Illinois news

• Corbett vs. Dempsey celebrates 20 years

  17-09-2024 17:54 via chicagoreader.com
  
  For 20 years, John Corbett and Jim Dempsey have been engaged with a range of international and Chicago-connected artists through their gallery, Corbett vs. Dempsey (a peculiarly adversarial name that nods to the symmetry between the founders’ surnames and those of the once-famous boxers James J. Corbett and Jack Dempsey, who incidentally never fought one […]
  The post Corbett vs. Dempsey celebrates 20 years appeared first on Chicago Reader.
  
  Read more

• ‘A poetry show that’s not a total bummer’

  19-09-2024 00:31 via chicagoreader.com
  
  Kost was itching to produce an event last summer. After a nine-month tour of the U.S. with a children’s theater company, the poet-director-writer-performer wanted to create something of their own. They bounced ideas off of their roommate, Lincoln Lodge manager Christian Borkey, including a potential poetry reading or comedy show. Borkey suggested combining both. Kost […]
  The post ‘A poetry show that’s not a total bummer’ appeared first on Chicago Reader.
  
  Read more

• The language in which they dream

  19-09-2024 00:05 via chicagoreader.com
  
  Stages of Survival is an occasional series focusing on Chicago theater companies, highlighting their histories and how they’re surviving—and even thriving—in a landscape that’s become decidedly more challenging since the 2020 COVID-19 shutdown. When I ask Aguijón Theater cofounder and co-artistic director Rosario Vargas what inspired her to open the company 35 years ago, she […]
  The post The language in which they dream appeared first on Chicago Reader.
  
  Read more

• On the underground

  18-09-2024 23:40 via chicagoreader.com
  
  The Moviegoer is the diary of a local film buff, collecting the best of what Chicago’s independent and underground film scene has to offer. This past weekend was the Chicago Underground Film Festival, which I look forward to every year. Partly, of course, for the appropriately motley programming, and partly because I always know a […]
  The post On the underground appeared first on Chicago Reader.
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Subtext Studio Theatre Company and Forest Park Theatre bring drama to the near west suburbs

  18-09-2024 23:20 via chicagoreader.com
  
  Omar Vicente Fernandez, playwright and Subtext Studio Theatre Company artistic director, first came up with the idea for his play, Que Te Vaya Bien (opening in October as part of Destinos, the seventh Chicago International Latino Theater Festival), at a Cubs game.   Fernandez went to a game alone because his partner had to work that […]
  The post Subtext Studio Theatre Company and Forest Park Theatre bring drama to the near west suburbs appeared first on Chicago Reader.
  
  Read more

• CIRCA Pintig launches inaugural Chicago Filipino American Theatre Festival

  18-09-2024 22:35 via chicagoreader.com
  
  When Ginger Leopoldo, RJ Silva, and Giovanni Ortega of CIRCA Pintig set out to produce a festival of Filipino theater, they had heartfelt hopes and modest expectations. “We knew there are Filipinos out there who want to do theater,” Silva recalls. “So we were like, ‘Let’s do a festival to grow our base—maybe two nights.’” […]
  The post CIRCA Pintig launches inaugural Chicago Filipino American Theatre Festival appeared first on Chicago Reader
  
  Read more

• Looking back at 60 years of CIFF

  18-09-2024 22:25 via chicagoreader.com
  
  This year marks the occasion of the 60th Chicago International Film Festival (CIFF). To put that into perspective, in 1964, on February 7, the Beatles arrived in New York City for their first U.S. tour, kicking off the British Invasion. Several months later, on July 2, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act […]
  The post Looking back at 60 years of CIFF appeared first on Chicago Reader.
  
  Read more

• Onstage front-runners

  18-09-2024 21:56 via chicagoreader.com
  
  These are tense times, no doubt about it, and the lingering high temperatures of summer (Climate change? What climate change?) add to the seasonal confusion. But fall is afoot, and so are some of the most exciting live performances of the year, which may have the added bonus of taking your mind off cable news […]
  The post Onstage front-runners appeared first on Chicago Reader.
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Shallot-infused ten-year Shaoxing cocktail at Minyoli

  18-09-2024 21:33 via chicagoreader.com
  
  Reader Bites celebrates dishes, drinks, and atmospheres from the Chicagoland food scene. Have you had a recent food or drink experience that you can’t stop thinking about? Share it with us at [email protected]. As the dog days of summer come to a close, what everyone really needs is a drink that makes them say, “Ah, meat!” […]
  The post Shallot-infused ten-year Shaoxing cocktail at Minyoli appeared first on Chicago Reader.
  
