CHICAGO
NEWS AND REVIEWS

Full casting has been announced for Talking Pictures and the Horton Foote one-acts, Blind Date and The Actor. The plays are part of the Goodman's Horton Foote Festival, which will run January 26-Apri...

Bill Jepsen's new play is currently receiving its world premiere from Chicago Dramatists.

Chicago always has many offerings for kids and families, including A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings, written by Nobel Laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez and adapted for the stage by Pulitzer Prize winning dramatist Nilo Cruz, presented by Chicago Playworks of the DePaul University Theatre School at the downtown Merle Reskin Theatre (January 12-March 4), and Winnetka Theatre's musical version of The Little Mermaid by esteemed choreographer and director Marc Robin at the Winnetka Community House (January 19-February 3).

Chicago Classics

Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa's world premiere drama about a high school sex scandal slowly reels you in.

The North American national tour of the hit Disney musical Mary Poppins will launch at Chicago's Cadillac Palace Theatre on March 25, 2009. The entire original creative team, including Olivier Award-...

Here are a few of the more interesting new holiday shows: The Quiltmaker's Gift is a sweet hour-long production based on the popular fairy tales by Jeff Brumbeau and Gail De Marcken (The Athenaeum, December 16); Silent Theatre Company's A Charlie Chaplin Christmas is a nearly-wordless show inspired by the late, great film star (The Chicago Cultural Center Studio, December 7-January 6); and in the Western suburbs, New World Repertory in Downers Grove offers Princess Donkey-Head, A Christmas Tale, a new play by M. E. H. Lewis based on the Scots folktale Kate Krackernuts (through December 22).

Do They Know It's Christmas?

The Premiere Theatre Company adapts The Quiltmakers' Gift, which will be both shadow interpreted and translated into American Sign Language (October 30-December 16 at the Athenaeum Theatre), the Ringling Brothers Circus is in town with Bellobration, featuring star clown, Bello (November 1-25, split between the urban United Center and suburban Allstate Arena), and Chicago Shakespeare Theater offers a treat for all ages with a return visit by the French physical theater troupe Compagnie Thierre, presenting Farewell Umbrella (November 21-December 1). The company is led by the deftly gifted grandson of Charlie Chaplin.

Park Place