Throughout the first act, there are moments of foreshadowing of the close relationship between the twins and an ominous event that hangs thick in the air.

The second act picks up a decade forward. Hamnet and Judith are the life’s blood of the home, inseparable and even indistinguishable one from the other. Shakespeare is now well-established in London at the Globe, his company performing before the Queen. Back at home on Henley Street, as Agnes waits for the family to be reunited, Judith is suddenly bed-ridden with only Hamnet there to provide comfort and care until Agnes returns to take charge. Though successful in bringing Judith through the night, Hamnet, who has challenged death to save his sister, falls ill and dies over the three days it takes Shakespeare to return.

Intermixed throughout are vignettes of the players in London, rehearsal scenes and references to Midsummer Night’s Dream, Measure for Measure and Romeo and Juliet—Barrett is hilarious as Globe actor Will Kempe—and a riveting, climactic scene from Hamlet. The shock of a public presentation of a personal tragedy rocks Agnes, compelling her to travel to London with Bartholomew to confront Shakespeare on his perceived insensitivity and discover for herself the powerful relationship between grief, loss and eternal love.

The action unfolds on a massive, multi-story post and beam scenic design that strongly evokes the Globe by Tom Piper who also designed period costumes, all of which utilize bold on-stage transformations that allow the story to move forward remarkably well despite a tendency to linger on exposition in the early going. That is a very minor point since, when the dramatic arc of the story matures, the drama erupts as Cabey’s commanding performance rises to the level of the stellar turns of Jacobs and Alexander, all leading to a revelatory conclusion—every bit as thrilling as one would expect from the world-class partnership between Royal Shakespeare Company and the Chicago Shakespeare Theater.

Audience Notice: Mature themes including scenes of domestic violence, child loss and grief, scenes of childbirth, and depictions of sexual activity.

“Hamnet” runs through March 8 on Navy Pier and then on to the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, DC (March 17- April 12, 2026), and American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco (April 22 to May 24, 2026).

PHOTO | Kyle Flubacker

Chicago Shakespeare Theater
Royal Shakespeare Company
Neal Street Productions
presents
Hamnet
The Yard
Navy Pier
through March 8, 2026

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PicksInSix Review: Holiday - Goodman Theatre

Goodman’s ‘Holiday’: An Unabashed Comic Classic!
PicksInSix® Gold Review | Ed Tracy

The scintillating Robert Falls directed Goodman Theatre world premiere production of the late Richard Greenberg’s stellar final work—a fresh, funny and thoroughly engaging adaptation of Phillip Barry’s 1928 play “Holiday”—may just be the best production of a promising young season of terrific offerings in Chicago. The timeless love story now playing through March 1 on the Albert Theater stage features an exceptional ensemble and a brilliant Walt Spangler scenic design that is a sight to behold.

The action unfolds before, during and after New Year’s 2020. Johnny Case (Luigi Sottile), a lawyer and idealist has fallen for and proposed marriage to Julia (Molly Griggs) before he was aware that she is the daughter of Edward Seton (Jordan Lage), the patriarch of New York’s wealthy Seton dynasty. Upon arrival at the Seton Mansion on Fifth Avenue, Johnny meets Julia’s older sister Linda (Bryce Gangel), a free-spirited individualist and the younger gay brother Ned (Wesley Taylor), a happy-go-lucky aristocrat with a long list of addictions.

The inevitable meeting between the elder Seton and Johnny sets the stage for the story that follows, a confrontation between the ideologies of Seton’s uber wealthy ideals that permeate the family who consider the “only thing better than a lot of money is more money,” and Johnny’s more eclectic course to have enough money to allow life to be fully lived.

The family operates more or less under the will of their father who favors Julia’s burgeoning financial career over Linda’s bohemian lifestyle in Red Hook and Ned’s inept existence at the family home. Favoritism for Julia has driven both Linda and Ned emotionally closer together with each serving as protector for the other. Things start to unravel when Linda offers to plan a quaint New Year’s Eve party to make the couple’s formal announcement only to have Julia invite a guest list in the hundreds. At the party, Linda hides away in the family’s attic playroom with Johnny, Ned, her Brooklyn friends Nikka Washburn (Christiana Clark), and Nikka’s partner, Susan Feld (Jessie Fisher). The imposing cousin, Seton Cram (Erik Hellman) and his wife Laura (Alexandra Esclante) crash the party, the wheels start to come off the wagon, and all plans for the future are up in the air.

The ensemble, which includes Rammel Chan as the estate’s private chef Walter, delivers Greenberg’s witty, razor-sharp dialogue flawlessly, never missing a comic turn-of-the-phrase. That goes double for Taylor who gives the performance of the night. It all plays out on Spangler’s stunning scenic design that transforms from a richly-appointed living room to the expansive attic playroom and back again in the blink of an eye.

