Last month I traveled to Belfast to attend the Northern Ireland Music Prize, because this year’s ceremony included the debut of the Joe Cassidy Chrysalis Award—named for the late Belfast-born artist who’d become one of Chicago’s most important and beloved musical transplants. Cassidy, who led the group Butterfly Child, was an old friend of mine […]

The post The late great Joe Cassidy links music scenes across the Atlantic appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Something seems shady at City Hall. It’s not the first time a Chicago politician is operating in the dark. But the actions of Mayor Brandon Johnson are conspicuous for the progressive union organizer who ascended to office on bold promises of cogovernance with the pantheon of Chicago’s political left who coalesced around him.  Since taking […]

The post Johnson administration’s early days marked by lapses in transparency appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Don’t ask me how many times I’ve seen Billy Wilder’s Academy Award-winning 1960 film The Apartment. I honestly couldn’t tell you. I can tell you it’s my favorite movie, and it should certainly be on anyone’s list of great holiday films, as well. (If for no other reason, you should watch it for the glorious […]

The post <i>Promises, Promises</i> gets a rare revival with Blank Theatre appeared first on Chicago Reader.

It’s been a minute since I’ve visited the Kingdom of Other: 13 years, to be precise. The last time I saw Jackie Taylor’s The Other Cinderella was in 2010, before Black Ensemble Theater moved to their spacious Clark Street home. (And it was certainly long before BET planned an expansion across the street that will […]

The post <i>The Other Cinderella</i> still has soul and sparkle to spare appeared first on Chicago Reader.

If Laurie Anderson had done a mash-up of Scott O’Dell’s young adult classic Island of the Blue Dolphins and the 1994 John Sayles Celtic magic realist film, The Secret of Roan Inish, the result might be very similar to Islander. This minimalist but enchanting musical, which started life in 2017 on the Isle of Mull […]

The post <i>Islander</i> loops together a minimalist but enchanting Celtic tale appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Fast becoming a staple of Chicago’s alternative holiday entertainment scene, The Buttcracker: A Nutcracker Burlesque is back for a seventh year of tinseled twerking and tasseled twirling. Dreamed up around a campfire by artistic producer and playwright Jaq Seifert, the queer-friendly, sex-positive show celebrates bodies of various sizes, shades, ages, and genders in an exuberant […]

The post <i>The Buttcracker</i> plays it naughty and nice appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Things get meta pretty quickly when you walk into the theater of Chicago Loop Synagogue to see Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins. Cast members come out to schmooze with the audience members (especially young ones). During the first 15 minutes of the show, we’re treated to a wonderful performance by a band of roving Eastern […]

The post Even goblins can’t chase away <i>Hershel</i>‘s Hanukkah fun appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Hell in a Handbag Productions serves up a hefty helping of Christmas camp in this new episode of its “The Golden Girls: Lost Episodes” franchise, which purports to feature never-broadcast episodes of The Golden Girls, the 1985-1992 NBC sitcom about four over-60 women—three widows and a divorcee—sharing a home in Miami. In Handbag artistic director […]

The post <i>The Golden Girls Save Xmas</i> is festive, raunchy, and heartwarming appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Clare Brennan directs Savannah Reich’s 2017 silly/smart comedy about the dawn of civilization—and the audience gets to decide how it works out in the end. Dandelion (Tess Galbiati) and Rocky (Jack Rodgers) are the world’s first farmers. They’ve moved indoors. They’ve even adopted a cat—albeit a talking, often aggravated tiger called Douglas (Evan Cullinan)—and are […]

The post <i>Caveman Play</i> lets the audience decide the course of humanity appeared first on Chicago Reader.

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Talk dirty by joining one of these free adult chat rooms. Thousands of people chat regularly on these sex chat sites. Join the conversation!

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Nude text notifications hit different, don't they? Get it on over text with these free sexting sites and apps. Send nudes and flirty sexts.

The post Best Free Sexting Websites and Apps for NSFW Messaging Online in 2023 appeared first on Chicago Reader.