  Read more

• The revered, the reviled, and the taste of rubber bands

  18-09-2024 21:30 via chicagoreader.com
  
  There’s a shot glass filled with Jeppson’s Malört in front of me. I’ve never had Malört. The bottles of amber sadness are inescapable in Chicago—bars, parties, concert venues—and I had heard all the jokes, but never partaken. I am scared. “I’m going to predict that you will find it less bad than you are expecting,” […]
  The post The revered, the reviled, and the taste of rubber bands appeared first on Chicago Reader.
  
  Read more

• Goth-rock legends Gene Loves Jezebel bring their sultry pop to Reggies Music Joint

  18-09-2024 19:54 via chicagoreader.com
  
  A decade before Oasis’s Liam and Noel Gallagher made headlines with their brotherly feuds, gorgeous fey twins Michael and Jay Aston tore through the British goth-rock scene with their own legendary spats. In the early 80s, the pair left their South Wales hometown for London, where they fell in with the competitive art circles that […]
  The post Goth-rock legends Gene Loves Jezebel bring their sultry pop to Reggies Music Joint appeared first on Chicago Reader.
  
  Read more

• Never Better hits a nerve

  18-09-2024 19:49 via chicagoreader.com
  
  Avoidant and in denial. Most of us have been there. But when college girl Davy, played by Emma Samuelson in Never Better, leans into these strategies, it causes problems. Still mourning the loss of her mom, she discovers she may have leukemia and begins dissociating from her own life.  Never Better Through 10/13: Thu–Sat 7:30 […]
  The post <i>Never Better</i> hits a nerve appeared first on Chicago Reader.
  
  Read more

• Warm Love Cool Dreams offers a mix of aggressive and chill sounds—and the return of the Jesus Lizard

  18-09-2024 19:37 via chicagoreader.com
  
  Warm Love Cool Dreams takes inspiration from a disarmingly uncynical line in Nelson Algren’s bleak 1954 novel, The Man With the Golden Arm (set in Chicago’s historic Polish downtown). “The veteran’s flat, placid, deadpan phiz fixed absently upon an oversized roach twirling its feelers invitingly at him with a half-drugged motion from beneath the radiator,” […]
  The post Warm Love Cool Dreams offers a mix of aggressive and chill sounds—and the return of
  
  Read more

• Chicago Reader Volume 53, Number 33

  18-09-2024 19:32 via chicagoreader.com
  
  Chicago Reader Volume 53, No. 33. September 19, 2024
  The post Chicago Reader Volume 53, Number 33 appeared first on Chicago Reader.
  
  Read more

• Henry V, portrait of a serial killer

  18-09-2024 19:25 via chicagoreader.com
  
  In Chicago Shakespeare’s violent, bloody, overstuffed freight train of a production, the traditionally heroic King Henry V is a symbol of unchecked nationalism. Henry VThrough 10/6: Tue 7 PM, Wed 1 and 7 PM, Thu–Fri 7:30 PM, Sat 2 and 7 PM, Sun 2 PM; ASL interpretation Fri 9/27, audio description and touch tour Sun […]
  The post <i>Henry V</i>, portrait of a serial killer appeared first on Chicago Reader.
  
  Read more

• Los Angeles hip-hop trio Previous Industries repp their Chicago roots

  18-09-2024 19:16 via chicagoreader.com
  
  Los Angeles hip-hop trio Previous Industries are a relatively new group, but their members’ roots go back decades. Still Rift met Open Mike Eagle while they were in high school at Whitney Young in the late 1990s—both joined Pugs Atomz’s mighty Nacrobats crew before graduating. In the early 2000s, Mike attended Southern Illinois University, where […]
  The post Los Angeles hip-hop trio Previous Industries repp their Chicago roots appeared first on Chicago Reader.
  
