Category: Arts & Culture

It can be hard to wrap your head around the complex ecological makeup of the areas surrounding the Calumet and Little Calumet rivers. Formerly heavily concentrated sites of industry, parts of these southeast neighborhoods are now in the slow process of getting cleaned up, via the green development of places like the Marian R. Byrnes […]

A few years ago, I wrote a story for American Theatre on Chicago as a great town for stage directors. One name that wasn’t totally on my radar then has since become a top favorite. Georgette Verdin, who has been managing artistic director for Interrobang Theatre Project since 2015, has a special gift for bringing […]

On a cold November night, as the clock struck midnight and the movie theater lights dimmed, the audience broke into raucous, hooting-and-hollering applause, and I knew that movie-going etiquette was out the window. Sipping Mystery Machine Margaritas—the Music Box’s featured cocktail for the occasion—longtime fans of 2002’s cult classic Scooby-Doo watched with giddy anticipation as […]

The art of drag has been around for centuries, and today’s drag ball scene can trace its roots to post-Civil War Harlem, when Hamilton Lodge No. 710 began hosting regular competitions. The modern drag pageant evolved from one-off nights in bars, clubs, and rented banquet halls, to several pageant systems throughout the country; if you’ve […]

Chaos reigns in the artwork of Mony Nuñez, aka Mony Kaos. Drawing from the aesthetics of Tom of Finland, anarcho-punk iconography, vintage gay porn, and cutesy cultural figures like Betty Boop, Kaos’s NSFW compositions—which take the form of screenprints, air-brushed banners, fliers, zines, ceramics, T-shirts, hooked rugs, and illustrations—explode with color and attitude. In her […]

In summer 2021, I was a just-graduated Northwestern student, and Speak Your Peace was the first open mike I attended as a newly Chicago-based musician looking for Black community, shared artistic experiences, and the opportunity to whip out my guitar for a three-minute slot in front of my peers. I couldn’t know it then, but […]

Some things may happen annually, but that doesn’t make them any less exciting. The CFA Media Mixer is one such event. Started in 2012, the Media Mixer—put on by Chicago Film Archives (CFA)—brings together local filmmakers and musicians to make an original work out of footage from the Archives’ immense collection of ephemera concentrated on […]

For those lamenting the dearth of films made by and centered on Black women, this several-week series was a welcome and much-needed salve. Programmed for the Doc Films spring 2022 calendar by Erisa Apantaku and J. Michael Eugenio with support from South Side Projections and Arts + Public Life, the series offered an embarrassment of […]

“Cinema was born with the intention to fulfill the needs of spectacle for the working classes—the mainstream.” So exclaims the thesis posted to the metaphorical door that’s the Music Box Theatre website. “Yet, as time pressed on, and the cinematic form grew, so did the separation of cinema from its origins, from the people and […]

It’s something special to see a movie at the New 400, Chicago’s longest-running movie theater. Up in Rogers Park, the New 400’s tickets are half the price of any AMC, their concessions are astoundingly affordable (go for it and get the popcorn), and their day-glo interiors are reminiscent of an 80s arcade or Jerry Garcia’s […]

Last June, I interviewed emerging filmmaker Henry Hanson about his short Bros Before, a funny 20-minute hyperpop fever dream where two trans men struggle to understand their changing friendship after they begin hooking up. At the end of July, it made its hometown debut at Facets following eight shorts by trans filmmakers from the United […]

I thought I could’ve been a contender. But all too soon, I was knocked out at the fun but challenging event known as Music Box Trivia and Brunch. It’s held every Sunday in the Music Box Theatre’s lounge from 1–3 PM, but get there early because people start claiming seats just after noon. It’s BYOB—and […]

Some of Chicago’s coziest theater lobbies are in Wicker Park. Upstairs at the Den, overstuffed leather chairs and an electric fireplace provide a great place to warm up on a cold night. But the Chopin Theatre’s basement lobby has always been my favorite weird place to hang out before a show, especially when the show […]

In 2017, the members of Theatre Y completed the Camino de Santiago in northern Spain—a 500-mile route followed by pilgrims for centuries. That sparked the company’s annual ambulatory “Camino” productions, which invite audiences to walk through different Chicago neighborhoods while experiencing a series of environmental performances. In 2019, the Camino Project focused on neighborhoods surrounding […]