Chicago Theatre Week, an annual celebration of the rich tradition of theatre-going in Chicago, reached record audiences during the fifth year of the program. Over the span of Chicago Theatre Week, February 9 – 19, 2017, 115 participating organizations sold over 11,750 total tickets to 128 productions. Chicago Theatre Week is presented by the League of Chicago Theatres in partnership with Choose Chicago. Read more
Tickets for Chicago Theatre Week (CTW), an annual celebration of the rich tradition of theatre-going in Chicago, will go on sale January 10, 2017. All Theatre Week tickets will be priced at $30, $15, or less. Participating shows and offer details will be available on the CTW website, ChicagoTheatreWeek.com, once tickets go on sale. Read more
Happy 2017 from all of us at Showbiz Chicago. In the next few days, we will be revealing our critics top choices of the 2016 Chicago theater season. For myself, it is a tie but as usual, these production embody the diversity of excellence Chicago theatre.
Hamilton: Broadway In Chicago
Hamilton Chicago
This may seem like a an obvious choice to be on the top pics of most critics because of the insane amount of media hype generated by the Broadway production of Hamilton. In recent months however the musical proper has been lost in the political atmosphere of our divided nation. That is not a negative as what plays out on stage mirrors our current reality.
Having the Lin-Manuel Miranda juggernaut find its second home in Chicago has given Hamilton the chance to get back to basics with a cast that has no agenda but to entertain the audience, which are paying up to $500.00 a ticket to sit in the PrivateBank Theatre.
It is in the theatrical basics that makes Hamilton the success it has become and will remain for decades to come. The stellar cast led by Miguel Cervantes and Joshua Henry shows how American politics were and shall remain the art of the possible.
Tickets are available to the public to purchase online at BroadwayInChicago.com and Ticketmaster.com, by phone at 800-775-2000 and in person at The PrivateBank Theatre box office only (18 W. Monroe). There is a maximum limit of 6 tickets per household.
Hand to God: Victory Gardens Theatre
Directed by: Gary Griffin
My friends will tell you that one of my favorite things in the world are sock puppets. Yes, I am a strange bird; but when I first saw Tyrone’s “Puppet Mingle” ad on You Tube promoting Hand to God, I got my tush to New York the next week to see this off-Broadway transfer. It was well worth this trip, but I always felt that there was some undiscovered emotional depth of the script that was missing in the performances.
Leave it to director Gary Griffin to prove me right, as his production staged at Victory Gardens this past fall unlocked the soul of the book penned by Robert Askins. Griffin’s casting of Alex Weisman (who turns in the performance of the year) as an adolescent who copes with the death of his father by creating a deranged sock puppet, was a gift to the truth of the show as well as to the audience proper. Mr. Weisman’s character went to such an emotionally dark place that it awakened the feelings I had when my own mother died when I was around the same age and needless to say, I saw my wounded teenage soul on stage through Tyrone.
It is in the talents of both Mr. Griffin and Mr. Weisman that Chicago remains the greatest theatre community in the world.
Chicago Theatre Week (#CTW17), an annual celebration of the rich tradition of theatre-going in Chicago, will take place February 9 – 19, 2017, spanning a week and two full weekends. Heading into its fifth year, Chicago Theatre Week is a program of the League of Chicago Theatres in partnership with Choose Chicago. Tickets are priced at $30, $15, or less and will go on sale Tuesday, January 10, 2017 at 10:00am CST. Read more
Chicago Theatre Week, an annual celebration of the rich tradition of theatre-going in Chicago, reached record audiences during the fourth year of the program. Over the span of Chicago Theatre Week, February 11 – 21, 2016, 106 participating organizations sold more than 10,500 total value-priced tickets to 124 different productions. Read more
The League of Chicago Theatres celebrates more than 35 years of making half-price tickets available to theatre patrons. Hot Tix offers half-price tickets to more than 200 Chicago area theatres, featuring a wide variety of theatre productions for the current week as well as future performances. All tickets, including advanced performance dates, are half-price through Hot Tix. The current list of half-price performances is online at HotTix.org and is easily searchable by date, show, theatre, or genre. Read more
Twenty-one Chicago high school students will perform in the August Wilson Monologue Competition Finals on Monday, March 7, 2015 at 6:00 pm at the Goodman Theatre, 170 N. Dearborn St. for a chance to represent Chicago in the National Competition in New York City. Judges for this years’ competition include Narda Alcorn, Equity Stage Manager on many August Wilson productions, playwright Lydia Diamond and actor Allen Gilmore, who has performed in numerous August Wilson plays. Read more
