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Fad2Fresh has become an Andersonville staple
Doors open to toy cars, an old arcade machine, racks of vintage 70s sweaters, and the crooning voice of Zapp founder Roger Troutman. In the corner of the small vintage shop sits Alexandria Jones’s...
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Review: The First Omen
The 1976 classic The Omen is a terrified reactionary fever dream in which the rebellious, untrustworthy youth bring about the apocalypse through an assault on the hierarchical verities of church and...
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Motel Breakfast celebrate a diverse but cohesive post-lockdown album
Motel Breakfast front man Jimmy Drenovsky founded the indie-rock five-piece in 2017, while at Marquette University in Milwaukee. He’d met most of his bandmates—guitarist Mick O’Donnell, keyboardist...
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Media Burn hosts a historic symposium
In an age in which distinctions between broadcast and streaming or video and digital are increasingly meaningless, it can be easy to forget just how revolutionary the technology of video was when it...
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Artists Against Apartheid organizers balance joy and Palestinian resistance
A cross between an art market, block party, and political rally, Artists Against Apartheid brings together Palestinian and Arab artists from around Chicago to recharge, build community, and raise...
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Chicago Reader Volume 53, No. 14
Chicago Reader Volume 53, No. 14. April 18, 2024 The post Chicago Reader Volume 53, No. 14 appeared first on Chicago Reader.
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Spies like us
Written and directed by Grant Batdorff, this satire of spy thrillers for Two Chairs Theatre at the Annoyance begins with a bang: a wry, spot-on parody of those bombastic title sequences popular in the...
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Hat trick
Forgetting a hookup’s name? Bad. Forgetting your spouse’s name? So bad it requires Old Testament intervention. Hetchman (Scott Danielson) is on a mission to find his lost partner (Daria Harper) and...
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Children will listen
It’s tempting to start a review of Beyond the Garden Gate with a comment like, “The fairy tales I grew up with were never like this.” But let’s face it: The fairy tales we grew up with at least...
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Mazurkas of memory
Hershey Felder first played Frédéric Chopin at the now-closed Royal George Theatre in 2005—one of several solo shows about great composers that Felder has created over the years (he’s also played...
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Time travel, Babes With Blades style
What is better than a time travel play? Not much. A rare species in itself, it can only be improved upon by something equally awesome—like centering women, impeccable stage combat, and a rock-solid...
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Demented bordello
My first visit to Trap Door Theatre did not disappoint, from the hidden alley entrance to the immediate sense of time travel and disorientation upon entry. For the last show of its 30th anniversary...
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Ano Bank$ is a cornerstone for his people
The barbershop has long been a cornerstone institution for Black and Brown communities. It serves folks looking for fresh cuts, of course, but it’s ultimately a place where people gather and exchange...
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March on the DNC plans Chicago’s ‘largest mobilization for Palestine’
“From the river to sea, Palestine will be free!” “The people united will never be defeated!” “Fight back!” Boisterous chants fill the basement of Teamster City on April 13, where hundreds of people...
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The Reader’s Guide to Record Store Day 2024
This Record Store Day, which arrives on Saturday, April 20, Republic Records is doing its best to make sure you can buy a newly pressed record by Vermont singer-songwriter Noah Kahan. Republic (part...
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‘Reading saved me’
“I suppose it is easy to dismiss a young woman for forming and shaping her identity under the influence of books, of reading—and yet. That was what I had and it was everything.” Suzanne Scanlon is the...
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Invasion of privacy
Content note: This story includes mentions of sexual assault and sexual harm. Many subjects in this story use pseudonyms to protect their privacy. The first appearance of each is denoted by an...
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Mina Loy has finally arrived
Who was Mina Loy? You might know her as a poet and essayist, whose work, although difficult and seemingly without parentage, was admired by contemporaries such as Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams,...
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Pizza Dom throws dough on the patio at the next Monday Night Foodball
Dom Vallone got his first job making pizza at a Little Caesars in Wood Dale, Illinois. He didn’t last long. “I absolutely tossed dough against management’s wishes and dropped them on the floor many...
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Jon-Carlo Manzo, indie tastemaker
Jon-Carlo Manzo grew up in Shorewood, an exurb just west of Joliet, but his tastes are thoroughly informed by Chicago. Since graduating from New York University in 2021, he’s entrenched himself in the...
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Help the Illinois Dream Fund provide scholarships to local students by...
For nearly two decades, the Illinois Lottery has been a pioneer in creating specialty lottery tickets dedicated to raising awareness and funding for specific causes that impact our local communities....
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‘Unstuck’ is a genre-shattering evening of live work
“Unstuck” is an evening of performance art and installation, a result of the dynamic collaboration between dancer-choreographer Michelle Kranicke (Zephyr Dances) and internationally touring...
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Contaminated prison water, Howard Brown union contract, police misconduct
Groups demand EPA intervention over contaminated water in prisons Formerly incarcerated people, folks with loved ones in prison, advocates, and attorneys gathered in the Loop on Monday to deliver a...
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Suburban circus extravaganza
One of Chicagoland’s best-kept circus secrets is the Triton Troupers Circus, a motley cast of 80-plus circus performers who put on a traditional show every spring in Triton College‘s gymnasium to...
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Amphibian friendship
Chicago Children’s Theatre’s (CCT) first production, back in 2006, was the Tony Award-nominated A Year With Frog and Toad, created by brothers Robert (music) and Willie Reale (book and lyrics) from...
