by Dennis Polkow | August 28, 2026Lyric Opera’s Sunday in the Park Showcases Selections From the Upcoming Season On Sunday evening, the opera company performed selections from five of the six staged operas that will make up its 2026-27 season, among other works.
by Dennis Polkow | August 19, 2026Broadway in Chicago’s Millennium Park Summer Concert Previews Their 2026-27 Season The evening of performances gave Chicago audiences a sampling of the productions that will appear on the company's stages in the year to come.
by Dennis Polkow | July 15, 2026“Suffs” Offers Sustenance to Keep Marching for Gender Equality Broadway in Chicago's musical on the suffragist movement makes feminism sing.
by Dennis Polkow | July 8, 2026Isn’t It Rich To Experience Sondheim in the Round? The Marriott Theatre's "A Little Night Music" is an optimistic operetta.
by Dennis Polkow | June 26, 2026“Water for Elephants” Refreshingly Quenches the Urge to Run Off to the Circus The musical adaptation presented by Broadway in Chicago is a spectacle of movement.
by Dennis Polkow | May 19, 2026A Last, Less Elaborate Look at a Reimagined “Les Misérables” The twenty-fifth anniversary reimagining of the musical, now running for over a decade, makes its final stop in Chicago with its current two-week run.
by Dennis Polkow | April 24, 2026A Splashy and Sentimental CliffsNotes “Great Gatsby” “The Great Gatsby: A New Musical” is here for a short run at Broadway in Chicago’s Cadillac Palace Theatre.
by Dennis Polkow | April 17, 2026Lyric’s John Mangum and Enrique Mazzola Discuss the 2026-27 Opera Season Mangum, the Lyric's general director, president and CEO, and Mazzola, the Lyric's music director, discuss what's in store for the opera company in the year ahead.
by Dennis Polkow | March 25, 2026“Hamilton” Producer Jeffrey Seller Turns to Chicago After Kennedy Center Withdrawal The producer discusses his Broadway career, from the tragic origins of "Rent" to the tragedy in D.C. that led to this spring's "Hamilton" production in Chicago.
by Dennis Polkow | March 18, 2026Reimagined “Butterfly” Leaves Sumptuous Score Intact but Turns Reality on Its Head Matthew Ozawa’s multidimensional staging of “Butterfly” that premiered at Cincinnati Opera in 2023 is now being presented at his home company of Lyric Opera, where he is chief artistic director.
by Dennis Polkow | February 26, 2026“Bernadette, The Musical” Blessedly Asks More Questions Than It Answers The Athenaeum Center's audience included priests, nuns of various orders, and even the Pope's brother for this tale of a nineteenth-century French peasant girl who claimed to have visions of “a beautiful lady” in a grotto.
by Dennis Polkow | February 18, 2026Porchlight Music Theatre Celebrates Irish American Saga in Sorrow & Song What makes “Irish” work is that no matter how sad things may get, there is always an aura of celebration in the production.
by Dennis Polkow | February 6, 2026Solid Singing Takes Lyric’s “Così” Beyond Buffoonery Lyric’s production transports the Da Ponte-Mozart opera to a 1930s seaside resort, where the colors, costumes, scenery and approach are overstated.
by Dennis Polkow | January 8, 2026Remasking a Classic: Isaiah Bailey Refreshes “Phantom” for New National Tour Bailey brings power, humanity and personal truth to the North American tour of “The Phantom of the Opera.”
by Dennis Polkow | November 24, 2025Smashing Genres: Billy Corgan Gets Artsy at Lyric Opera Billed as “A Night of Mellon Collie and Infinite Sadness,” Friday night was not your typical night at the opera.
