Displaying items by tag: Chicago events

Award-winning Redtwist Theatre, launching its 22nd season with Prayer Circle, September 17 - November 8, by Erik Gernand and directed by Executive Artistic Director Dusty Brown, announces today an added special engagement to its 2026 - 2027 season, the world premiere of Flying Monkeys, produced in collaboration with the New Theatre Project, December 6 - January 17, by L.C. Bernadine and directed by Robert Falls, at Redtwist Theatre, 1044 W. Bryn Mawr Ave. Preview performances are Friday, Dec. 4 and Saturday, Dec. 5 at 7:30 p.m. Regular performance schedule includes Wednesdays through Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. and Sundays at 3:30 p.m. Some dates adjusted for the holidays. Single tickets are on sale starting September 15 for $50 (seniors and veterans: $35; students: $10 and Fridays are Pay-What-You-Can) with subscriptions also available at RedtwistTheatre.org. 

Chicago is a city where, when all goes well, theater happens at every scale. Just weeks after his production of Don Giovanni will open at the almost 3,500-seat Lyric Opera of Chicago, Robert Falls will direct Flying Monkeys, a new play by Chicago playwright L.C. Bernadine, at Edgewater’s Redtwist Theatre, an intimate venue of just over 35 seats. 

Flying Monkeys follows two transport agents working in the so-called “troubled teen industry.” Hired by a desperate mother, they arrive in the middle of the night to legally take her 15-year-old daughter from her home and deliver her to a residential treatment program across the country. What begins as a job governed by contracts and procedure becomes increasingly complicated as everyone involved is forced to confront what they believe desperation can justify.

Falls read the play earlier this year and was drawn both to its subject and to the opportunity to stage it in an extremely intimate venue. “I’ve been an admirer of L.C. Bernadine’s plays for quite a while,” said Robert Falls. “She has a very distinctive voice — tough, funny, poetic and completely her own — and Flying Monkeys feels to me like an especially exciting new work. It takes on difficult, volatile material without reducing anyone to a type or telling us too quickly what to think. The play keeps shifting under you: your sympathies move, your assumptions get challenged and what at first seems morally clear becomes much more complicated. There are no easy villains and no easy answers, which is exactly what I find so compelling about it.” 

For Falls, the shift from Lyric Opera to Redtwist reflects something essential about Chicago theater. He continued, “I cut my teeth in Chicago at Wisdom Bridge Theatre, one of the city’s first storefront theaters, a small space up two flights of stairs over a bar and a violin repair shop on Howard Street. I spent more than a decade of my life there, so coming to Redtwist really does feel like a homecoming. It’s one of Chicago’s finest theaters and there’s something about being back in a room this intimate that takes me right back to where I began.” 

“L.C. Bernadine has been an incredible friend and collaborator over the past few years, welcoming me to Chicago when I first made the move,” says Redtwist Artistic Director Dusty Brown. “After working together on the Independent Productions Initiative, I jumped at the opportunity to collaborate artistically with L.C. on her new play. Bringing Bob Falls on to direct spoke to the very thing that drew me to Chicago in the first place, the most incredible artists in the world can be found in the least likely of places. Some of our country’s greatest artists started their careers in Chicago storefronts and Bob Falls’s return is a reminder that artistic merit can’t be judged simply by the size of the theatre.”

Redtwist Theatre is producing Flying Monkeys in collaboration with the New Theatre Project. Peter Handler and Spencer Huffman will serve as producers. Founder of the New Theatre Project Spencer Huffman said, "Since our first production in 2024, L.C. has been pivotal in New Theatre Project's success as a producer. When the opportunity arose to co-produce her excellent new play with Bob directing, we jumped at it. This collaboration captures something essential about the Chicago theatre: the city's most notable director teams up with two small storefronts to produce a new play by an under-the-radar Chicago playwright. It's so exciting."

ABOUT L.C. BERNADINE, playwright 

The author of numerous plays and a frequent collaborator with The New Theatre Project, Bernadine was recently profiled in Newcity's "50 Players" as founder of the Independent Productions Initiative, which supports work outside ongoing companies. Her plays include The Whole Seamus Thing, co-written with Ben Auxier (Bramble Theatre); Welcome J-1 Students (University of Alabama Theater); Is You Is, a musical co-written with Nik Whitcomb and Erik Olsen about the 1930s “Races of Mankind” exhibit at The Field Museum (DCASE’s Chicago Cultural Center New Play Residency and then Broadway Rose Theatre, Portland, Oregon) and The Virginian, co-written with Spencer Huffman (City Lit Theatre). 

ABOUT ROBERT FALLS, director

Over a career spanning more than four decades, Robert Falls has directed new plays and reimagined classics, large-scale musical theater and opera in the United States and internationally. He began his career at Chicago’s Wisdom Bridge Theatre and later served as artistic director of Goodman Theatre for 35 years. His most recent productions include Richard Greenberg’s Holiday at the Goodman and Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus at Steppenwolf Theatre Company.

