Chicago Shakespeare Theater

Paranormal Activity – Shakespeare Theater – Closed Nov. 2, 2025

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Things are a little slow right now, so here’s something I didn’t do.

Paranormal Activity was promoted as being very scary, which was not an incentive to go for me, but compared to what? Is it possible for it to have been scarier than reality, or the ubiquitous AI version of it, where no reservations are required, though I have many?

Instead of going to the play I wound up watching something more frightening – a Bears game.

The warning that came with the show said it had loud noises. Big deal. I hear blaring sirens all day long, with the added threat of having to dodge the emergency vehicles puncturing my eardrums.

The warning said the show had sudden darkness. Big deal. That happened after we turned back the clocks.

The warning said there was stage blood. As long as it’s not my blood, and I’m not asked to drink it, I don’t care.

The play was universally highly-recommended (17 out of 17 reviews). That sounds pretty suspicious to me. Everyone loved it? In this day and age? According to a 2024 Gallup poll, 80% of U.S. adults believe Americans are greatly divided on the most important values. Can’t even universally agree that we don’t agree. And don’t get me started on the Oxford comma.

Rome Sweet Rome – Chicago Shakespeare Theater – Through October 19, 2025

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Rome Sweet Rome is a product of the Q Brothers Collective (who previously gave us hip-hop versions of A Christmas Carol and Othello: The Remix), not to be confused with the Q Continuum, an immortal group that has been represented in over 20 episodes of various Star Trek series and which, to my knowledge, has never hipped, hopped or put on any kind of musical.

I divided the show into three parts. The beginning didn’t do much for me, even though, fortunately, I had a seat with an unobstructed view of the open-captioning screen so that I could at least understand what was going on.

I loved the middle of the show. I wish I could tell you how much of the entire production that encompassed, but the program does not include any scene or song identifiers.

I can tell you that my enjoyment ratcheted up considerably upon the rendering of the song I Need a Sandwich, which played off that part of the plot that involved a ban on bread by the Roman dictator, who preferred that his subjects ate the salad named after him.

As if it were not enough to borrow from Shakespeare, the cast followed the food frenzy with a couple dance excerpts that enjoyably sounded and looked suspiciously like Monster Mash and Thriller, apropos as Julius Caesar had been told to beware, not the Ides of March, but rather Halloween.

After (spoiler alert) he brutally met his demise at the holiday party, the show went downhill for both Julius and me, for me when it got preachy near the end. I prefer subtlety. I came for entertainment, or possibly an all-powerful alien race, not a political rally.

Sunny Afternoon: The Story of the Kinks – Chicago Shakespeare Theater – Through April 27, 2025

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As I was entering the theater, the usher handing me my program pointed to a jar containing plastic bags with two little orange items in each and asked “Do you need earplugs?”, to which I responded “Do I need ear plugs?”, to which she responded “I’ve been told that the music is pretty loud.”

I hesitated for a moment, concerned that I might not be able to hear the dialogue with the plugs inserted, but quickly decided that I probably wouldn’t be able to understand the British accents anyway, so I might as well wear the protection, while also berating myself for not going to one of the open caption performances.

In retrospect, I probably only needed the plugs twice, the first time being near the beginning of the show when the lads are trying to determine just how loudly they should play the first five signature chords of You Really Got Me, which reminded me of the movie The Italian Job when Lyle gets “speakers so loud they can blow a woman’s clothes off.”

I have read that, not surprising, a lot of creative license is taken with events depicted in the show, but the story is kind of secondary anyway. I’ve seen the tropes before in other behind-the-scenes stories. More importantly, the cast treated us to a highlight show of 1960s Kinks, augmented by a raft of energetic dancing emblematic of that era.

The crowd, which was on its feet for the closing medley, would have been alright with the music continuing all day and all of the night.

The Enigmatist – Chicago Shakespeare Theater – June 23, 2024

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I have seen, in person, an actual enigma machine, at the terrific Spy Museum, in Washington D.C. This has absolutely nothing to do with The Enigmatist, though I suspect that Alan Turing and all the other codebreakers at Bletchley Park would have been fun people to have in the audience at this show.

Even without them, this was a nerd-filled group, which I say with great admiration and respect. I was in my element, but humbled, though I managed to have my two seconds in the limelight when I shouted out the correct answer to the first clue in a giant crossword puzzle.

