With last night's opening of the quirky musical Ride the Cyclone, Chicago Shakespeare Theater has achieved what I believe to be a first: Two productions running simultaneously in the same building have earned five-star reviews from Time Out.
Both Cyclone, a new production in CST's Upstairs studio theater of a delightfully oddball show with a Canadian pedigree, and the lush, genuinely magical production of Shakespeare's The Tempest playing in the Courtyard Theatre downstairs have garnered our top rating. Which means that, also for the first time, I can tell you there are two good reasons to visit Navy Pier right now.
Ride the Cyclone and The Tempest both run through November 8.