“I see the mycelium as the Earth’s natural Internet,” wrote mycologist Paul Stamets. “A consciousness with which we might be able to communicate.”  Yeah, that’s also kind of how a figurative fungal network operated when Sauce and Bread Kitchen’s Mike Bancroft infused an Italian-style amaro with shitake mushrooms and gave Drew Fox a taste. Invisible […]

The post Meet your new fungal overlords when Sauce and Bread Kitchen, 18th Street Distillery, and Fernet Fungo play the next Monday Night Foodball appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Zahara Bassett fell on the floor of her best friend’s house exhausted from a long day of making $9 an hour and barely getting by. She was working as a housing monitor for TransLife Care at Chicago House, a transitional housing program for transgender people who have nowhere to stay or are reentering society. All […]

The post Life Is Work supports Black trans people in their communities appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Around this time of the year you’ll begin to hear the phrase “the giving season.” It’s the moment when donation-dependent organizations ramp up their campaigns in the hopes of being included in the gifting air that comes in on a wind of mailers, calls, and fundraisers. For the Nonprofit Issue, we thought it would be […]

The post <i>Chicago Reader’s</i> Nonprofit Guide for 2023 appeared first on Chicago Reader.

For seven years, Chicago musician Jochy Saldivar has been releasing suave R&B-inflected pop as Partywatcher, and this Friday he drops the EP El Tipo, his first release sung entirely in Spanish. The new EP also breaks stylistically from Partywatcher’s 2022 EP, Moreno, which leans heavily on 80s synth pop dosed with reggaeton; by contrast, El […]

The post Partywatcher honors his Dominican roots with his first all-Spanish release appeared first on Chicago Reader.

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If you're open to giving online dating a try, these are the best dating sites to actually meet someone in 2021. Real people looking for real relationships.

The post Best Dating Sites for Real Relationships in 2023 appeared first on Chicago Reader.

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“When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions,” observes Claudius in Hamlet. And for Chicago theater artists, the last two weeks of November were particularly sorrowful, as three actors who helped shape and define the work that emerged here in the late 1970s and beyond—Marc Silvia, Debra Rodkin, and Ernest Perry Jr.—died […]

The post Remembering Marc Silvia, Debra Rodkin, and Ernest Perry Jr. appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Movie theaters may not be an issue as detrimental as the inequalities that divide Chicago’s communities, but the waning of their presence mirrors larger issues of economic opportunity in the city, community investment, and access to recreation and culture throughout Chicago.

The post Coming soon—to a theater near you? appeared first on Chicago Reader.

On Saturday, October 21, more than a hundred people packed a white-walled warehouse in Hermosa to get sweaty to Filipino dance music. It was the launch party for the newest imprint of Feeltrip Records, Balikbayan Worldwide, which focuses on sounds from the southeast Asian diaspora. To many of the partiers, the event was just an […]

The post Balikbayan Worldwide takes Filipino dance music global appeared first on Chicago Reader.

By Faisal Mohyuddin

The post Ceasefire Haiku appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Izzi Vasquez is a multimedia artist who has helped some of Chicago’s most celebrated musicians with the visuals for their visions. Vasquez has created animations and designed album packaging for the likes of Kaina, Sen Morimoto, Nnamdï, and Kara Jackson. In their art, Vasquez gives new form to the lessons they learned from their grandmother, […]

The post Izzi Vasquez, music-adjacent multimedia artist appeared first on Chicago Reader.

“When I started skating, I was definitely in a creative rut, and I needed to push myself in a way,” says Chicago R&B singer Loona Dae. “It’s scary to fall, but I found a lot of refuge in skating because it’s just you and the skateboard. It taught me to trust myself more and rewired […]

The post Loona Dae opens up a new world of psychedelic R&B appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Whether you’re waiting anxiously to see Timothée Chalamet in Wonka (the musical prequel to Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), or are rolling your eyes in anticipatory disgust (look, after the 2005 Johnny Depp cinematic debacle, I don’t blame you for being anxious!), Paramount Theatre’s current staging of the 2013 musical Charlie and the […]

The post Paramount’s <i>Charlie and the Chocolate Factory</i> adds a touch of bitter to the sweet appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Subtly evoked or explicitly referenced, reclaiming individual narrative is a major subject for the Vietnamese artists whose work is on view in dual exhibitions at the John David Mooney Foundation: “A Village Before Us” and the Albert I. Goodman Collection of Vietnamese Art. The Goodman collection is one of the most complete collections of Vietnamese […]

The post Public and private politics in Vietnamese art appeared first on Chicago Reader.

