Ensemble member Alana Arenas (center) and the cast of Steppenwolf’s The Brother/Sister Plays (In the Red and Brown Water) by Tarell Alvin McCraney, directed by ensemble member Tina Landau. Photo by Michael Brosilow / courtesy Steppenwolf Theatre
With more than 250 theatre companies calling Chicago home, at sites ranging from storefront lofts to larger, more plush venues, visitors to the Windy City have a wide range of entertainment choices at ticket prices that often run far less than New York’s. Combined with less-expensive hotels and restaurants, theatre aficionados would do well to plan a Midwest trip to take in some shows.
Your theatre vacation should include the city’s bigger and better known companies, such as Steppenwolf, Goodman and Victory Gardens. Steppenwolf and Goodman often have productions that move on to New York. Their ensembles include some of the finest actors currently on the American stage, along with film/television stars who’ve returned to their live theatre roots, such as John Mahoney and Brian Dennehy.
This past weekend, for example, I was blown away by “The Brother/Sister Plays” in Steppenwolf’s upstairs theatre. The three-play series was written by award-winning Tarell McCraney, 29 – an American writer in residence at London’s Royal Shakespeare Company. While McCraney’s plays, featuring a nearly-all African-American cast, were astonishing the audience upstairs, Steppenwolf’s downstairs theatre featured David Mamet’s “American Buffalo,” co-starring Pulitzer Prize and Tony-award winner Tracy Letts.
- Chicago Shakespeare Theatre is also not to be missed. It’s located at Navy Pier, one of the most popular tourist site in the city, home to numerous restaurants, museums, shops and sight-seeing boats. Noel Coward’s “Private Lives” and “Short Shakespeare! The Comedy of Errors” are currently in production.
- If it’s Broadway you’re after, Broadway in Chicago stages productions that have either just come from Broadway or are on their way. Productions are staged in the downtown theatre district, at the Ford Center for the Performing Arts/Oriental Theatre, the Cadillac Palace Theatre, Bank of America Theatre, Auditorium Theatre, and Drury Lane Theatre Water Tower Place.
- For a complete listing of what’s playing in Chicago, along with links to half price tickets and theatre Web sites, go to: www.chicagoplays.com. Just click on the date you’d like for a complete list of what’s showing throughout the city. Most theatre companies offer discounted tickets, especially day-of-show. For other ticket deals, go to HotTix, where the League of Chicago Theatres offers great ticket deals each day to some of the city’s hottest productions.
By Anne Stein
