Review: Lyric Opera’s Hip-Hopera The Factotum Is a Cut Above
Barbershops and beauty salons are important cultural hubs for communities of color. “In my day, a barber was more than just somebody who sit around in a FUBU shirt with […]
Karin McKie is a Chicago freelance writer, cultural factotum and activism concierge. She jams econo.
Review: Immersive Flotsam and Jetsam, Karaoke and Cocktails at Whim Chicago
What do theater artists do when creative offerings morph post-COVID? What do theatrical spaces become in this life-after-coronavirus reset? Creators gonna create, here with a new experience called Whim Chicago, an […]
Feature: A Century of American Childcare Revealed in CHF’s Screening of Charlie Chaplin’s The Kid
The Chicago Humanities Festival presented a screening of Charlie Chaplin’s hour-long masterpiece The Kid, at the Music Box Theater on November 5, with whimsical, period intertitles (handwritten, but similar to […]
Dialogs: How Chicagoans and Russians Write—CHF’s Chat with Author George Saunders
Oak Forest native to the “political left of Gandhi,” essayist and award-winning author George Saunders returned to Chicagoland to talk about writing with Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me host Peter Sagal. “The Art of the Short […]
Review: Steppenwolf for Young Adults Plumbs Chicago Race Riot in the Play 1919
On July 27, 1919, 17-year-old Eugene Williams went swimming near Chicago’s 29th Street beach. The raft he and his other Black friends had constructed drifted into a whites-only swimming area, where […]
Feature: Michelle Obama’s South Shore Neighborhood Explored in CHF’s Cooler by the Lake Trolley Tour
Last spring, the Chicago Humanities Festival offered a bus tour of Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood, and this September, offered a tour of the nearby South Shore neighborhood. South Shore is a mostly African […]
Feature: CHF’s Pilsen Mural Tour Explores Rich Latinx Street Art
National Hispanic American Heritage Month (September 15-October 15) started off strong with the Chicago Humanities Fest’s Pilsen Mural Tour, following last spring’s other insightful, invigorating neighborhood tours. Local muralist Sam Kirk walked a lively […]
Review: Meet the Faux News Forebears in TimeLine’s World Premiere Campaigns, Inc.
Jill Lepore wrote about America’s first political spin doctors ten years ago in The New Yorker. She called the California political consulting team of Leone Baxter and Clem Whittaker “The Lie […]
Preview: Let’s Get Physical at the 9th Annual Physical Theater Festival July 16-24
Chicago’s Physical Theater Festival returns for the ninth year with in-person, indoor and outdoor performances, plus four workshops by festival artists, July 16-24, following the 2020 virtual festival. The week features performances by […]
Review: Chicago Activist Jahmal Cole’s Origin Story and Impact Chronicled in A Tiny Ripple of Hope
“Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, […]
Preview: Chicago Commemorates Emancipation with Juneteenth Celebrations
On paper, the Emancipation Proclamation freed enslaved Americans on January 1, 1863, during the middle of the Civil War. But not all chattel slaves were immediately manumitted. Union General Gordon […]
Review: Get a Cortisol Correction from Second City’s New Mainstage Revue, Do the Right Thing, But No Worries If Not
Politics are exhausting, but inevitable and important. People are exhausted, but continue to seek normalcy via social interactions. The Second City’s 110th mainstage show’s bifurcated title reflects those two realities: Do […]