1 Chicago stepping lessons from award-winning south sider Shaun Ballentine of Effortless Stepping. —Salem Collo-Julin Open group lessons Wednesdays at 7 PM, Effortless Stepping Studio, 1850 E. 79th. $20 per person, 21+ only. For private lesson rates or information about having Ballentine do a stepping class at your event, message through Instagram or Facebook.  2 […]

The post The <i>Reader</i>’s 2023 Holiday Gift Guide appeared first on Chicago Reader.

The Reader is available free of charge at more than 1,100 Chicago area locations. Issues are dated Thursday, and distributed Wednesday morning through Thursday night of the issue date. Some locations are restocked the following Wednesday.

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Chicago Reader Volume 53, No. 4. November 30, 2023

The post Chicago Reader Volume 53, No. 4 appeared first on Chicago Reader.

When Gossip Wolf checked in a few years back with Reader contributor, Chic-a-Go-Go cofounder, and Promontory talent buyer Jake Austen, he’d just rebooted his wide-ranging, infectiously enthusiastic, and absurdly thorough music and culture zine, Roctober, originally launched more than 30 years ago. Issue 52 arrived in fall 2020 after a seven-year hiatus, but the wait […]

The post The inimitable but intermittent <i>Roctober</i> roars back with a hefty double issue appeared first on Chicago Reader.

A piercing wind from the north whipped down darkened Dearborn Street, turning noses and fingers to icy lumps and testing the resolve of pedestrians on the opening night of Goodman Theatre’s 46th annual production of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol last weekend.   As if current events weren’t already enough to chill the holiday spirit! Dreadful, […]

The post Lights, music, Scrooge, and Shostakovich appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Alejandra Rivera kept burning the pastéis de nata. The flaky Portuguese egg custard tartlets, known the world over, should have a bit of dark-brown caramelized stippling on top, but the numbers on the old oven in her little flat had worn off, so she kept scorching the iconic pastries. Rivera and her husband were reluctantly […]

The post Cadinho Bakery explores the dazzling world of Portuguese pastry appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Established in 1967, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago is one of the world’s premier institutions celebrating the work of leading contemporary artists. Located just off Michigan Avenue near the historic Chicago Water Tower and the John Hancock Building, the 220,000-square-foot venue was designed by Berlin architect Josef Paul Klienhues and features three stories of […]

The post Visit Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art this holiday season and beyond appeared first on Chicago Reader.

It takes just one person to open your eyes to a new perspective and change your life forever. AFS-USA fosters those sorts of experiences by matching high school exchange students with host families around the world.  It all started in 1915 with the founding of the American Ambulance Field Service, a volunteer ambulance corps that […]

The post Chicago area AFS-USA host families and students make the world more just and peaceful through intercultural exchange appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Brock Heasley’s The Shift is a remarkably incoherent farrago of sci-fi tropes and Christian proselytizing.

The post Review: <i>The Shift</i> appeared first on Chicago Reader.

One of the most enduring legacies of colonialism is found in architecture, often built on the basis of separation. Divide-and-rule policies inform social structures in former colonies like India, where the separation of communities on the basis of class, caste, and creed is linked to the separation of laborers from their points of origin. Forming […]

The post Desire lines appeared first on Chicago Reader.

A pair of denim jeans enhanced by acrylic paint, aerosol spray paint, permanent marker, and elbow grease. A lamp made out of tile, acrylic, and glass. A linen chore coat with flocked vinyl designs. Departing from the confines of traditional gallery settings, Anna Cerniglia and Kate Pollasch have united their decades-long curatorial and art programming […]

The post How Print & Object makes art collecting more accessible appeared first on Chicago Reader.

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Early one morning I stood on what might be the last undeveloped piece of land in the Loop’s radius. The site of the forthcoming DuSable Park is, currently, a soil mound bursting with prairie life located where the Chicago River punctures Lake Michigan’s mouth. This, says architect Ryan Gann, who is working with Ross Barney […]

The post Discover Chicago’s layered history appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Manual Cinema’s Christmas Carol (devised and directed by Drew Dir, Sarah Fornace, Ben Kauffman, Julia Miller, and Kyle Vegter) is a charming remix of an old classic, but with added layers for extra warmth this time of year. Imagine the timeless tale of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol with a modern upgrade, boasting a new […]

The post <i>Manual Cinema’s Christmas Carol</i> returns to Writers Theatre appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Princess. Musician. Writer. Spy. The short description of all of Noor Inayat Khan’s identities during her brief lifetime reads like the title of a John le Carré novel. Yet despite the fact that her work as an undercover radio operator and liaison between the French resistance and British intelligence during World War II was an […]

The post <i>Noor Inayat Khan: The Forgotten Spy</i> brings a footnote of World War II center stage appeared first on Chicago Reader.

