Review: A Well Spent Evening with the Mountain Goats and Will Sheff
I think no matter how you try to measure it, the Mountains Goats’ success over the past few decades is undeniable. Originally the solo project of John Darnielle, the Mountain […]
Feature: Beautiful Bronzeville Explored by TikTok Historian Dilla for the CHF
The Chicago Humanities Festival sponsored a bus tour of Chicago’s South Side, the “Black Belt,” for the spring Public-themed series. Hosted by “TikTok historian” Shermann “Dilla” Thomas, the two-hour tour began […]
Review: The Billboard, by Natalie Y. Moore
In this pivotal moment in the struggle for reproductive rights, Natalie Y. Moore’s The Billboard comes at a time when its message couldn’t be more relevant to the world today. […]
Review: Grossman Ensemble Gives a Dull Performance
One of the leading incubators of new music in Chicago is housed at the Chicago Center of Contemporary Composition at the University of Chicago in Hyde Park. The 13-member Grossman […]
Review: To Kill a Mockingbird Isn’t Your Parents’ Mockingbird, But It Tells a Powerful Story
Aaron Sorkin’s To Kill a Mockingbird is not the same story you read in high school or reread last year. It’s not the award-winning film you saw many years ago. In adapting Mockingbird for the […]
Dialogs: Female Rock Talk with Kim Gordon, Laurie Anderson, Sinead Gleeson at Chicago Humanities Festival
The Music Box Theatre hosted music royalty as part of the spring Chicago Humanities Festival: Sonic Youth’s frontwoman Kim Gordon, her co-author, music journalist Sinead Gleeson, along with feminist electronica pioneer Laurie […]
Preview: Chicago Media Project’s Doc10 Film Festival Returns with Acclaimed, Essential Filmmaking
Chicago’s only all-documentary film festival, Doc10, has truly established itself over the last seven years as one of the top-tier non-fiction festivals in the nation. Taking place this year primarily […]
Review: The CSO Under the Baton of Karina Canellakis Delivers the Goods
What kind of concert starts with an 11-minute introductory piece that ends up getting two ovations? A Chicago Symphony Orchestra concert that opens with Brio by Chicago-based composer Augusta Read […]
Review: Despite a Slightly Dimmer Storyline, Downton Abbey: A New Era Captures Much of the Franchise’s Charms Yet Again
If you had told me over a decade ago that a prim and polished television drama from PBS set within the gilded walls of a great British estate during the […]
Review: In After the Blast, a Play About Environmental Disaster, a Robot Named Arthur Steals the Show
Zoe Kazan’s play After the Blast is set a few generations in the future—underground. An environmental disaster has made “upstairs” unlivable and some people were able to escape to a new below-ground […]
Poem: The Voice
June Sawyers wrote this poem—as a way to record her experience— after listening to a musician named Andrew perform in Printers Row. It came out of nowhereAt first we barely […]
Review: Gender-Centric Horror Flick Men Struggles to Find Depth Beyond Trauma
A film like Men, the latest from writer/director Alex Garland (Annihilation, Ex Machina), is not going to be everyone’s cup of tea. I’m not even entirely sure it’s my cup […]