Falls’ many Broadway credits include Death of a Salesman, Long Day’s Journey into Night, Horton Foote’s Pulitzer Prize-winning The Young Man from Atlanta and Elton John and Tim Rice’s Aida.

His honors include a Tony Award, Drama Desk Award, Obie Award, Helen Hayes Award, multiple Jeff Awards and the Savva Morozov Diamond Award from the Moscow Art Theatre. He was inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame in 2015.

ABOUT NEW THEATRE PROJECT, producer

The New Theatre Project is an independent theatre collective based in Chicago. The New Theatre Project intends to put artists at the far edge of their abilities so that they must discover something new to succeed. They believe there is nothing more moving than an artist on the brink. This process of artistic risk and discovery defines their work.

Composition, tension, balance, light, and harmony come together seamlessly in Kokandy Productions’ revival of Sondheim’s opus, ‘Sunday in the Park with George’. Director Derek Van Barham transforms the basement of the Chopin Theatre into a three dimensional reproduction of Georges Seurat’s ‘A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte’ for this beloved musical’s return to Chicago.

Sondheim was never known to write ordinary musicals. His smash hit ‘Company’ is considered the first “concept” musical. Wherein, the story has no real plot, instead themes are explored through song. ‘Sunday in the Park with George’ with whom he worked with James Lapin is similar in that it’s hard to describe exactly what it’s about, per se. In succinct terms, it’s a fictionalized account of how Georges Seurat painted his pointillism masterpiece while trying to balance interpersonal relationships. Specifically, his flailing relationship with the painting’s focal point, Dot. It’s as if Sondheim was exploring his own obsessiveness and how it hindered him in many ways.

‘Sunday in the Park with George’, which won the 1985 Pulitzer for drama, has a special connection to Chicago as the famed painting hangs in the Art Institute. The last time a local storefront theatre revived it was 2010. However, longtime Chicago theatre lovers are unlikely to forget Gary Griffin’s production at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater in 2004, later remounted in 2012. Though it’s a favored musical by many, it’s not one often produced because you really need all the right ingredients to do this one justice.

Kokandy has gathered those ingredients for this imaginatively staged new version. Derek Van Barham, who also serves as artistic director has been noodling on this show for the near decade he’s been working with Kokandy and the result is simply gorgeous.

A large and talented ensemble is led by Kevin Webb as Georges and Missy Wise Vanderzee as Dot. The two are not only incredible vocalists but each are wonderful in bringing their characters off the canvas and into real life. Webb’s take on Georges is vulnerable, less stoic, less cold,  less fixed. Vanderzee is also much warmer and less shrill than the original cast recordings. Going from 1800s Dot to 1980s elderly Marie can prove to be tricky for some actors but Vanderzee does a great job of bridging the gap with humor and pathos.

Perhaps no other adjective is more apt to describe this production than bittersweet. Nearly devoid of melodrama and yet cuts right to the emotional bone. Under Nick Sula’s music direction Sondheim’s orchestrations are performed with such attention to detail that audiences hang around well past the curtain call. Some of the best choral arrangements ever composed for the stage finds their stride as the company and music moves fluidly through G “Max” Maxin IV’s brilliant staging.

Van Barham has made something special here. Moving the staging from the traditional proscenium to an in-the-round black box provides so much more room to play around with the spectacle of live theatre. Rather than aiming for utmost fidelity to the ‘Sundays’ that have come before it, Kokandy opts to create their own signature production that will be remembered as one of Chicago’s best.

Through November 1 at Kokandy Productions at Chopin Theatre. 1543 W Division St. 773-278-1500

*Extended through November 29th!

https://www.kokandyproductions.com/

From its beginning in 1992 on the tiny stage of a modest theater, Dance for Life (DFL) has grown and grown over the decades into something glorious.  Its purpose over the last 35 years, as conceived by DFL’s creator, Keith Elliott, then with the Joseph Holmes Chicago Dance Theatre, has never altered or faltered.  Mobilize a community devastated by a deadly scourge.  Raise money to help the stricken. Build solidarity within Chicago’s professional dance culture.  Initially and always a festival of dance chiefly focused on that second point, a few things have changed with time.  Although AIDS has virtually been vanquished, at least in the first world, health and other needs within the dance community have not diminished.  In 2025, DFL affiliated Chicago Dance Health Fund awarded $75,000 to dancers and other dance professionals facing critical need. 

The annual celebration of dance very much remains a way for dancers to help other dancers by practicing their art.  These days its being done on a much grander scale and showcasing a far wider range of what world class dance looks like and even feels like in the present day.

There were hints the 35^th annual Dance for Life performance at the Auditorium Saturday night would be particularly memorable and they all centered on dress.  Although venue is always a factor, dance audiences are not especially circumspect when it comes to presentation.  Much of the attire on display in the concert hall’s spacious lobby that evening was not only stylish, dashing and glamorous, some pieces touched on the spectacular.  Collectively, the energy they generated heightened the sense of expectation that already hung heavy in the air.  The display proved just the right harbinger to forecast a sensational night of dance.

