Victory Gardens loses an ensemble of playwrights, again
Why the theater's board of directors really, really should have seen this coming.
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Kris Vire
Freelance journalist and copywriter. Fluent in the complementary languages of storytelling and SEO. Strong writer and editor with a focus on the arts and pop culture and extensive experience in print and digital-first environments. Native Arkansan. Naturalized Chicagoan. Rhymes with fire.
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Hello! These are a few of my favorite pieces.
“Where Did You Laugh?”
Carrie Coon and Tracy Letts talk spousal script reading, being almost famous, and bringing Bug back to Steppenwolf.
A Lost Latino Hotspot Is Reborn on a Chicago Stage
Sandra Delgado wrote "La Havana Madrid" to answer her own question: How could a hub of the Spanish-speaking community be so forgotten?
The best Chicago theater of the 2010s
As we enter a new decade, I was moved to look back over the one we’re ending, and the maybe-literally thousands of Chicago plays I saw in it.
After Moonlight
Oscar-winning screenwriter Tarell Alvin McCraney returns to Chicago — and to acting — for his new Steppenwolf play.
90 minutes on the rocks with Nathan Lane and Brian Dennehy
The actors talk about the Goodman’s revival of ‘The Iceman Cometh.’
This piece earned Bronze in the category of ‘single article, consumer/regional magazine’ at FOLIO: Magazine’s 2012 Eddie Awards. It also picked up my second Lisagor nomination for Arts Reporting and Criticism.
Lin-Manuel Miranda on recreating Hamilton’s success for Chicago
There’s no debating: ‘Hamilton’ has made American history hot. Now that it’s elected Chicago as its first post- Broadway home, get ready to enter the ticket lottery early and often.
‘The Band’s Visit’ a marvelous, exquisitely crafted arrival indeed
What joyously unexpected depths this beautiful and moving desert tale plumbs.
Biographical ‘Four Chords and a Gun’ missing key ingredient: the Ramones’ music
Shunting the band’s actual songs off to the postshow mini-concert feels inescapably odd, especially in a city as teeming with talented actor-musicians as Chicago.
Hamlet Is the Latest Chicago Shakespeare Theater Role that Didn’t Go to a Local
In casting Raúl Esparza as the Bard’s thinky prince, the theater yet again overlooks qualified locals.
Chicagoist Helped Make the Media Landscape that Chance the Rapper Hates
If he wants to stop the eagle-eye coverage of his every move, the rapper will need a better model than hyperlocal news aggregator.
Why is theater in Chicago (still) so white?
A new generation of artists weighs in on Chicago theater’s continuing color bind.
Playwright Tanya Saracho
With a new Chekhov adaptation in the Goodman's Latino Theatre Festival and a pair of commissions from Steppenwolf, Tanya Saracho is poised to break out.
Arkansas’s TheatreSquared: The Middle of Somewhere
Martin Miller and Robert Ford have made their small company a theatrical force in Northwest Arkansas, but it hasn’t happened in a vacuum.
First Wives Club at Oriental Theatre
You'll want to hang out with the new musical's dazzling lead actresses—just not in this particular club.
The Humans at American Theater Company
Playwright Stephen Karam is in rare form here, showing a remarkable ear for the way families converse. For all of the characters' woes, this is a warm, funny, sharply observed portrait of their abiding connections with one another.
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? at Steppenwolf Theatre Company
Edward Albee's marital-strife drama no longer carries the shock value that scandalized 1962 audiences, but as Tracy Letts and Amy Morton prove in Steppenwolf's searing revival, it still has plenty of potential to upend expectations.
Actor John McGinty stars in Steppenwolf's Tribes
The actor steps out of Nina Raine's play at the Guthrie and directly into the same role, with a new family and director, at Steppenwolf.
Ride the Cyclone at Chicago Shakespeare Theater
Six dead teenagers reflect on their lives—but this delightful Canadian chamber musical is far funnier, and more moving, than it sounds.
Finding the stars of Spring Awakening
A writer sits in on the auditions for Griffin Theatre Company’s new show.
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