Third Coast Creatives

Chicago theater has long had a reputation for producing some of the best theater in the country.   As a result, Chicago audiences expect a high bar as they enter the theater doors.   Occasionally, audiences are blessed with productions that exceed that bar.   Warp (produced by the Organic Theater), Macbeth (starring Aidan Quinn at Northlight Theater), and True West , Balm in Gilead , and Of Mice and Men (Steppenwolf Theater) are examples Chicago theater productions people continue to talk about years, or even decades, after the lights go down.   Under the direction of Artistic Director Michael Weber, Porchlight Music Theatre kicks off its 25 th season with their production of Sunset Boulevard that may well join the list of special productions that theater aficionados will boast “they were there when…”. Based on the Academy Award winning Billy Wilder Film, Sunset Boulevard features music by Andrew Lloyd Weber with lyrics and book by Don Black and Christo...

For decades, Cole Porter was the toast of Broadway.   With successful shows such as Kiss Me Kate , Anything Goes , and Silk Stockings along with constant flow of hit songs cascading off his keyboard, just having Porter’s name on the marquis was a producer’s dream.   At the urging of producers Cy Feuer and Ernest Martin, Porter agreed to pen the score for a show set in Montmartre in the 1890s.   Written towards the end of his career, Can-Can was Porter’s “poke-in-the-eye” to the censors he felt were holding Broadway back.   With its latest production in its Porchlight Revisits series, Porchlight Music Theatre brings Can-Can , Porter’s irreverent homage to the wicked revelry of Montmartre to Chicago’s Gold Coast’s Ruth Page Center for the Arts for three high kicking performances.   Beginning its fifth year, this special series provides an opportunity for music theatre aficionados to experience musicals that opened on Broadway, but are no longer frequentl...

The winds may have been howling through Chicago’s downtown theater district, but mere weather wasn’t enough to dampen the enthusiasm of the crowds that passed through the doors and lobby.   After all, they were joining the quest with one of the most popular heroes in young adult fiction.   The off-Broadway hit, The Lightning Thief, The Percy Jackson Musical, launched its national tour at Chicago’s Oriental Theatre.   The winner of several Drama Desk Awards, the show is a musical adaptation of Rick Riordan’s popular YA series, featuring a book by Joe Tracz and music and lyrics by Rob Rokicki. Unusual for a national tour, this action-packed theatrical adventure has most of its original cast intact. Kristin Stokes, Chris McCarroll, and Jorrell Javier in The Lightning Thief, The Percy Jackson Musical Photo by Jeremy Daniel Percy Jackson fans are sure to find this musical adaptation far more enjoyable than the 2010 film version or the 2013 sequel.   The s...

Mercury Theater Chicago’s revival of their homegrown production of Avenue Q has extended performances for the second time due to popular demand, now playing through December 30, 2018.   A racy cross between South Park and Sesame Street, Avenue Q is a modern musical focusing on a group of unique 20-somethings making their way through the “Big City”, seeking their purpose in life.   This clever 2003 Broadway hit by songwriters Jeff Marx and Robert Lopez and playwright Jeff Whitty, transfers well in a breezy, intimate staging by director L. Walter Stearns at Mercury Theater Chicago. The show is the story of Princeton, a 23-year old college grad with no job, no girlfriend, and no sense of purpose.   After moving to Avenue Q, a fictional slum on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, Princeton meets plucky but lonely Katie Monster, a kindergarten teaching assistant with dreams of opening a school for monsters like herself or “people of fur” in her words.   Princeton’s other n...