Perhaps you heard the cheers, sobs and stamping feet coming from Southport street? Well, that was the sound of the opening night audience at Mercury Theater’s The Color Purple, a searing and emotionally resonant production directed by L. Walter Stearns. This is my first encounter with the 2005 musical adaptation of the beloved Alice Walker… Read More Mercury Theater finds the emotional core in sprawling ‘The Color Purple’
P.T. Barnum knew how to put on a show. With some manipulative marketing and a dash of spectacle, he could sell you a wooden nickel for a dollar. The 1980 musical Barnum, which features a jovial, ear-wormy score by Cy Coleman, captured this celebrated flim-flam artist’s ascent to a household name as partner in the… Read More Mercury Theater’s enjoyable ‘Barnum’ needs more brass
It’s a very rare thing to come across a show that embraces its simplicity with virtually zero pretense. A Grand Night for Singing at Mercury Theater is such a show. This perfectly enjoyable musical revue celebrating the classic scores of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein isn’t afraid to make the songs the star by featuring… Read More HuffPo Review: Mercury Theater’s ‘A Grand Night for Singing’ is ‘Something Wonderful’
In Mark St. Germain’s play, Freud’s Last Session, which is receiving its Chicago premiere with the original New York cast, director and producers, he imagines what would happen if a young C. S. Lewis and the infamous psychoanalyst Dr. Sigmund Freud were to spend an afternoon together debating softball topics such as, oh, the meaning… Read More Huffington Post Review: ‘Freud’s Last Session’
A Twist of Water is a play about rebuilding and new beginnings, Chicago style. This stunning new work, written by Caitlin Montanye Parrish and directed by Erica Weiss who is also the co-creator, perfectly sets the tone for the re-opening of the Mercury Theater — a gem of a 300-seat venue next door to the… Read More The Mercury Theater celebrates a re-birth with the deeply moving ‘A Twist of Water’
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