When the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) first announced its Meeting the Moment action plan last year, workforce and service delivery issues were at the forefront. Officials pointed to the “Great Resignation” as creating an unusually competitive job market, leading to high attrition rates among bus and rail operators. Mass resignations during the pandemic, along with […]

The post The moment met the CTA appeared first on Chicago Reader.

When I started the Secret History of Chicago Music in 2005, I had a rule: no artists from the 1990s. Not enough time had passed, I figured, for them to be forgotten. It’s been 18 years, though, and the local scene is full of people who don’t remember the 90s—or who weren’t even born then. […]

The post There’s still time to catch up with the Joy Poppers appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Resavoir, the experimental jazz project of Chicago multi-instrumentalist and producer Will Miller, returned this month with a new self-titled album on local label International Anthem. As with Resavoir’s 2019 debut, Miller conceived and largely produced the material alone in his home, and the recordings feature contributions from friends and fellow Chicago musicians—among them guitarist and […]

The post Will Miller’s Resavoir makes a serene return with a new self-titled album appeared first on Chicago Reader.

In 2020, Toronto-based Palestinian-Jordanian composer Shireen Abu Khader founded Dozan World—an offshoot of Dozan wa Awtar Music Establishment, the celebrated choir she established in 2002—as a hub for Levantine composers to share their music. Local chamber-music nonprofit Crossing Borders Music, which specializes in Western classical works by non-Western composers, most recently visited the Dozan catalog […]

The post Reflection, resilience, and now remembrance in Crossing Borders Music’s focus on Arab string quartets appeared first on Chicago Reader.

London trio Bar Italia formed in 2019, and though the world of live music screeched to a halt the following year, they powered through by writing and recording at full steam. They released their studio debut, Quarrel, in September 2020, showcasing an understated sound that joined lo-fi postpunk with indie-pop experimentation redolent of the 80s […]

The post Bar Italia create a stir with low-key minimalist indie pop appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Mavis Staples is more rock ’n’ roll than any of us. Who else declined a marriage proposal from Bob Dylan in the early 60s because she felt she was too young to be tied down? Who else got divorced less than a year after getting hitched in 1964 because she refused to quit singing at […]

The post Hometown hero Mavis Staples provides inspiration at Cahn Auditorium appeared first on Chicago Reader.

The Boy and the Heron is a flawed, yet magical semi-autobiographical tale that spins gold out of our collective dreams and nightmares.

The post Review: <i>The Boy and the Heron</i> appeared first on Chicago Reader.

This movie should be seen by anyone who's interested in club history, AIDS history, East Village New York nightlife, goth shit, industrial music, David Bowie, aliens, disco, opera, or the triumphs and loneliness of being a beautifully singular weirdo.

The post Review: <i>The Nomi Song</i> appeared first on Chicago Reader.

For nearly as long as free improvisation has been a musical practice, improvising artists have engaged in collective action to build outlets for their creative expression. Catalytic Sound was formed in 2012 by 30 musicians from Europe and the United States who recognized the necessity to have a shared platform for disseminating information and selling […]

The post Improvised music co-op Catalytic Sound holds its fourth annual festival in five cities, including Chicago appeared first on Chicago Reader.

The art-rock of Mandy, Indiana conjures the spirit of May 1968, when French students and workers spent seven weeks in an orgiastic, decentralized uprising against capitalism and state violence. That’s partly because vocalist Valentine Caulfield uses French lyrics to deliver brutal indictments of patriarchy, imperialism, and white supremacy. But it also comes from the unmistakable […]

The post Mandy, Indiana conjure the punk-rock city we’d be thrilled to live in appeared first on Chicago Reader.