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The Chicago Palestine Film Festival is here for eager audiences
Behind a time stamp with the date “20 02 2001,” a line of blurred lights shudders. Overlaid, as if from a composite of two photos, a woman’s face appears. So does a camera. Voices are matched to these...
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Self Portrait as Blue Monday by Annie Lee
By Charlotte Abotsi The post Self Portrait as <i>Blue Monday</i> by Annie Lee appeared first on Chicago Reader.
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Review: The Sympathizer (Miniseries)
The Sympathizer begins with a commanding sequence of instructions issued to a prisoner by a military official: “Restart. Recollect. Reeducate. Revolution. And Rewrite.” These words are meant to coerce...
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Review: Hanky Panky
Hanky Panky is a delightfully unserious horror movie crammed with comedy. From the minds of Nick Roth and Lindsey Haun, the film follows a man and a talking napkin who are on a mission to save the...
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Review: John Singer Sargent: Fashion and Swagger
John Singer Sargent (1856–1925) was the preeminent society portraitist of his day. A master at capturing the sheen and folds of the costumes he dressed his wealthy sitters in, the question of whether...
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A love letter to punks of color
Bianca Xunise’s graphic novel debut Punk Rock Karaoke is a love letter to the south side and punks of color everywhere. In 248 rapid-paced pages, Xunise tells a coming-of-age story centered on Ariel...
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Jonas Müller-Ahlheim’s art games
Traces, residues, and obfuscation are the small but major themes of the playful Jonas Müller-Ahlheim exhibition, “peekaboo,” on view at Ukrainian Village’s Patient Info gallery. At first glance,...
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Minhal Baig explores the dichotomy of Cabrini-Green in We Grown Now
It has been more than ten years since the last of the Cabrini-Green high-rises—housing complexes that were built in 1942 to be affordable and safe housing for low-income residents—were demolished....
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Plastics Hi-Fi aimed for the radio and missed
Younger folks don’t often believe me, but in the 1990s, the term “psychedelia” was usually a liability for an artist. It meant stuff like the Grateful Dead, who were extremely unhip at the time...
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Miranda Winters and her band of women roar and sing on the debut Mandy album
For years before Chicago singer-guitarist Miranda Winters cofounded beloved noise-rock group Melkbelly in 2013, she was already making music as a solo artist. In 2018 she released a cassette called...
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Chicago Reader presents Fashion Forward!
Come mingle and listen to an insider’s conversation on fashion and journalism. We have an esteemed group of panelists, from SAIC, the Chicago Fashion Coalition, and our very own editor-in-chief....
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Sensing wood, sculpting ecology
Last summer, Galen Odell-Smedley opened a solo show, “Peach Peach,” at Humboldt’s Ignition Project Space. The exhibition hinted at a meticulously arranged artist’s wood shop: What we normally consider...
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Baby shows its age at Citadel
Under the best of circumstances, it would be hard to make this 1983 musical soar. The story by playwright Sybille Pearson about three prosperous white, middle-class couples coping with pregnancy (or...
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Simple Simon
It’s tempting to say that Neil Simon’s 1963 romantic comedy Barefoot in the Park hasn’t aged well. But even when it premiered on Broadway with Robert Redford and Elizabeth Ashley as newlyweds Paul and...
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Brooklyn Laundry mixes the lights and the darks
Brooklyn Laundry is a deceptive show: It begins with a meet-cute and briefly lulls you into the sense that it will unspool as something of a rom-com. But playwright John Patrick Shanley isn’t one for...
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Guys and Dolls kills at Drury Lane
Some shows age well, some don’t. You’d think a silly 74-year-old musical comedy like Guys and Dolls, with its cartoonish characters and sitcom plotlines (like, gambler makes a bet he can’t get a...
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Dane in the mirror
A one-person take on Hamlet starring a famous comedian sounds like a recipe for self-indulgence. (Or the opening premise for a deliberately off-kilter affair, as in the ridiculous and sublime Gary...
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Jump bridges painful family memories
There have been several intriguing plays about siblings dealing with loss onstage this year, including Leah Nanako Winkler’s The Brightest Thing in the World at About Face Theatre and the current...
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The Music Man at Marriott knows the territory
In the opening scene of Meredith Willson’s The Music Man at Marriott Theatre, a train car full of traveling salesmen showcase their talent and precision as they fast-talk and sing their way through...
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Review: Abigail
In Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula, the titular vampire’s victims were initially and primarily women. The bites and the blood were metaphors for sexual awakening, and the femmes who fell to the...
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Review: Macbeth
Simon Godwin’s production of Macbeth was filmed live at Dock X in London, but even though it was intended for cinema release, a lot of the production choices don’t work especially well on the big...
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Review: Omen
Omen opens on the set of a windswept desert. A horseback rider appears as the score wanes and whistles. This is maybe the only moment of calm in the film, with the remainder involving stunning visuals...
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Review: Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver
Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver picks up right where the first film left off, continuing writer-director-cinematographer Zack Snyder’s Seven Samurai in space” homage/reimagining/pastiche. (Albeit...
View Article9 Best Sugar Momma Websites and Apps to Meet Sugar Mommas (2024)
A sugar daddy is always looking for his sugar baby, and vice versa. These are the top sites where sugar daddies and babies connect for real sugar relationships. The post 9 Best Sugar Momma Websites and...
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Barrie Cole: Chicago’s short-order chef of language and empathy
I saw my first Barrie Cole play the night before the world turned upside down. On September 10, 2001, I trotted over to Curious Theatre Branchʼs home in the now defunct Lunar Cabaret space on North...
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