Essay: True West
One Sunday afternoon a number of years ago I found a finger puppet lying outside Maclean House, the former dormitory (now apartments) named in honor of the late Norman Maclean, […]
June Sawyers has published more than 25 books. Her work has appeared in the Chicago Tribune, New City, San Francisco Chronicle, and Stagebill. She teaches at the Newberry Library and is the founder of the arts group, the Phantom Collective.
Review: Lefse, Lutefisk, and Other Norwegian Things, For the Love of Cod, by Eric Dregni
For the Love of Cod: A Father and Son’s Search for Norwegian Happiness Eric Dregni University of Minnesota Press Eric Dregni is only partly Norwegian but that hasn’t stopped him […]
Review: Theatre in the Dark Creates Audio Theater Version of Melville’s Great White Whale
It begins with the familiar refrain, arguably the three most famous words in American literature. “Call me Ishmael.” But the voice of this Ishmael is different. The voice is unmistakably female […]
Thus Spake Utah
Towards the end of the plague year we learned that someone somehow transported a ten-foot high silvery metal object to a remote canyon in the Utah desert drilling […]
Review: Invasion from Mars, A War of the Worlds Radio Play by Theatre in the Dark—Memories of 1938
The Chicago company Theatre in the Dark is offering a new adaptation of H. G. Wells’ classic 1898 novel, The War of the Worlds, as a live 90-minute virtual audio […]
Poem: The Queen of Brooklyn—R.B.G. (1933–2020)
She was the queen of Brooklyn although she wore no gold crown except in the public’s imagination and on t-shirts. Instead her apparel of choice was a white frilly lace […]
Book Review: The Problem of Being Female—Rodham: A Novel
Rodham: A Novel By Curtis Sittenfield Random House We think we should all know her by now. After decades in the limelight, Hillary Rodham Clinton remains, for many, an enigma. […]
Review: Food, Politics, and the Joy of Shallots Return in Timeline’s To Master the Art
Food and politics go hand in hand in TimeLine Theatre’s online revival of To Master the Art, written by William Brown and Doug Frew, and directed by Brown. To Master the […]
Don’t Stand So Close to Me: Listening to Music in the Age of Corona
You know it’s grim out there when you wake up every morning looking forward to hearing the latest Internet sensation, Pluto the talking schnauzer, whose sole purpose is to console […]
Poem: Life in the Time of Corona
A Saturday morning in March All is quiet Except for a few cars on the street And the occasional person Head held low against a blustery wind Just the eerie sound of […]
Review: The Chieftains and Friends Perform the Irish Goodbye at Symphony Center
A full house at the Symphony Center on Friday night gave a warm welcome, and standing ovation, to the Chieftains, who were not only celebrating their 58th year together but […]
Book Review: American Warsaw—The Story of Poles in Chicago
American Warsaw: The Rise, Fall, and Rebirth of Polish Chicago by Dominic A. Pacyga (University of Chicago Press, $27) As Dominic Pacyga notes in his fine book about Chicago’s Polonia, […]