Review: Living In Some Kind of Free Association with Friendship at Empty Bottle
I’ll admit that I am extremely rusty—with both concert-going and writing reviews. A slew of changes in my personal life have made it hard for me to focus on either […]
Review: Theatre L’Acadie’s Rising Water Is a Slow Stream
Rising Water is one of a trilogy of plays by John Biguenet about Hurricane Katrina; the other two plays are Shotgun and Mold. It has been 20 years since America […]
Review: When A Witness Recants Is a Powerful, Evidence-Driven Revisiting of a 1980s Murder and the Resulting Wrongful Convictions
This review is part of our ongoing coverage of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival. The latest impactful and emotionally charged documentary from director Dawn Porter (John Lewis: Good Trouble; Luther: […]
Review: John Turturro Stars in The Only Living Pickpocket in New York, an Ode to Small Time Crooks, Character Actors and the City
This review is part of our ongoing coverage of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival. One of the festival’s biggest and most welcome surprises comes from actor-turned-writer/director Noah Segan (Blood Relatives), […]
Review: Petite Edith’s French Comfort Food Is a Balm for Chicago Winter
Petite Edith offers a fusion of French cuisine and Midwestern sensibilities to Chicago’s River North neighborhood, and you don’t want to miss its winter menu. Chef Jenner Tomaska and Katrina […]
Review: Taylor Thornburg’s Agathe 6:00 p.m. to 7:27 Is an Intriguing Tour Through Memory
In the interest of transparency, I want to disclose I met the author Taylor Thornburg at an open mic and wrote this review after speaking with him. Later I attended […]
Dispatch: As Sundance Film Festival Continues, Established Filmmakers Bring New Works to Audiences
Enjoy our latest dispatch from the 2026 Sundance Film Festival…. Frank & Louis Swiss filmmaker Petra Volpe makes a poignant and impressive English-language debut with Frank & Louis, the story […]
Review: Stereophonic—a Play With a Little Music—Tells the Story of a Not-Yet-Famous Rock Band Producing an Album
Stereophonic is a play about a year in the life of a rock band (never named) and the personal and musical trials and tribulations it goes through during recording sessions […]
Your Chicago Curated Weekend: 1/29 and Beyond
We’re still in the middle of these cold winter temps with some snowfall in our future. But that doesn’t mean we can’t have some fun this weekend with all the […]
Review: Salome at the Lyric Opera Melts the Chicago Deep Freeze With Strauss and Suspense
In the Bible, the name of the Princess of Judea is never mentioned. In his 1893 play, Oscar Wilde gave the teenage seductress a name: Salome. In 1905, Richard Strauss completed […]
Review: Avec Offers Warm and Yummy Prix Fixe Dinner for Chicago Restaurant Week
In October 2003, Donnie Madia and Paul Kahan of 12-time James Beard Award-winning One Off Hospitality opened Avec in the West Loop, first conceived as a wine bar to assuage […]
Review: Seeing Beauty in the Ordinary, Chicago Homes: A Portrait of the City’s Everyday Architecture
One of the many joys of reading Carla Bruni and Phil Thompson’s Chicago Homes: A Portrait of the City’s Everyday Architecture is the way the book dazzles the reader with […]