Bulging at the seams with the exceptional, the latest iteration of DFL showcased ten dance companies along with two additional finale works - and even a third, a raffle performance. In addition to the traditional large-scale finale that always closes the show, the program would also include a sizzling bonus dance performance that was also featured in the inaugural DFL concert. 

This year’s show opened with elegance.  Danced to the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Deeply Rooted Dance Theater’s Beyond Mortal used sweep and grace to beautifully capture the secular spirituality of Mozart’s score.  Choreographed by the company’s Artistic Director Nicole Clarke-Springer, it reveals how one Black-led dance company lives up to its mission to “diversify the aesthetics of contemporary dance”.  Fireworks scripted in the language of the ethereal, Beyond Mortal ushered in the night with a nod to serenity and poise.

Giordano Dance Chicago. Photo by Cheryl Mann.

Giordano Dance Chicago decided to leave a different stamp on the gala by amping up a version of its signature heat.  There would be several excerpts featured throughout the evening and Giordano chose the best of its 2011 Sabroso to spellbind the thousands seated in the ornate theater.  Not only were the dancers speed and precision blinding, their joy blasted from the stage.  Triggering genuine awe and lighting up the room with cheers.

The temperature would ebb and flow throughout the night and after such a prodigious display of white-hot energy, a cool down came in the form of romantically sublime ballet.  This year a pair of fresh Joffrey faces, Hyuma Kiyosawa and Yumi Kanazawa, superlatively danced Postcards, founder Robert Joffrey’s ode to love, innocence and Paris of the 1920s.  With Jorge Ivars’ ravishing accompaniment on piano, the dance ushered in an extended moment of enchantment.

A slight pause and rocket engines soon screeched again with Loud, created by KC Bevis and performed by the Ensemble of Chicago Dance Crash.  Street dance and concert dance converged to make scorching hot magic in this mesmerizing performance. Here dance takes on a decidedly charismatic persona. One defined by strength, vigor, dexterity and boundless native imagination.   Jazzed up with the burning beats of DJ B-Gram P, the heady mix of club and dance culture lit the theater on fire.  One of many highlights that evening, Loud proved once again boundaries in dance simply don’t exist.  

Both Ensemble Español Spanish Dance Theater and later Trinity Irish Dance Company stole the show with drama and the ability to turn the sound of synchronized feet striking a stage floor into transfixing music.  In this case eliciting two completely different emotional responses that were both riveting.

Trinity Irish Dance Company. Photo by Todd Rosenberg.

Ballet 5:8 luxuriated in the freedom and unique beauty of contemporary ballet.  On their heels was another band of boundary pushers.  Chicago Dance Artists Piece performed Harrison McEldowney and Jeremy Plummer’s Red, White & Black; employing aerial concepts devised by Plummer.  Aerial acrobatics, dance and music by F.U.N. came together to blend brawn-flecked whimsy with a healthy dash of wholesome excitement.

After intermission, and dressed up in colorfully glam togs, Visceral Dance Chicago tapped into mischief. Dancing R E V E L, set to Maurice Ravel’s Bolero, they vamped, seduced and cavorted to the timeless music of an international classic. Devilishly choreographed by Nick Pupillo, it was not only brilliant and unexpected, it was massive delight to watch.

Visceral Dance Chicago. Photo by Cheryl Mann.

Two other works were even more impactful.  One was a dance featured in the very first Dance for Life performance called The Man That Got Away.  Sultry, sexy and a solid story told in dance, it featured only two dancers.  One acted simply as a prop.  The other, Johnathon Dole, was the soloist who danced the part of a shattered heart. One that begged and pleaded not to be ignored and cast aside.  Dole’s was the kind of dancing that kept rising and rising until it struck magnificent.  Buoyed by the right dancer, the right music and the power of bold expressive choreography, The Man That Got Away induced amazement and roars of approval.

The other masterwork was more restrained but no less beautiful or potent.  Robyn Mineko Williams and Artists danced a portion of Cloudline, a dream-state piece that used a 30-foot-silk cloth to help accentuate the dance’s atmosphere.  Two lovers find one another and embody the mystery and overwhelming satisfaction true love manifests through dance. As portrayed in movement by Morgan Clune and Amari Frazier, a more convincing display of that ideal is impossible to imagine.  A benchmark piece, its sudden and surprising ending provoked a collective gasp and then robust ovations.

This year’s concert honors choreographer, mentor and teacher Randy Duncan.  Mr. Duncan has created most DFL closing works since its inception, including Renewed; this year’s finale. Made up of dancers from the night’s performing companies, freelancers and students, they comprise a large contingent.  And in the muteness of Richard Dayhoff’s quiet gray costumes, there was a somber cast that shadowed their numbers. 

As the dance developed and took shape to music and lyrics by Ira Antelis, you could see the themes of resilience and positive conviction shining through.  A rejoicing in emerging from darkness to thrive once again.  The essence of Dance for Life. 

