Theater
The best theater in Chicago, including play and musical critical reviews
Children's theater and family-friendly plays in Chicago
Chicago is a theater town, and stage shows meant for kids and families are as robust as the grown-up offerings. Some companies, like Chicago Children’s Theatre and Emerald City Theatre, dedicate their whole missions to entertaining and educating little ones; others, like Chicago Shakespeare Theater and Lifeline Theatre, make chldren’s theater part of a varied programming mix. With so many options, it’s never to early to get kids invested in the arts.
Latest theater reviews
Shockheaded Peter
The cult favorite musical, about naughty children meeting grisly deaths, feels rather lifeless despite fine performances
Megastasis
A single joint derails a young man’s life in Kia Corthron’s fact-heavy but dramatically inert new play
An Octoroon
Young synergist Branden Jacobs-Jenkins deconstructs 19th-century Irish writer Dion Boucicault’s race melodrama to thrilling effect
Luzia
For Cirque du Soleil’s latest spectacle, the French-Canadian circus troupe looks south to Mexico for inspiration
Latest theater & performance news
Time Out loves
Lela & Co.
Robin Witt stages the U.S. debut of British playwright Cordelia Lynn, a taut two-hander about warfare’s effect on non-combatants
Hir
What you think you know—about gender, family dynamics or Steppenwolf—is up for debate in Taylor Mac’s charming and challenging work
An Octoroon
Young synergist Branden Jacobs-Jenkins deconstructs 19th-century Irish writer Dion Boucicault’s race melodrama to thrilling effect
La Havana Madrid
Sandra Delgado goes digging into Lakeview’s lost Latinx legacy, with charming and edifying results
At the Table
A blazing young ensemble brings its best to the table in this prickly portrait of friends and enmities
Fight City
Power corrupts in Factory Theater’s action-packed dystopian-future tale