When Eartheater sings, her voice carries like pollen and decaying floral tendrils adrift in a rush of hot wind. The New York-based multidisciplinary artist debuted in 2015 with two releases (Metalepsis and RIP Chrysalis) on local avant-garde electronic label Hausu Mountain. She’s gone on to become one of the biggest names in art-pop, and in […]

The post Multidisciplinary artist Eartheater explores rebirth and transformation on <i>Powders</i> appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Chicago rapper Doso caught my attention four years ago by tinkering confidently and smoothly with a variety of instrumental styles, and he plays up that skill on October’s Safe Travels (A Rugged Interest, Inc.). He raps over minimal nu-funk (“Holding on Loosely”), sleek and frictionless pop punk (“Upside Down”), and a sentimental ballad built atop […]

The post OutPastMidnight and Doso show Chicago hip-hop’s newest dimensions at Gman appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Chicago has no shortage of great bands who could’ve found more commercial success and built entirely different legacies were it not for poor timing, a particularly unlucky tour, or any of the other variables that make pursuing art under capitalism so exhausting and difficult. I don’t begrudge the members of Cafe Racer for calling it […]

The post Chicago indie rockers Cafe Racer say farewell with help from local punks Edging appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Chicago rapper Jay Wood has gained a foothold in the local scene with his work on the mike, but his production prowess is what distinguishes his new self-released EP, Nowhere, Fast. His svelte, sturdy instrumentals contain his voice as snugly as an opulent picture frame, ornamented to amplify the character of his performances. On “Homesick,” […]

The post Chicago rapper Jay Wood foregrounds his magnetic production skills on a new EP appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Looking for a no holds barred review of Ashley Madison? We tried the famous site and can tell what works, what doesn't, the best and worst parts. Continue reading!

The post Ashley Madison review: Does it work in 2023? Is it real? We tried it and paid for a membership appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Interested in a no holds barred review of AdultFriendFinder? We tried it and can tell you the good and the bad, whether it's a scam, and if it really works. Read on!

The post AdultFriendFinder review: Is it real? Does it work in 2023? We paid for a membership and can tell you appeared first on Chicago Reader.

With the world’s sixth-largest freshwater lake at our fingertips, Chicago’s cup runneth over with bragging rights. Climate migration is predicted for the Second City, with hordes of people from out west tapping into our water privilege: our Great, and fragile, Lake. But currently, in Middle America, there’s a city running out of water.  No, it’s […]

The post When the water wars come appeared first on Chicago Reader.

If you want a charming and heartwarming family show for the holidays, look no further than Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas, now bringing all the sweet quiet magic of the Jim Henson 1977 television special to the stage. This isn’t a new show, exactly; it premiered at Connecticut’s Goodspeed Musicals in 2008, and had an off-Broadway […]

The post <i>Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas</i> has charm and heart galore appeared first on Chicago Reader.

As a burgeoning, albeit un-self-aware, gay kid in the 70s, I developed an inexplicable fascination with TV and film scenes where women changed outfits quickly. When Cher had her own show, she’d always open each episode wrapped in a fur or cape, slowly singing a few smoky bars in close-up before the key changed, the […]

The post <i>Cinderella</i> emphasizes the magic of kindness appeared first on Chicago Reader.

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Gossip Wolf’s first exposure to newly local cellist and sound artist Dorothy Carlos was via her 2022 cassette Circuit Sphere (American Dreams), which features five stunning tracks of her cello alternating with synthesizer lines performed on instruments designed and built by Brian Oakes, aka United Sound Systems. The Reader’s Leor Galil hailed her work on […]

The post Cellist and sound artist Dorothy Carlos brings <i>My Ideal Is Windy</i> to the Lincoln Park Conservatory appeared first on Chicago Reader.

May December is a slow burn—a film that, like an intensifying flame, becomes more scorching every second you grasp it, ultimately leaving you with searing imprints.

The post Review: <i>May December</i> appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Like Aki Kaurismäki's other films, Fallen Leaves is brimming with subtle whimsy and piercing humor, but throughout the 81-minute runtime, he never sells it.

The post Review: <i>Fallen Leaves</i> appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Dream Scenario is truly something special, a playful and clever (but not too clever) comedy from Norwegian film director Kristoffer Borgli.

The post Review: <i>Dream Scenario</i> appeared first on Chicago Reader.

At long last, Suzanne Collins’s massively popular YA dystopian book series is returning to the big screen.

The post Review: <i>The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes</i> appeared first on Chicago Reader.