Dance for Life

August 22, 2026

The Auditorium Theatre

50 Ida B. Wells Drive

Chicago, IL  60605

For more information:  https://www.cdhf.org/danceforlife

City Lit Theatre’s world premiere of Shane, adapted for the stage and directed by Mark Pracht, brings a fresh, nostalgic perspective to Jack Schaefer’s classic novel - a story immortalized by Alan Ladd in the memorable 1953 film. Pracht, who has been developing this piece since the 2000s, crafts the adaptation as a heartfelt tribute to his own father and grandfather. The result is a sincere exploration of positive masculinity, celebrating men who stand by their virtues and protect others, even at great personal cost.

Set in the Wyoming Territory in the 1880s, the story kicks into gear when Shane, a quiet, mysterious stranger carrying the weight of a dangerous past, rides onto the homestead of Joe Starrett. Seeing something noble in the newcomer, Joe offers him a job as a farm hand, inviting him into his home and introducing him to his wife Marian and young son Bob. But the family’s peaceful routine is threatened by an escalating battle over land. Fletcher, a ruthless local cattle baron, wants to drive out the homesteaders at all costs, even hiring a killer to instigate a final conflict.

The narrative shines primarily through the eyes of young Bob, played warmly by Bruce Holtman. Spying on Shane at every opportunity, Bob serves as our window into understanding this complex, high-stakes frontier world. Narrating much of the action, Holtman skillfully transitions from an energetic, shy, and wide-eyed child into a mature observer. He injects a sense of humor into the production, as his younger self observes the adult world without always understanding the subtext. Through Bob’s perspective, the story taps into the beloved western's classic father-son overtones. He sees the mysterious stranger as the tough, capable man he wants to become, while Shane’s genuine kindness toward the boy shows that despite a dark past, he is capable of taking him under his wing.

Whitney Minarik (Marian Starrett), Josh Odor (Joe Starrett) in Shane at City Lit Theatre.

Michael B. Woods gives a strong performance as Shane, maintaining a jaded, guarded viewpoint that slowly softens. He gives the titular character a needed complexity as he wrestles with his past and rediscovers himself.  Woods also executes the stage combat with convincing physical precision.

The ensemble also gives strong performances. Josh Odor plays Joe Starrett, with a steady, kind masculinity. He is stoic, hard-working, and fiercely devoted to his family, yet far from weak; in Shane, he finds a true blood brother who is willing to stand beside him in the fight against Fletcher's greed. Whitney Minarik plays the wife, Marian, with equal skill, portraying a stern woman who may be a little bit of a fish out of water in the frontier, but who manages regardless. Minarik handles the character's complex emotional landscape well, navigating a subtle romantic pull toward Shane.

Adapting a western presents production challenges, and yet, the play manages a compelling story. In a contemporary landscape where masculine energy is often framed negatively, this tale highlights what it means to be a man of integrity: placing the needs of others first and standing up for what is right despite fear. As Shane famously notes, "A gun is a tool. No better and no worse than any other tool.” In that same spirit, Shane learns to see himself as more than the past he ran from. By choosing to protect a family and a home he cares about, his ultimate victory on stage allows us, much like Bob, to recognize our own capacity for growth and virtue. City Lit’s Shane is earnest, capable entry for anyone looking to step into the Wild West for an evening.

Through October 4^th. https://www.citylit.org/shows/46-s

The rise of artificial intelligence raises many questions about its effect on humanity. What does it mean if we become increasingly reliant on AI to think for us, create for us, and entertain us? What happens if this tool encroaches into our lives in ways it never should? Matthew Libby’s Sisters at Writers Theatre tackles the impact of AI in a fascinating way—what if it’s part of your family? Directed by Jessica Thebus, the play examines the profound, complicated implications of growing up with a synthetic sibling. Brenda Barrie plays Matilda, whose sister is an AI system named Greta, performed off-stage by Chloe Johnston. The story follows their complex relationship, which spans decades.

The weight of the production falls heavily on Barrie, who delivers a remarkable performance. She carries the hard task of playing Matilda across a ninety-year lifespan—from a six-year-old child to a woman in her nineties—without any reliance on makeup or costume changes. Instead, she portrays each stage of life through subtle shifts in posture, physicality, and the changing timbre of her voice. Because she is the only person on stage for the entire evening, the play functions virtually as a one-woman character study, compelling the audience to lean into the smallest movements of her face to track the complex emotions her character conceals. Opposite her, Chloe Johnston plays Greta, masterfully capturing the polite, Siri-esque cadences of an operating system while subtly infusing threads of humanity as the AI evolves.

At its core, the piece wrestles with a wounded family dynamic. Matilda is a deeply lonely character, bearing a chip on her shoulder after feeling neglected by her father following her mother's death. She struggles to comprehend how her father could share his deepest self with a system of circuit boards while remaining emotionally distant from his only daughter. This insecurity fuels Matilda’s initial hesitancy to accept her "sister" and drives a quiet jealousy, as through the years, others seem to value a computer over a living human. When Greta eventually asks for a physical body, Matilda must confront this jealousy directly, knowing that Greta’s lack of a physical form was the one thing that gave Matilda the upper hand.

