Review: Haven’s Get Out Alive Brings Depression Out of the Shadows With Soul, Gospel and Hip-Hop
I almost didn’t request a ticket to review this show when I saw that it is a play about depression and suicide. I didn’t know if it was going to […]
Review: Adapted from a Best-Selling Book, Where the Crawdads Sing Foregoes Grit for a Murder Mystery Soap Opera
This is an odd little movie based on an improbably popular novel by Delia Owens (adapted by Lucy Alibar, Beasts of the Southern Wild) and starring rising talent Daisy Edgar-Jones (Fresh, “Normal People”) as Kya, a young woman living in the marshlands of Barkley Cover, North Carolina, where she was abandoned by her family at a young age and grew to respect and eventually catalog the wildlife around her.
Review: City Lit Theater’s Playboy of the Western World Synges the Old Songs
In 1907, John Millington Synge’s landmark Playboy of the Western World caused riots everywhere it premiered—Dublin, New York, and even, eventually, here in Chicago. Irish patriots claimed the play portrayed […]
Review: Monet and the Impressionists Is Art for the Screen-Obsessed at Lighthouse ArtSpace
My mother took me to the Art Institute of Chicago when I was very young and let me pick out postcards of my favorite paintings. I chose mostly Impressionists such […]
Review: A New Documentary Honors Leonard Cohen and “Hallelujah,” His Greatest Gift to Us All
It’s a credit to Leonard Cohen, the great Canadian author, poet, songwriter and performer, that his song, “Hallelujah” plays across a significant portion of Daniel Geller and Dayna Goldfine’s new […]
Review: Photo Exhibit Captures the Magic of the Blues at the Swedish American Museum
The latest exhibition at the Swedish American Museum, Great Feelings and Meetings, pays tribute to American blues music by showcasing the work of photographer Hans Ekestang who has been documenting […]
Review: Choir Boy at Steppenwolf Is a Splendid Spectacle With a Flawed Script
It’s not easy growing up as a gay Black boy. Tarell Alvin McCraney’s play Choir Boy is the story of Pharus, a high school senior at the Charles R. Drew Prep School […]
Review: It Came from Outer Space Is an Irreverent Good Time at Chicago Shakespeare Theater
From its home base at the far end of Navy Pier, the Chicago Shakespeare Theater routinely presents some of the best independent live theater in the city. In between innovative […]
Review: Stirring Vocals and Rhetorical Fireworks at Grant Park Celebration
One of the principles we celebrate on Independence Day is freedom of speech. And some of the principals participating in the Grant Park Music Festival‘s Independence Day Salute Saturday exercised […]
Review: Heartfelt and Heartbreaking in Equal Measure, Marcel the Shell with Shoes On Creates an Adorable, Inspiring Little World
There are times when the world doesn’t make a lick of sense. And then there are times when it all comes together with the help of a one-inch-tall shell with […]
Review: In a Storm of Silliness, Theater Wit’s Hurricane Diane Demands That We Care About Climate Change
Dionysus/Diane has messages for us. The messages we continue to ignore about the serious dangers that climate change portends for our future—and more importantly, for the futures of our children […]
Dialogs: Haymarket Books Launches Maya Marshall’s All the Blood Involved in Love
Haymarket Books describes itself as a radical and independent publisher, and in light of current events, I am grateful that they are still in the game. They have a new […]