There likely aren’t many Americans familiar with the UK’s pantomime (often shortened to panto) musical comedy tradition, but PrideArts in Uptown is aiming to change that—at least for Chicago audiences.  Panto performances have traditionally been geared towards the whole family in the UK, but not so much at PrideArts. Last year the theater scored a […]

The post <i>Sleeping With Beauty</i> brings an irreverent take to a British holiday tradition appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Chicago has always been a midwestern hub for reflection and innovation aimed at making the world a more just, hospitable place. Perhaps it’s both my personal and institutional stake in the idea that a better world is possible, but the need for change feels especially pressing right now.  As I continue witnessing the economic, social, […]

The post The Jewish Deli, FORTS!, and more appeared first on Chicago Reader.

I’d happily eat a shoe leather sandwich every day if I had unfettered access to Nemanja Milunovic’s tortoise shell-shaped somun bread. There was a brief period back in summer-autumn 2021 when I could have it whenever I wanted. That was when Milunovic operated Kiosk Balkan Street Food out of a ghost kitchen a mere mile […]

The post It’s a Balkan three-peat with the Brothers Milunovic at the next Monday Night Foodball appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Editor’s note: On November 21, the union representing Berlin workers announced that the bar’s owners told the union on November 20 of their intent to permanently close, effective November 19. “The boycott is happening as long as it takes. It will continue until we get a contract that is what we’re looking for, and that […]

The post Howard Brown and Berlin Nightclub workers escalate fights for fair contracts appeared first on Chicago Reader.

By Imani Elizabeth Jackson

The post and then went to swim there appeared first on Chicago Reader.

There’s a memorable moment in an episode of Mad Men between office manager Joan Holloway (Christina Hendricks) and copywriter Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss). The former, fed up with the constant stream of sexual harassment from clients and coworkers alike, snaps during an elevator ride and tells Peggy, “I want to burn this place down.” How […]

The post <i>POTUS</i> is painfully funny appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Lyric Opera audiences have the luxury of expecting great performances from everyone on the Opera House stage. It’s par for the course; we’re spoiled that way. But once in a while, someone comes along who knocks our socks off. Norwegian soprano Lise Davidsen, in a stunning Lyric Opera debut as the title character in Jenůfa, […]

The post Seduced, abandoned, and excellent appeared first on Chicago Reader.

All Max Glassman had was a torn, water-stained recipe card. That’s what was left of his Busia Rose’s pierogi recipe. “It was what to do with the water and the flour, but it wasn’t how much and there were no ingredients,” says Glassman. “It just said warm water, and then it was letting the mixture […]

The post Pierogi Papi does dumplings at the next Monday Night Foodball appeared first on Chicago Reader.

The complicated backstory of the play The Lifespan of a Fact, now in its local premiere at TimeLine, reads like a series of “begats” out of the book of Genesis.  Ready? Here goes. John D’Agata wrote an essay (not an article, as he stridently insists in the play) for Harper’s in 2003 about the 2002 […]

The post <i>The Lifespan of a Fact</i> tackles truthiness appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Thirty-one years ago, the Leo Burnett Company, on behalf of Michigan Avenue’s erstwhile National Live Stock and Meat Board, branded cattle flesh onto the American brain with the slogan, “Beef. It’s what’s for dinner.” That’s not a bad run by advertising standards, but it’s nothing compared to “One head with a hundred tastes,” or “일두백미,” […]

The post At the upcoming Bonyeon, chef Sangtae Park will have a hundred tastes in his head appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Chicago arts organization Theatre Y launched in 2006 in Lincoln Square, then moved in February 2023 to 3611 W. Cermak in North Lawndale. “It became really clear,” says artistic director Melissa Lorraine, “as we were starting to open our doors and really trying to communicate that we were here for the community, that music was […]

The post Elastic Arts stretches out appeared first on Chicago Reader.