Where Sisters stumbles slightly is in its thematic focus. The play begins to feel muddled as it attempts to juggle a wide array of high-concept questions: What rights does AI have? Is AI a friend or a foe? Is Matilda being manipulated by a machine? Is it healthy to befriend a computer?

Other works tackling the intersection of AI and humanity have succeeded by maintaining focus. Films like Spike Jonze’s Her (starring Joaquin Phoenix as a lonely man falling for an operating system) or Alex Garland’s Ex Machina maintain clarity by grounding their sci-fi premises in very specific themes that examine intimacy with AI or the ethics of creating a seemingly sentient computer. In contrast, Sisters struggles to decide whether it is a play about sisterhood, grief, memory, the inevitable intrusion of technology, or if it’s a character study using AI as a mirror for human fault. Sisters has interesting moments, but it's hard to feel their gravity when so many ideas are talking at once.

Part of the disconnect in this piece also seemed to be Matilda’s guardedness. She goes through phases of being open and closed with her “sister,” and since this is the only window into her as a character, the audience can’t get close because she’s not letting Greta get close. The hook of the play doesn't come until much later when the underlying truth of Matilda's feelings finally erupts. It’s when the sisters are finally seeing each other for who they are that the piece finds itself and provides intrigue.

Perhaps some technical difficulties also caused a disconnect. The set is simple; a living room with a single chair and a side table. But projections and sound cues build a larger world. Visual cues tell us Matilda’s age as we jump through time, and at some moments, we see videos of Matilda in her younger days through Greta’s eyes. The production also evokes Greta’s progression in a highly effective way. We experience a sort of cosmic spark of life as Greta first comes online, and later, when Greta expands into an infinite system, the stage turns into a breathtaking sky full of stars.

Unfortunately, the evening had several technical difficulties. The projectors seemed to reboot several times during the performance, and the play was halted for approximately ten minutes for a bug to be fixed. Nevertheless, Barrie handled the delay like a total professional, resuming the performance without a moment’s hesitation once the system recovered.

Ultimately, Sisters is an intriguing piece of theater. While the script could benefit from a more refined focus, it remains a thoroughly compelling watch, anchored by an extraordinary lead performance from Brenda Barrie that easily carries the evening.

Sisters plays at Writers Theatre until November 8.

Chicago-based Emmy Award-winning performance collective and film/video production company Manual Cinema premiered two new hand-animated films at the Obama Presidential Center Museum earlier this year. Now, the company is bringing two of its acclaimed live-action productions back to Chicago's historic Studebaker Theater at the Fine Arts Building, where audiences can witness Manual Cinema's handmade magic created before their eyes with performers, musicians, and hundreds of puppets.

Timed to coincide with the Halloween and Christmas holidays, Manual Cinema and the Studebaker Theater co-present Manual Cinema's Frankenstein, an adaptation of Mary Shelley's Gothic horror novel, for four performances only October 30–November 1, 2026; and Manual Cinema's Christmas Carol, a unique take on the Charles Dickens classic, from December 18–27, 2026.

Tickets for Frankenstein and Manual Cinema's Christmas Carol at the Studebaker Theater (410 S. Michigan Avenue, Chicago) go on sale Friday, August 28. Tickets are $35-$75, with student tickets available for $25 with proof of ID. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit fineartsbuilding.com/studebaker.

"Manual Cinema is a truly exceptional team of multidisciplinary artists, as demonstrated by the fact that they were tapped to create two short films for the Obama Presidential Center Museum," says Jacob Harvey, Managing Artistic Director of the Fine Arts Building and Studebaker Theater. "We're thrilled to bring their productions of Frankenstein and Manual Cinema's Christmas Carol back to the Studebaker this year, where audiences can experience the magic of their live-action, handmade filmmaking in person."

"We're so excited to be returning to the Studebaker Theater with Frankenstein and Manual Cinema's Christmas Carol!" adds Drew Dir, Co-Artistic Director of Manual Cinema. "Our adaptation of Mary Shelley's classic gothic novel has been touring the Western Hemisphere for years, and we're thrilled to bring it back home for an encore Halloween engagement. Meanwhile, Manual Cinema's Christmas Carol has become a beloved holiday tradition for our fans—we're thrilled to give Chicago audiences another chance to see it!"

SHOW DETAILS

Frankenstein

Studebaker Theater at the Fine Arts Building

410 S. Michigan Avenue, Chicago

October 30–November 1, 2026

In Manual Cinema's thrilling version of the classic Gothic tale Frankenstein, the Chicago-based performance collective imaginatively combines shadow puppetry, cinematic techniques, and live sound effects and music in a haunting show unlike any other. The production stitches together the fictional story of Frankenstein with the biography of the original novel's author, Mary Shelley, to create an unexpected tale about the beauty and horror of creation.

Frankenstein is adapted from the novel by Mary Shelley, with a concept by Drew Dir. The production is devised by Drew Dir, Sarah Fornace and Julia Miller. Original music and sound design are by Ben Kauffman and Kyle Vegter.

