Review: Howl Is a Tight Turn-Based Strategy With a Melancholy Atmosphere
2023 was packed full of great video games, so it makes sense if you missed a few. I know I did–I’m still playing catch-up. That means I missed some great […]
Preview: Uniflora Brings the Heat with “Hellgirl” Before Their Show at Metro
The Chicago music scene is just overflowing with treasures. With every passing year, new, more and more outright amazing bands come out of our city. Sometimes it can be overwhelming […]
Review: Invictus Theatre Delivers a Living History Lesson in Topdog/Underdog
The way we are taught American history is a scratch-the-surface deal that requires us to keep digging. Playwright Suzan Lori-Parks is a master excavator of history and reveals it in […]
Writers Theatre’s The Band’s Visit to a Small Israeli Town Features Intimate and Emotional Storytelling
Dina (Sophie Madorsky) enters at the top of the show. The space is empty as she calmly stares down at the audience and whispers the opening lines of the play: […]
Review: The Taste of Things Is a Soft, Sumptuous Celebration of French Culinary Culture
The Taste of Things is, by all accounts, a film tailor-made for me—and maybe you, too. A French period romance centered on the country’s rich culinary history starring the great […]
Review: Court Theatre’s Antigone Asks the Old Questions for New Times
Every time an old play is revived, it inhabits two dimensions—the time of its writing and the time of its revival. You can’t exactly call a restaging of a 2,400+ […]
Review: Dakota Johnson Enters the Marvel Universe with Madame Web, a Frustrating Addition to the Spider-Man Franchise
Unlike some (many?), I haven’t grown weary of superhero films as a genre. What I have grown exhausted by are specifically Sony-made Spider-Verse movies that try to walk the line […]
Review: Midnight’s Broken Toll …. Girl from the North Country
Girl from the North Country, a musical adaptation of Bob Dylan’s songs by the Irish playwright Conor McPherson, has already appeared in London’s West End, Off-Broadway at the Public Theater, […]
Review: Deap Vally Bid Farewell During a Killer Show at Thalia Hall
Everything must come to an end and this past weekend, Deap Vally stopped by Thalia Hall on their grand farewell tour. The duo of guitarist Lindsey Troy and drummer Julie […]
Review: Bottled Spiders and Blood Splatter in Chicago Shakespeare’s Richard III
Now is the unseasonably warm winter of our discontent, and Chicago Shakespeare Theater’s new artistic director Edward Hall helms his first production on Navy Pier. Tony Award-nominated track and field […]
Review: At Timeline Theater, Anna Deavere Smith’s Notes From the Field Walks in the Words of Racial Reality
Sometimes the topic of a play is so big and important, a brief description falls short. Anna Deavere Smith’s Notes from the Field, now onstage at TimeLine Theatre, lands squarely in […]
Review: How to Have Sex Is a Sharp and Emotional Examination of Young Womanhood and Sexuality
Winner of the Un Certain Regard Prize at Cannes 2023 and the debut feature from writer-director Molly Manning Walker, How To Have Sex is a fully immersive party girl experience […]