Alex Huntsberger

2019

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2018

Chicago Sun-Times •

Theo Ubique ushers in new era — unfortunately with same old 'Full Monty'

Ever since it moved to The No Exit Cafe in 2004, Theo Ubique’s house style has been inextricable from the charmingly cramped, bohemian confines of its Rogers Park home: major musicals masterfully done on a miniature scale. Their shows have been packed to the brim with young, up-and-coming musical actors performing for audiences packed to the brim as well. Seated cabaret-style around a matchbox-sized stage, one had to watch one’s elbows carefully lest they poke out a fellow patron’s eyeballs. If
Chicago Sun-Times •

'Woman in Black' is brilliantly terrifying at Royal George

For a show that’s been running in the West End since 1987, the late Stephen Mallatratt’s adaptation of “The Woman in Black” feels surprisingly of these times. At least in some ways. The play itself is the opposite of cutting-edge, deriving much of its charm from being forthrightly old-fashioned: Just two men rehearsing in an empty, turn-of-the-century London theater. Much like it’s source material, Susan Hill’s 1983 novel of the same name, Mallatratt’s “The Woman in Black” is an immensely pleasu
Chicago Sun-Times •

Retooled 'Holiday Inn' oozes fresh sensibilities amid familiar Berlin tunes

Before you ask, yes, they’ve cut the Lincoln’s Birthday song. For those unfamiliar with the classic Christmas film “Holiday Inn,” this wildly offensive scene features Bing Crosby, Marjorie Reynolds and many other actors done up in full black face for the musical number “Abraham.” The first order of business for any modern version of the film (or the stage) would be chucking that scene in the trash, then setting the trash can on fire and launching it into space. Therefore, it’s not at all surpr
Chicago Sun-Times •

'Small Mouth Sounds': A strong, mostly silent type of play from A Red Orchid

It’s become fashionable in recent years to practice the art of unplugging: from phones, from social media accounts, and overall from the vague semi-lucidity of being always somewhat online. It’s also one area where live theater — usually a good 10 to 30 years behind the cultural curve — has the rest of the world beat. Ever since cell phones were first invented, the theater has been one space where they were strictly verboten. This shedding of our digital avatars has always carried with it the p
Chicago Sun-Times •

There's a whole lotta politicking (and more) going on in 'Fight Night'

With a name like “Fight Night” and the inclusion of live audience voting, you’d expect a play like this one to be a raucous viva voce affair. And yet it’s anything but. As the most recent installment in Chicago Shakeseare’s season-long “Big in Belgium” series, this absolutely invigorating show from the company Ontroerend Goed comes slyly dressed in the buttoned-up garb of sobriety. All the better for letting the inherently mad contradictions of unfettered democracy come oozing out of the seams.
Chicago Sun-Times •

Everything's coming up spectacular for 'Gypsy' at Porchlight Music Theatre

What to make of Mama Rose? She’s a loving mother and a tyrant, a striving dreamer and a terrible bully, a wild-eyed maniac and a tragic hero — or maybe it’s a tragic villain. As played by Chicago stage treasure E. Faye Butler, the indomitable Rose is all of these things, both maelstrom and delicate flower that, like her namesake, loses its petals in the slightest breeze. Oh, and she’s also a star. Something that Butler never lets you forget. Of course, Rose is a role written for star power, and
Chicago Sun-Times •

David Cale musical memoir 'We're Only Alive...' strikes a resounding chord

I suppose it makes sense to start this review the same way that performer David Cale begins his one-man show: by talking about his birds. Growing up in Luton, a crumbling industrial town 30 miles outside of London, the young David (born Egleton) built himself a thriving aviary where he bred tropical birds. Those birds (finches mostly) were his refuge from a mother and father who felt even more trapped in their lives than he did and so fought non-stop. By keeping birds in a cage, Cale was able to
Chicago Sun-Times •

In Wilson's 'Radio Golf,' gentrifiers tempted by the gold in that there Hill

In August Wilson’s Hill District in the waning years of the 20th century, “hope” and “change” are mutually exclusive ideals. The forces of gentrification are sweeping through, and black men born and raised in the neighborhood cheer when the area is officially designated as “blighted.” That means $5 million from the federal government to raze the Hill District and turn it into a Reaganite “shining city on a hill,” complete with a Starbucks, a Barnes & Noble and a Whole Foods. In order for hope to
Chicago Sun-Times •

In sex trade drama 'Monger,' the subject is compelling even if the story isn't

Mary Bonnett’s new play “Monger: The Awakening of J.B. Benton” subscribes to the Janelle Monae school of sexual Marxism: everything is sex, except sex, which is power. The fourth play in Her Story Theatre’s “Chicago Sex Trafficking Cycle,” it draws from research, interviews and the case of Desiree Robinson, a Chicago teenager who was forced into sex trafficking and then murdered. “Monger” might be ineffective as a drama, but it’s harrowing nonetheless. The titular J.B. Benton (Ira Amyx) is a hi
Chicago Sun-Times •

'Rick Stone the Blues Man' plays out as concert, rather than stage musical

Like the vast majority of Black Ensemble Theater’s output, “Rick Stone The Blues Man” is a jukebox musical written and directed by Black Ensemble Theater founder and CEO Jackie Taylor. This one, in particular, is much more jukebox than it is musical, raising the question of why Taylor insists on adding fictionalized material at all. Let the blues concert be a blues concert. No one’s going to complain. As the title suggests, the play is a showcase for the titular Stone, a blues musician and a lo
Chicago Sun-Times •

Powerhouse cast delivers the joy, sorrow, passion in sizzling 'Color Purple'

When the musical adaptation of Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “The Color Purple” premiered in 2004, it was kind of a bloated mess. But people who thought it was the musical’s fault — not just the production’s — were proven wrong when director John Doyle mounted a theatrical do-over at London’s Menier Chocolate Factory in 2013. Perhaps best known for his chic “Sweeney Todd,” and for making Patti LuPone play the tuba, Doyle jettisoned most of “The Color Purple’s” pomp so he could hon
Chicago Sun-Times •

The hopeful music and tragic facts of 'Haymarket' make for a moving musical

One of the sneakiest strengths of “Haymarket,” a new folk musical from composer David Kornfeld and writer Alex Higgin-Houser, is that it knows to keep current events out of it. While the play contains numerous parallels to the nation’s current political strife, it makes sure the two lines never converge. The parallels stay parallel. We’re constantly bombarded by modern life as it is; the last thing we need is for it to crash Kool-Aid-man-style into the story at hand and reiterate (but louder) w