Performance times:

Friday, Oct. 30 at 7:30 p.m. (press opening)

Saturday, Oct. 31 at 7:30 p.m. and 10 p.m.

Sunday, Nov. 1 at 3 p.m.

Manual Cinema's Christmas Carol

Studebaker Theater at the Fine Arts Building

410 S. Michigan Avenue, Chicago

December 18–27, 2026

Featuring hundreds of handmade puppets, immersive sound design and a stunning live score, Manual Cinema's Christmas Carol is a holiday show unlike any other. Avowed holiday skeptic Aunt Trudy has been reluctantly recruited to carry on her late husband Joe's tradition of spreading Christmas cheer, and recreates his annual Christmas Carol puppet show over Zoom while the family celebrates from afar. But as Trudy dives deeper into the story, the puppets take on a life of their own and the family call transforms into a breathtaking, one-of-a-kind cinematic reimagining of Dickens's classic ghost story.

Manual Cinema's Christmas Carol is adapted from the novel by Charles Dickens and devised by Manual Cinema, with additional writing by Nate Marshall. Storyboards and puppet design are by Drew Dir, with original score and sound design by Ben Kauffman and Kyle Vegter, and lighting design by Trey Brazeal.

Performance times:

Friday, Dec. 18 at 7:30 p.m. (press opening)

Saturday, Dec. 19 at 1 p.m. and 5 p.m.

Sunday, Dec. 20 at 2 p.m.

Wednesday, Dec. 23 at 7:30 p.m.

Thursday, Dec. 24 at 2 p.m.

Saturday, Dec. 26 at 1 p.m. and 5 p.m.

Sunday, Dec. 27 at 2 p.m.

About the Fine Arts Building and Studebaker Theater

The Fine Arts Building, which celebrated its 125th anniversary in 2023, is a home for art in all forms: from pioneers like Poetry magazine's founding publisher Harriet Monroe, architect Frank Lloyd Wright, illustrator W. W. Denslow, sculptor Lorado Taft and the Chicago Little Theatre, to the ongoing legacies of painters, musicians, booksellers, puppeteers, dancers, photographers and craftspeople who inhabit the building today, the Fine Arts Building is buzzing with more than a century of Chicago creativity and innovation.

A Chicago Landmark since 1978, the building features original Art Nouveau murals from the late 19th century and the Studebaker Theater, one of the city's oldest and most significant live theatrical venues. Following a major multi-million-dollar renovation of the Studebaker led by Berger Realty Group and completed in 2022, the theater has been home to NPR's popular news quiz show "Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!" and has hosted performances from new musicals including 44: The Obama Musical, Roald Dahl's The Enormous Crocodile, and Jim Henson's Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas, along with productions Ava: The Secret Conversations starring Elizabeth McGovern and Manual Cinema's Christmas Carol. For more information, visit fineartsbuilding.com.

About Manual Cinema

Manual Cinema is an Emmy Award-winning performance collective, design studio, and film/video production company founded in 2010 by Drew Dir, Sarah Fornace, Ben Kauffman, Julia Miller and Kyle Vegter. Manual Cinema combines handmade shadow puppetry, cinematic techniques, and innovative sound and music to create immersive stories for stage and screen. Using vintage overhead projectors, multiple screens, puppets, actors, live feed cameras, multi-channel sound design, and live music, Manual Cinema transforms the experience of attending the cinema and imbues it with liveness, ingenuity, and theatricality.

The company was awarded an Emmy in 2017 for "The Forger," a video created for The New York Times, and named Chicago Artists of the Year in 2018 by the Chicago Tribune. Their shadow puppet animations were featured in the 2021 film remake of Candyman, directed by Nia DaCosta and produced by Jordan Peele's Monkeypaw Productions. In collaboration with the Obama Foundation and Batwin + Robin Productions, Manual Cinema created two animated films for the Obama Presidential Center Museum in Chicago, Ten Letters a Day and Power of Place.

Recent productions include Leonardo! A Wonderful Show About A Terrible Monster, based on books by Mo Willems, an adaptation of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, and a revamped production of The Magic City, based on Edith Nesbit's 1910 novel. In 2023, Manual Cinema completed production on their first self-produced short film, Future Feeling, and toured with folk rock band Iron & Wine the following year. In Summer 2025, Manual Cinema premiered their latest feature production, The 4th Witch—a bold and imaginative inversion of Macbeth that is now touring.

If you need an energy boost, skip the can of Monster and get yourself, plus loved ones of any age, to Playmakers Lab’s tasty birthday cake of a show. The very first edition of That’s Weird, Grandma, culled from Chicago elementary school students’ stories, occurred in the spring of 2001. The revue has somehow survived 9/11, Covid, funding cuts and all other slams against children’s wildest dreams and highest hopes.

No wonder director Brandon Cloyd and the cast can’t hide their excitement. Presented for the last 25 years at the Neo-Futurist Theater, That’s Weird, Grandma provides an hour of escape from adult common sense. It is rough hewn stuff, as scrappy in production and performance values as the gritty venue itself. But it’s a fine place to giggle at the audition of a giraffe who desperately wants to join the circus or a song about a burping bunny.