R. Brent Decker plays bass in Racetraitor and works as chief program officer for Cure Violence Global, a Chicago-based nonprofit that takes a public health approach to reducing violence. As a college student in the mid-90s, Decker cofounded Chicago hardcore band Racetraitor with childhood friends from the north suburbs. The group quickly attracted a passionate […]

The post R. Brent Decker, Racetraitor bassist and anti-violence worker appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Chicago Reader Volume 53, No. 3. November 16, 2023

The post Chicago Reader Volume 53, No. 3 appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Stages of Survival is an occasional series focusing on Chicago theater companies, highlighting their histories and how they’re surviving—and even thriving—in a landscape that’s become decidedly more challenging since the 2020 COVID-19 shutdown. Last month’s report from the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE) and SMU DataArts, “Navigating Recovery: Arts and Culture Financial […]

The post Definition Theatre makes plans for a new home while building community connections appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Leave it to Factory Theater to come up with a twist on the story of the Magi that’s smart-assed and sincere at the same time. In Chase Wheaton-Werle’s Wise Guys: The First Christmas Story, now in its world premiere under Becca Holloway’s direction, Melchior (Josh Razavi), Balthazar (Michael Jones), and Gaspar (Shail Modi) have to […]

The post <i>Wise Guys: The First Christmas Story</i> turns the journey of the Magi into a buddy adventure appeared first on Chicago Reader.

The arch dialogue in James Goldman’s 1966 drama The Lion in Winter (turned into a 1968 film starring Katharine Hepburn and Peter O’Toole) about the eventful Christmas of 1183 at the English court hasn’t aged well—it calls too much attention to its own cleverness while often failing to advance either the plot or our understanding […]

The post Court’s <i>The Lion in Winter</i> slices through the surface appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Editor’s Note: Due to illness in the cast, the remainder of performances for this show have been canceled. Please contact the company for information on refunds. Feel like you’ve been living in hell the past several years? The Conspirators understand. In their latest offering, Commedia Divina: It’s Worse Than That, writer Sid Feldman concocts a […]

The post <i>Commedia Divina: It’s Worse Than That</i> is Dante for the age of MAGA appeared first on Chicago Reader.

In 2006, the Illinois Lottery launched the first Instant Lottery ticket in the country that designated 100 percent of its profits toward organizations that support Veterans in Illinois. Working with the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs (IDVA), the Illinois Lottery has raised over $21 million to fund the Veterans’ Cash program, which has awarded grants […]

The post Support Illinois Veterans with your purchase of the Winter Riches Instant Ticket from the Illinois Lottery appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Thirty-five years after its film debut, the classic Tim Burton Halloween comedy Beetlejuice has been reimagined, first set loose like a demon as a 2019 Broadway musical (score by Eddie Perfect, book by Scott Brown and Anthony King, and directed by Alex Timbers), and now playing at Chicago’s Auditorium Theatre. My inner goth jumped at […]

The post <i>Beetlejuice</i> is a demonic good time appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Editor’s note: Coco Picard spoke with artists about their project Untidy Objects, on view outdoors at adjacent to the Logan Center for the Arts. Edited text from the comic is transcribed here to ease readability. Just south of Hyde Park’s Logan Center for the Arts, an acre of land hosts Untidy Objects, a dynamic multispecies […]

The post A multisensory sculpture of life and death appeared first on Chicago Reader.

The post 20 Best Backpage Alternative Sites for Meeting People or Buying and Selling Items in 2023 appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Chicago indie rockers Elena “Lanie” Buenrostro and Travis Newgren, better known as Soft and Dumb, have spent much of the past year writing and recording their forthcoming sophomore album. A few weeks ago, frustrated by the length of that process, the duo paused work on the LP to record a handful of fast-and-loose songs on […]

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Update: November 20, 2023. 6:55 PM. The family of Mars Williams announced that he had succumbed to cancer. The concert will continue as a celebration of life. Rest in peace. For more than four decades, saxophonist Mars Williams has been a cornerstone of the Chicago jazz scene. In his youth, he studied with the Association […]

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This year, Chicago Filmmakers celebrates its 50th anniversary, a landmark achievement in the history of any nonprofit, let alone one focused on the cinematic arts.

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From a few folding chairs and four students at its very first class to today’s 1,600-square-foot space in Ravenswood—plus online everywhere—and more than 1,400 students, StoryStudio Chicago aims to be a positive, encouraging, and craft-centered storytelling community in the city. That’s the motivation behind founder Jill Pollack creating the local literary nonprofit, which is celebrating […]

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This story is part of the Chicago Missing Persons project by City Bureau and Invisible Institute, two nonprofit journalism organizations based in Chicago. Read the full investigation and see resources for families of the missing here. Shantieya Smith was a protector in her North Lawndale home, where three generations lived under one roof—the cousin you’d […]

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Common Ground uses the “spread the message” approach to advocate for regenerative agriculture.

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