September 2011
8 posts
Waiting for Lefty Review, Highly Recommended, WBEZ
American Blues Theater strikes solid gold with ‘Waiting for Lefty’
by Kelly Kleiman | Sep. 09, 2011
Call it agit-prop if you like, or say “If you want to send a message use Western Union;” but if you’re not inspired by Clifford Odets’s Waiting for Lefty as performed by American Blues Theater, you must have ice water in your veins. In a single...
Waiting for Lefty Review, Windy City Times, Highly...
Playwright: Clifford Odets. At: American Blues Theater at the Biograph, 2433 N. Lincoln Ave. Phone: 773-871-3000; $25. Runs through: Oct. 2
We are at a union meeting, ostensibly of the New York City taxicab drivers, circa 1935. The gathering of the employed and formerly employed are drawn from a variety of occupations, and as they wait for their tardy chairman—the “Lefty”...
Waiting for Lefty Review, New City, Recommended
RECOMMENDED
Clifford Odets’ 1935 play centering around a cab drivers’ union planning a strike, first staged by the massively influential Group Theatre in New York, has become one of those plays you read in history and literature classes but rarely see produced these days, when most theater companies tend to believe that audiences are allergic to overly political theater. American Blues...
Waiting for Lefty Review, The Reader, Highly...
I listened to Barack Obama’s jobs speech on my way to see American Blues Theater’s Waiting for Lefty. American blues, indeed. Clifford Odets’s fiery 1935 one-act supplied an almost creepily apt counterpoint to the President’s address. The play starts out at a union hall where cabbies are debating the pros and cons of calling a strike. A commie-baiting, cigar-chomping...
Terrific Acting in the Early... Chris Jones,... →
Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune, Waiting for Lefty
Clifford Odets’ “Waiting for Lefty,” now being staged by American Blues Theater (through Oct. 2 at Biograph; americanbluestheater.com), is an episodic polemic and one of those dimly remembered works that is not the play that many people think they know. But Kimberly Senior’s production contains a number of beautiful portraits of Americans under duress. There are some...
Equity Jeff Nominations - Front Page/Ensemble →
New City - Waiting for Lefty →
June 2011
4 posts
Wall Street Journal Review of The Front Page
Just as “Porgy and Bess” is now best known as an opera, so is “The Front Page” now best known as a movie. In the original 1928 stage version, Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur introduced Broadway audiences to the scoop-hungry crime reporters who covered Chicago in the age of Al Capone. But when Howard Hawks made “His Girl Friday” in 1940, he turned Hildy...
Wall Street Journal Review of The Front Page →
Interview with fellow cast member Rob Riley about... →
Jeff Awards - Eric & Andy Preshow Interviews →
May 2011
5 posts
Wall Street Journal Review: The Front Page →
What is most striking about TimeLine’s production, directed with lip-smacking gusto by Nick Bowling, is that it doesn’t sandpaper the rough edges of the reporters who wait impatiently to cover the hanging of a small-time anarchist (Rob Fagin). They are brutes who make no effort to hide their brutality, and they care about nothing but getting the story, least of all the bruised...
Life of a Beggar →
An Interview with Sean Graney
By MECHELLE MOE
It’s Labor Day weekend, and while most Chicagoans are planning their last summer escape, director Sean Graney is wrapping up an 80-hour week preparing for The Hypocrites opening of Bertolt Brecht’s The Threepenny Opera at the Steppenwolf Theatre’s Garage (running though Oct. 12). Admittedly, he confides that this is not the best time to interview...
JEFF AWARD NOMINEE 2011 - ACTRESS IN A PRINCIPAL... →
ACTRESS IN A PRINCIPAL ROLE – PLAY
Brenda Barrie (Eva/Brenda) - “Memory” - BackStage Theatre Company
Mechelle Moe (Terry Randall) - “Stage Door” - Griffin Theatre Company
Caroline Neff (Charlotte) - “A Brief History of Helen of Troy” Steep Theatre Company
Caroline Neff (Rachel) - “Port” - Griffin Theatre Company
Joy Thorbjornsen- Coates (Fonsia Dorsey) - “The Gin Game” - Lincoln...
Complete List of Jeff Nominations for 2011 →
April 2011
2 posts
The Front Page at TimeLine Theater, Chicago...
April 17, 2011
‘The Front Page’ at TimeLine Theatre: Hot type, easy laughs in era newspapers were king
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THEATER REVIEW ‘The Front Page’ ★★★ Through June 12 at TimeLine Theatre, 615 W. Wellington Ave.; running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes; tickets: $28-$38 at 773-281-8463 or timelinetheatre.com
Comedy always thrives on confidence, and scribes Ben...
February 2011
7 posts
Not Enough Air, Sun-Times Review, 2009
‘Air’ will leave TimeLine audiences breathless
by Hedy Weiss, Theater Critic Chicago Sun-Times
published January 29, 2009
Playwrights often talk about the way characters suddenly “appear” to them and begin to assume a life of their own, almost dictating their lines. In Masha Obolensky’s compelling new play “Not Enough Air” — a fearsome feminist...
“we shall not cease from exploration / and the end of all our exploring / will be...”
– TS Eliot
Stage Door, Chicago Tribune →
Chicago Tribune Review of Griffin Theater’s Stage Door
BEST OF 2010: In appreciation of Chicago's actors,...
The biggest asset of the Chicago theater? No question, it’s the quality of the acting. In 2010, distinguished performances lit up Chicago-area stages from Evanston to Hyde Park. We admired scores of them this year, which was a very good year on Chicago stages, but we’ve culled the list. So here, in alphabetical order, are our 10 best performances of the year in the Chicago-area...
