Steve Scott

"Jacob Marley's Christmas Carol" ** If you've enjoyed—or suffered through—one of the myriad interpretations of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" that quack like cooked geese at this time of year, perchance you've wondered about Jacob...

There's the Hollywood sign everyone knows -- white letters 50 feet high, recognized the world over as the landmark of Tinseltown. And then there's the other Hollywood sign, the hidden one, whose red neon letters were once as familiar as the larger sign...

A couple of years ago, I parked a Hummer H2, in all its blunt-trauma enormity, in front of a coffee shop in Santa Monica. When I returned I discovered a note written on a paper napkin under the windshield. "This thing is so stupid! Why don't you grow up?"...

There's a nameless little plaque on a bench at the park where I often take my young sons to play. "Our little lost one," it reads, "safe in God's arms." Even though it ends on a note of hope and surety, the sadness of this beautifully tender...

From lead actors to scenic designers, check out the nominees for Chicago's best non-Equity productions of the 2006-2007 season. . Here's the list of nominations: PRODUCTION - PLAY •"Angels in America, Part Two: Perestroika" by The Hypocrites in...

Desperate times call for desperate measures, which is why a fourth-quarter Bulls lineup consisted of Jannero Pargo, Ben Gordon, Adrian Griffin, Eric Piatkowski and Andres Nocioni. Too bad this wasn't a home game so that public-address announcer Steve...

Few things irritate the good people of what Donald Rumsfeld famously termed "Old Europe" like being treated as characters in a theme park built for American amusement. And we're not just talking about vacationing American tourists complaining that...

Three days of musical comedy celebration begin Friday with "Stages 2004," an annual festival of new musicals. This year's lineup features eight new creations from national composers and lyricists. Opening night stars Tony Award nominee Sam Harris as Al...

It's now or never for a moderately funny Bush-basher such as Theater Wit's "W!" Now at the Bailiwick, this three-person revue doesn't exactly give Chicago-based political satire a good name. Audiences will have to settle for some fetching melodies and a...

The first major work by Tony Award-winning composer and lyricist Jason Robert Brown was the 1998 Broadway musical "Parade," a depiction of a hate crime in Atlanta from the early 20th Century. It fared better with critics than audiences. Much more...

With patient dedication and consummate skill, Greg Vinkler has played 19 deftly varied roles with Chicago Shakespeare Theater. But his biggest and bravest could be his 20th portrayal. "King Lear," Vinkler incarnates a monarch maddened by the sudden...

Chicago has waited a long time for its share of "Wit." Margaret Edson's drama, which follows a college professor of English as she undergoes a battle with ovarian cancer, has been seen in a great many American cities, but not this one. Edson started...