Catey Sullivan

4 weeks ago | chicago.suntimes.com | Catey Sullivan

The tragic tale of the Titanic has resurfaced in force this spring. Head to Streeterville, and you’ll find “Titanique,” a wackadoodle send-up of the iconic 1997 blockbuster movie about the doomed ship that sank 113 years ago on April 12. Meanwhile, the Marriott Lincolnshire on Wednesday night opened the five-time Tony Award winner, “Titanic the Musical” Directed and choreographed for the Marriott by Connor Gallagher, the highly romanticized take on the maritime tragedy is good, but not great.

1 month ago | chicago.suntimes.com | Catey Sullivan

For more than 30 years, Edgewater’s Rivendell Theatre Ensemble has occupied a unique niche in Chicago’s theatrosphere. Since its founding, the company has focused on dramas about, or authored by, women. And in an industry where roles for older women are becoming increasingly sparse, Rivendell is a welcome outlier. “No Such Thing,” the new drama by Lisa Dillman running through April 27 in Rivendell’s intimate space, sometimes follows and sometimes fails that mission.

1 month ago | chicago.suntimes.com | Catey Sullivan

Enter the auditorium in Streeterville’s Broadway Playhouse At Water Tower Place, and you’ll find a sparkling jewel the size of several human heads dangling before the curtain. It is a Party City-esque rendition of the Heart of the Ocean, the fabled gem that went overboard in the final scenes of the 1997 blockbuster, “Titanic,” the strains of Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” swelling in the background. Welcome to “Titanique.” Word to the wise: There is a “Titanic” musical, this is not that.

1 month ago | chicago.suntimes.com | Catey Sullivan

It’s been more than 15 years since Pulitzer Prize-winning dramatist Suzan-Lori Parks debuted “The Book of Grace,” but it’s no relic of the past. “It was timely when I wrote it,” Parks said of the West Texas-set drama, which opens April 6 at Steppenwolf Theatre in its Chicago premiere.

1 month ago | chicago.suntimes.com | Catey Sullivan

The music hits like a flood of pure serotonin in “Sunny Afternoon,” the juke box-ish musical centered on 1960s groundbreaking rock-and-roll hitmakers The Kinks. Following a years-long run in London’s West End and a UK tour, the show is making its North American premiere at Navy Pier’s Chicago Shakespeare Theater. It’s easy to see — or rather, hear —why the production is a hit across the pond.