David Kwong, the Enigmatist, is a Harvard graduate and veteran cruciverbalist, and a talented, charming entertainer, who bills his show as an immersive evening of puzzles, cryptology and illusions, during which he employs playing cards, dollar bills, a locked box, a cell phone, and a kiwi in a series of tricks that come together in unexpected ways.

Kwong demonstrated rapid processing skills, fueled by an impressive memory and an encyclopedic knowledge of words. But, even as he was throwing out definitions of words he was using in a Scrabble trick, it seemed like he was making them up. Not exactly everyday vocabulary.

I had a similar reaction to his crossword puzzle construction, which incorporated some rather esoteric answers. I prefer clever, but I’m just nitpicking about a fun show.

Judgment Day – Chicago Shakespeare Theater – May 22, 2024

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Part Defending Your Life, part Here Comes Mr. Jordan/Heaven Can Wait and part Michael, Judgment Day (not to be confused with the Terminator movie) gives Jason Alexander free rein to ham it up comedically on stage and he doesn’t disappoint, though I wondered whether the flap at the back of his toupee was on purpose. Even when you see the joke coming, he hits a home run.

As does the whole cast, in particular Candy Buckley as an Angel with an attitude.

With great humor, the play presents the audience with profound things to think about, but the only message I chose to take from it related to sleeping on your stomach.

Right near the end of the show, it occurred to me that the trajectory of Alexander’s character, Sammy Campo, reminded me in a way of Sky Masterson’s journey in Guys and Dolls, though Masterson was never the low-life that Campo was.

In terms of sleaze per square foot, Campo, through much of the play, more closely resembles the lawyer Alexander played in Pretty Woman. By the end, however, speaking of home runs, (spoiler alert) he’s more like Roy Hobbs in The Natural returning home to play catch with the son he never knew about.

It Came From Outer Space – Chicago Shakespeare Theater – July 24, 2022

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This world premiere musical, based on the 1953 movie of the same name, which, in turn, was based on a film treatment by Ray Bradbury (and not on a William Shakespeare play), will probably never play Broadway, but I would not at all be surprised if it turned into a long-running Off-Broadway sensation, where audience members come dressed as aliens.

Of course, the musical Little Shop of Horrors, also based on a low budget science fiction movie, started off Off-Off-Broadway, then went Off-Broadway for five years, before eventually making it to Broadway and becoming a staple of theaters everywhere.

This show was written by the same two people, Joe Kinosian and Kellen Blair, who won the 2011 Jeff Award for writing the musical Murder for Two, which I loved. As is necessary to fully exploit the delightful silliness of the show, the cast played it straight, although I imagine that there were numerous breakdowns in rehearsals.

In particular I would like to mention Jaye Ladymore, whom I never had seen on stage before (unlike the other players), but who caught my attention last year on the ill-fated tv series 4400. Today I often found myself looking to see her movements and facial reactions, even when the focus of the action was elsewhere, like in outer space.

As You Like It – Chicago Shakespeare Theater – November 30, 2021

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I’m bad with names, but better with faces. What I didn’t know until I saw Chicago Shakespeare Theater’s As You Like It last night, is that I’m good with thighs (and not just those on the Thanksgiving turkey), or rather quadriceps, as that sounds better, until I recognized the actor playing Orlando as having the same ridiculously muscular legs as I saw when he played the lead in the production of Memphis I saw three-and-a-half years ago at Porchlight Music Theatre.

I don’t go to a lot of Shakespeare, but this show is as I like it, in that it incorporates 23 Beatles songs into the script, along with some off-hand jokes that undoubtedly rile true Bard of Avon aficionados, and starts with a band and a modern-day wrestling match (more riling), even before the obsolete, often unintelligible English dialogue that is Shakespeare jumps in (wouldn’t supertitles be great?), with the match acting as a prologue and a way of entertaining those of us who get there early to avoid the proof-of-vaccination backup at the door, the sight of which made me wonder whether there were similar lines during the 1665 Great Plague of London.

Q Brothers Christmas Carol – Chicago Shakespeare Theater – December 14, 2019

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Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol was first published in 1843. Though the underlying spirit (or spirits, if you will) remains the same, the Q Brothers have made more than a few changes. Bless them, everyone.

