New York Report, plus a pair of local picks
K. reports on shows seen in New York, noting the strongest had the deepest Chicago ties, and recommends TimeLine's Chimerica. J. weighs in on Northlight's take on Thomas Jefferson, Charles Dickens, and Count Leo Tolstoy in Discord.
Two critics, two opinions, one conversation. Dueling Critics gathers longtime Chicago arts writers Kelly Kleiman and Jonathan Abarbanel as they hash out their differing takes on the city's theatre scene. The podcast treats every show as a question worth pressing on, from new premieres to familiar classics, inviting listeners to weigh the arguments alongside them. The tone is conversational but informed, shaped by decades of reviewing habit and a shared affection for the stage.
TimeLine Theatre has long been a fixture of Chicago's storefront and mid-sized stages, known for work drawn from history and lived experience. Productions tend to focus on moments that resonate beyond their own era, asking audiences to sit with difficult material rather than look past it. The company has built an audience that expects careful research and committed acting, and critics pay attention accordingly. Their seasons often spark debate well beyond opening night, which is exactly the kind of theatre that earns a second listen on a podcast like this one.
A typical Dueling Critics episode opens with each reviewer offering a take, then pushes toward the disagreement underneath. Sometimes one wins the argument, sometimes neither does, and sometimes the hosts simply agree to disagree on record. That honesty is part of the appeal: the show is less interested in verdicts than in illuminating how critics arrive at them. Listeners come away with two distinct lenses on the same production, and a clearer sense of why thoughtful theatre criticism remains a craft worth practicing in conversation.
Archive pages like this one collect every past mention of a given company across the podcast and the blog, making it easy to follow the critical conversation over time. Browsing by tag reveals how the same play can spark different responses on different nights, and how a company's body of work accumulates meaning through repeat visits. For readers who missed a production, the collected writing provides a second pass at it. For regular listeners, the archive becomes a quiet record of how Chicago theatre keeps evolving, one reviewed opening at a time.