With all of the superb technical elements—from Kaye Voyce’s costumes and original music and the sound design by Richard Woodbury to the Amith Chandrashaker’s evocative light design—Goodman’s “Holiday” is an unabashed comic classic!

PHOTO|Todd Rosenberg

Goodman Theatre
presents
World Premiere
HOLIDAY
Albert Theater
170 N Dearborn Street
through March 1, 2026

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PicksInSix Review: The Dance of Death - Steppenwolf Theatre Company

Steppenwolf Steps Boldly Into Strindberg’s ‘Dance’
PicksInSix® Review | Guest Contributor | Ronald Keaton

Now playing at Steppenwolf through March 22, the Swedish playwright August Strindberg's taut, visceral play “The Dance of Death” is a story of a power struggle within a long marriage, the emotional abuse it produces, and the influence of societal laws on personal relationships. And in a remarkable adaptation by the great Irishman Conor McPherson, it becomes more than just a dark comedy full of societal turmoil as molded from the grand hands of a Steppenwolf stalwart, director Yasen Peyankov.

There are three characters in this play, all filled with their angst. The story is about a married couple storming quite haphazardly toward their 25th wedding anniversary. They hate each other in brutal and ferocious ways. The husband, who is called Captain, is an artilleryman who rules his home with a military fervor of iron. His wife, Alice, is a former actress. They live in isolation on an island— it doesn't matter where it is. Their two children don't live with them, as their parents have methodically turned them against the other parent. The Captain is having heart problems and may not have long to live. Alice sometimes plays the piano as her husband dances a kind of bizarre sword pattern. As he dances, she hopes it might kill him, and he threatens to cut her out of his will. Enter Kurt, a distant cousin to Alice, and the man who introduced the couple to each other. Kurt has his own history about him. He's divorced and the courts have banned him from contact with his own children. Kurt has come to the island to, as he says, "find peace"... read: got religion. Both Captain and Alice have their own versions of Kurt's role in their beginnings. All three are doggedly distrusting of life and of each other.

Jeff Perry offers one of the most eccentric, unique comic performances imaginable as the dominating Captain. It's complex and challenging, almost Pythonesque. In these experienced hands, Captain is at once a full-on monster of a marriage partner, only to be self-denigrating and capricious in his authoritarian revealing of his own inferiority. With an ever-present mustache and brass-buttoned coat, Mr. Perry grabs us from his first entrance with a wild walk and interpretation that forces us to hold on in its creative joy. Thank you, costume designer Ana Kuzmanic.

Kathryn Erbe as Alice, the long-suffering yet dish-it-back wife, is also elegantly inflated in her opinion of herself. Alice has funneled her theatrical ways into her married life. So many of her responses, while just as withering, take on a sniper's mount. Ms. Erbe is simply marvelous in her expertise here. The entire relationship moves almost violently toward an obvious, modern comparison—Edward Albee and his George and Martha. Both couples can only express their hate and anger in such ways that somehow the codependency evolves into a strange kind of love. And unlike Martha, who lets it all go all the time, this Alice takes her shots carefully without much raising of the voice.

Alice and Kurt show a sexualized regard for each other, one that takes a bit of a side trip into aggressive behavior. Kurt (Cliff Chamberlain as a man seemingly unaware of his own weaknesses in character) is, at first, so innocent and righteous, dazzled by the emotional battle in front of him. Then he lets his guard down, expresses his long-dormant attraction to Alice, and realizes the predicament into which he has arrived. It all, of course, drives him out the door with the proclamation "You both deserve this hell you've created!" Mr. Chamberlain is both charming and powerful.

The monolithic castle the couple lives in was born from the fertile imagination of scenic designer Collette Pollard. Lee Fiskness creates a lighting design of wide variety, with subtle tones in the family battleground area combined with sharp, revealing shafts of light and shading. Ultimately, one might rightfully ask what makes such desecration of the human spirit so funny. In the knowing minds of both Mr. Strindberg and Mr. McPherson, we are held in total thrall by an excellent cast and crew that step so boldly toward such storytelling.

GUEST CONTRIBUTOR | RONALD KEATON received an Equity Jeff Award for the performance of his one-man show CHURCHILL. www.solochicagotheatre.org.  Coming soon, his new solo play about Ben Franklin, THE FIRST EMBASSY.

PHOTO|

Steppenwolf Theatre Company
presents
The Dance of Death
Downstairs Theater
1650 North Halsted Street
through March 22, 2026

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