This makes six years in a row I’ve seen the Q Brothers ply their trade in this must-see show. I’d call it a tradition, but that implies a handing down between generations. I can’t even get most of my same-generation friends to go because they’re afraid of hip-hop, as if it were some kind of communicable disease. Bah, humbug, Those who have gone, thank me.

Since I’ve written about the show the last two years, there’s not much left to say, except to wonder when the cast will get too old to dance around the stage, and when that happens, will they allow a younger set of performers to replace them in the tradition of some road-weary 60s rock band that has reached its limit and sold their name (see Blood, Sweat, and Tears).

Nonetheless, I’ll mention a few things. Scrooge asking a young girl in the audience whether he’s using the word hashtag correctly. Her hands-up response suggested she didn’t know, which made me feel better. Scrooge’s childhood friend once again going off on a tangent, not one considered by Leibniz or Euclid, but different than last year’s, cracking up not only the other actors and the audience, but also himself, and thereby answering my question as to whether his random departure is part of the show. The Tarik Cohen joke added last year to show currency. The newly-inserted visual marijuana reference to the Illinois law about to take effect. Tiny Tim’s song that matter-of-factly lists all his ailments, none of which, I’m pretty sure, are transmitted by attending a hip-hop show. Just saying.

Six – Chicago Shakespeare Theater – June 29, 2019

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“I’m Henry the eighth I am, Henry the eighth I am I am, I got married to the widow next door, She’s been married seven times before, And everyone was a Henry.” Turns out that’s not the real story about England’s King Henry VIII.

I’ve never seen the musical Nine, which won the 1982 Tony for best musical, but I bet it isn’t 50% better than Six, the part herstory lesson, part rock concert, part dance party, part comedic musical retelling of the stories of the six wives of Henry VIII, which I’m guessing will make its way to Broadway, with awards in its future.

All but one of the very talented performers were new to me, the exception being Abby Mueller, who was Carole King in Beautiful last time I saw her. Now she’s Jane Seymour, not the English actress (who has been married four times in her own right), but rather Henry’s third wife in the chain of “divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived, but just for you tonight, we’re divorced, beheaded, live.”

Don’t worry about the list’s suggestion of violent deaths. No one actually loses their head on stage, though a majority of the audience lost their minds, whooping and hollering in reaction to the creative, illuminating, high-energy songs, which, as I learned from reading the playbill, were “queenspired” by a dozen pop stars, ranging from Adele to Beyonce to Rihanna (but, thankfully, not Herman’s Hermits).

My only regret upon leaving the theater was that Henry didn’t have more wives to entertain and educate the audience. I don’t know what the authors have in mind for their next project, but Elizabeth Taylor had seven husbands (eight marriages counting Richard Burton twice).

Q Brothers Christmas Carol – Chicago Shakespeare Theater – November 27, 2018

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I keep coming back for more of this hip-hop interpretation of the Dickens classic. But, after seeing it several years in a row, what could still surprise me? This time it was the brief interlude when JQ seemed to lose his train of thought for a moment and go into an improvised description of a dream he had. Scripted or not, it had not only the audience, but also one of his fellow cast members in hysterics.

Everyone knows the Dickens story, but it occurred to me that not everyone may have considered what the Q brothers and their Christmas Carol have in common with the character Q from Star Trek.

Patrick Stewart, who, as Jean-Luc Picard on Star Trek: The Next Generation, had several encounters with Q, also for many years performed a one-man, award-winning show of A Christmas Carol, playing more than 30 characters. Coincidence? I think not.

Q, in Star Trek, is of unknown origin. The Q brothers are of known origin, the northern suburbs of Chicago. I know this because a couple years ago I met an usher at the show who was their high school drama teacher. She was very proud.

Q, in Star Trek, is an extra-dimensional being. The Q brothers are multidimensional, namely writing, singing, dancing, and acting.

Q, in Star Trek, possesses immeasurable power over time and space. The Q brothers, as the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future in their Christmas Carol, possess power over time and space, constrained only by the music the live DJ spins and the 75-minute duration of the show.

Q, in Star Trek, used his powers to pass judgment on humanity.

The Q brothers use their powers in Christmas Carol to pass judgment on Scrooge and get him to have some humanity. Spoiler alert – it works.