Cloyd’s intensity as he welcomes the audience reflects the entire project. What goes on in kids’ heads – and later on paper – matters enough to these dedicated grownups to say it out loud and in full volume. Young imaginations may lack both polish and boundaries, but the tales they generate don’t necessarily need a formal beginning, middle or end; or a neat divide between fact or fiction.

For example, “My Sister Fell” gets no farther than a little girl falling on some garbage and crying. “Rose Saves Tony” refers to Lake Michigan as an “ocean” which, given its vastness, makes perfect sense. With sheer glee, the ensemble performs the scene that gave birth to Playmaker Lab’s show title a quarter century ago – a grandma’s “weird” explanation of why her teeth are gleaming white.

Notable among the more complete sketches, “Egg Adventures” has the last remaining egg in a container urgently asking its commander via walkie-talkie to send reinforcements. Out come hens who lay more eggs, even as the commander warns, “Some of you will not be coming back.”

Ensemble members, who serve as teaching artists for the creative writing residencies, celebrate their double duty as educators and performers throughout the show. In addition to the current cast, actors from prior productions lend cameo performances – a nod to the past and a hope that Playmakers Lab can keep its weirdness going for years to come.

Runtime: 1 hour

Remaining show dates: Saturday Aug. 29, Sunday, Aug. 30, Saturday, Sept. 5 and Sunday, Sept 6; all performances at 2 pm

Playmakers Laboratory at Neo-Futurist Theater: 5153 N. Ashland Ave, Chicago

Tickets: www.playmakerslab.org.

Joining the previously announced stars of Kowalski Johnny Galecki ("The Big Bang Theory," "The Little Dog Laughed") as Tennessee Williams and Jacob Moskovitz ("Elle") as Marlon Brando are Alison Cimmet as Margo Jones, Reece Dos Santos as Pancho and Ellie Ricker as Jo. The celebrated new play by Gregg Ostrin, directed by Colin Hanlon, will come to Chicago's Lookingglass Theatre Company at the historic Water Tower Water Works, 163 E Pearson St. at Michigan Ave., playing September 15–October 25, 2026. 

The creative team includes David Gallo (scenic designer), Lisa Zinni (costume designer), Jeff Croiter (lighting designer), Bill Toles (sound designer), Amanda Herrmann (props supervisor), Chels Morgan (intimacy director), Viveca Gardiner (associate scenic designer), Grace Wylie (assistant to the costume designer), Riva Fairhall (associate lighting designer), Sun Hee Kil (associate sound designer), J.P. Elins (production stage manager), and Tess Golden (assistant stage manager).

The understudies include Andrew Schoen (Tennessee Williams), Marck Kiselevach (Marlon Brando & Pancho), and Paige Cilluffo (Margo Jones & Jo).

Tickets are available at lookingglasstheatre.org and 312.337.0665. Kowalski is a part of the 26/27 Lookingglass Membership and Subscription Series. Single tickets range from $37 to $97, with a limited number of premium seats also available.

Set over one pivotal evening in 1947 Provincetown, Kowalski imagines the electrifying first meeting between Tennessee Williams and a young Marlon Brando, just as Williams searches for the actor who would forever change the destiny of A Streetcar Named Desire. Blending fact, memory, and theatrical imagination, the play offers a fascinating glimpse into the creative forces behind one of the most influential works in American theater. Kowaslki explores the intersection of ambition, artistry, desire, and the creation of theatrical history.

JOHNNY GALECKI (Tennessee Williams) is an acclaimed actor best known for his starring role as 'Leonard Hofstadeter' on the award-winning CBS comedy "The Big Bang Theory," for which he earned Emmy, Golden Globe and SAG award nominations. He first gained widespread recognition as 'David Healy' on the groundbreaking sitcom "Roseanne" and has appeared in numerous film and television projects throughout his career including Hancock, Vanilla Sky, I Know What You Did Last Summer, Suicide Kings, In Time and National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. His stage credits include the Tony Award-nominated Broadway play The Little Dog Laughed for which he received a Theater World Award for Outstanding Broadway Debut, The Drawer Boy, Pot Mom, The Member of the Wedding and Galileo.

JACOB MOSKOVITZ (Marlon Brando) is a rising talent delivering versatile and engaging performances across film and television. Most recently, he starred in the highly anticipated Legally Blonde prequel series ELLE from Amazon and Hello Sunshine, which has already been renewed for a second season.

Moskovitz recently completed production on the Fernando Meirelles-directed Netflix feature Here Comes the Flood, appearing alongside Robert Pattinson, Denzel Washington, and Daisy Edgar-Jones. Earlier this year, Jacob also starred in Seth Meyers' produced feature Brian, which premiered to strong reviews at SXSW. He can currently be seen in the independent feature The Floaters, which was released July 10, 2026. Additional film credits include the A24 feature Y2K, directed and written by Kyle Mooney and Evan Winter, as well as Isle Child, directed and written by Thomas Percy Kim. On television, Jacob's credits include "Chicago P.D." (NBC), "The Good Fight" (Paramount+), Magnum P.I.  (NBC), and "FBI: International" (CBS).

ALISON CIMMET (Margo Jones) has performed on Broadway in Gary, Amelie, She Loves Me, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Bonnie & Clyde, Baby, It's You!, and A Tale of Two Cities. Off-Broadway/Regional favorites: Freya in Any Minute Now (HERE Arts Center); Margo Jones in Kowalski (Duke); Nelle in Someone Spectacular (Signature); Lady Capulet in Romeo & Juliet (Westport Country Playhouse); Witch in Into the Woods (Fiasco/The Old Globe); Mrs. Cratchit in A Christmas Carol (McCarter Theatre); Madame Thenardier in Les Miserables (NCT); 3 Kinds of Exile (Atlantic Theatre); Preparedness (Bushwick Starr); My Wonderful Day (Two River Theatre). Film/TV favorites: Best Medicine, The Wrath of Becky, The Big Sick, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Ray Donovan, Blacklist, Younger, Bull, Evil, Dickinson, Law & Order: SVU. Alison is a graduate of Brown University, founder of Bonfire Theatre Group, and member of The Actors Center.

ELLIE RICKER (Jo) began her career as a professional Ballet dancer before earning her BFA in Theatre from Boston University.  TV/Film credits include "Anne of Green Gables," "Blue Bloods," 12 and More Omissions (SAIFF Best Actor Award) and A24's Y2K, directed by Kyle Mooney. She is reprising her role from the recent off-Broadway production of Kowalski.

REECE dos SANTOS (Pancho) New York City-based and making his Chicago debut—stoked to finally be here! Film: The Man I Love (dir. Ira Sachs; 2026 Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or nominee), Triumph of the Will. TV: The Equalizer (CBS), New Amsterdam (NBC), American Rust (Showtime). Off-Broadway: Romeo & Juliet (The Public's Delacorte Theater), The Irrepressible Magic of the Tropics (INTAR). Regional: All My Sons (Hartford Stage), Pride & Prejudice (Cleveland Play House), Flowers of Hawaii(Chautauqua Theater Company), A Welcome Guest (CATF), Measure for Measure and Sofonisba (Theater at Monmouth). MFA: NYU Graduate Acting, Class of 2023. 

GREGG OSTRIN (Playwright) A native of Los Angeles, his most recent plays include A Very Streaming Christmas and The Spy Who Went Into Rehab (Pacific Resident Theatre, Venice, California), The Soul of Motown (Stage West Theater, Calgary), Truffles (Secret Door Theater, New York City) and Rank & File (Hudson Theater, Los Angeles). His play The Beverly Hills Hotel Peace Talks just had its premiere staged reading at The Coachella Valley Rep in Palm Springs, California for its Origins series. It will be opening there in May 2025. He dedicates this play to his former mentor, the late George Furth.

COLIN HANLON (Director) is an actor, writer, director, and producer living in New York City. He most recently directed Broken Snow (with Tony Danza, Tom Cavanagh and Michael Longfellow). He also directed I Love You Because-a queer retelling in NYC, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee and co-directed It's Only a Play at George Street Playhouse. He's the co-producer & star of Submissions Only. He's also an adjunct professor at NYU New Studio, LIU, Stella Adler, and Cap 21. He teaches auditioning and self-tape technique at his private studio. Still a working actor as he's been on "Modern Family," "Difficult People," "The Sinner," "The Good Fight" and currently "Uncoupled" on Showtime. Broadway: Falsettos, Rent, Wicked (First National Tour) and In Transit. Off-Broadway: NYC premiere of Dot by Colman Domingo (Vineyard Theater, dir. Susan Stroman), A.R. Gurney's last play Final Follies dir. David Saint (Cherry Lane) and I Love You Because (original cast).

About Lookingglass Theatre Company

Founded in 1988 by graduates of Northwestern University, Lookingglass Theatre Company is a nationwide leader in the creation and presentation of new, cutting-edge theatrical works and in sharing its ensemble-based theatrical techniques with Chicago-area students and teachers through Education and Community Programs. Guided by an artistic vision centered on the core values of collaboration, transformation and invention, Lookingglass seeks to capture audiences' imaginations leaving them changed, charged and empowered. Recipient of the 2011 Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre, Lookingglass has built a national reputation for artistic excellence and ensemble-based theatrical innovation. Notable world premieres include Mary Zimmerman's Tony Award-winning Metamorphoses and The Odyssey, J. Nicole Brooks' Her Honor Jane Byrne, David Schwimmer's adaptation of Upton Sinclair's The Jungle and Studs Terkel's Race: How Blacks and Whites Think and Feel about the American Obsession, Matthew C. Yee's Lucy and Charlie's Honeymoon and David Catlin's circus tribute to Lewis Carroll, Lookingglass Alice, which was captured by HMS Media and reached 1.6 million PBS viewers. Looking Alice is now available to more than four million students worldwide through Digital Theatre+. Work created by Lookingglass artists has been produced in Australia, Europe and dozens of cities throughout the United States.