  Read more

• The Hyde Park Jazz Festival returns with a compelling mix of local and out-of-town talent

  18-09-2024 18:40 via chicagoreader.com
  
  The programming for this year’s Hyde Park Jazz Festival once again defies the implicit parochialism of the festival’s name: this is a weekend of music that any major city on Earth would be proud to call its own. The two-day fest balances accessible local acts that go well with picnicking on the Midway Plaisance with […]
  The post The Hyde Park Jazz Festival returns with a compelling mix of local and out-of-town talent appeared first on Chicago Reader.
  
  Read more

• Passionate flight

  18-09-2024 17:59 via chicagoreader.com
  
  Northlight Theatre’s The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk, written by Daniel Jamieson, featuring music by Ian Ross, and directed by Elizabeth Margolius, is a delightful journey of love and artistry. Celebratory, passionate, and often tectonic, it follows Jewish painter Marc Chagall, who was born in Vitebsk (then part of the Soviet Union, a town that was […]
  The post Passionate flight appeared first on Chicago Reader.
  
  Read more

• Vocalo sends off summer with a top-shelf lineup of free Chicago music

  18-09-2024 17:47 via chicagoreader.com
  
  Maybe this stretch of sunny 80-degree days has you feeling like summer will never die, but Gossip Wolf has bad news—the equinox that defines the astronomical end of the season falls this weekend. That doesn’t mean that the fun is over, though! Millennium Park’s 20th-anniversary summer season coincides with the second year of its residency […]
  The post Vocalo sends off summer with a top-shelf lineup of free Chicago music appeared first on Chicago Reader.
  
  Read more

• Fugitive carry the torch of Texas crossover thrash

  18-09-2024 17:43 via chicagoreader.com
  
  If you spent any time in hardcore or metal circles in the 2010s, Power Trip were on your radar. The Texas thrash lords hit the scene like a bat out of hell, and with each passing tour their live shows seemed to get tighter, better, and more unfuckwithable. By the time they released the 2017 […]
  The post Fugitive carry the torch of Texas crossover thrash appeared first on Chicago Reader.
  
  Read more

• East Texas Hot Links delivers meaty performances

  18-09-2024 17:38 via chicagoreader.com
  
  What do we owe our community? Ourselves? Spicy and explosive, the must-see East Texas Hot Links lives up to its name. The latest offering from director Ron OJ Parson at the Court Theatre is a savory treat for even the most discerning theatrical palate. Set in 1955, a group of Black folks sit at the […]
  The post <i>East Texas Hot Links</i> delivers meaty performances appeared first on Chicago Reader.
  
  Read more

• The price of truth telling

  18-09-2024 17:19 via chicagoreader.com
  
  Reading the statistics on femicides in the adjacent exhibit set up for Water People Theater’s The Delicate Tears of the Waning Moon triggered my emotions and an alarming memory of my visit to a memorial site for women lost to femicide in Ciudad Juárez. I was with two femme writers researching material related to the […]
  The post The price of truth telling appeared first on Chicago Reader.
  
  Read more

• Hương Ngô on the hidden labor behind technology

  18-09-2024 17:19 via chicagoreader.com
  
  Editor’s note: Coco Picard spoke with artist Hương Ngô about her new solo exhibition, “This Space Is for Lose Time,” on view at Tiger Strikes Asteroid-Chicago. Edited text from the comic is transcribed here to ease readability. In her latest exhibition, artist Hương Ngô continues to expose memory’s residual effect on the present. This time, […]
  The post Hương Ngô on the hidden labor behind technology appeared first o
  
  Read more

• A.G. Cook’s Britpop demonstrates the boundlessness of his sound

  18-09-2024 17:18 via chicagoreader.com
  
  British producer and songwriter A.G. Cook has been a cutting-edge figure in pop music for more than a decade, long enough that you can see his fingerprints on a profusion of albums and subcultures. When Cook founded outre label and collective PC Music in 2013, he also laid the foundation for hyperpop; any subsequent artist […]
  The post A.G. Cook’s <i>Britpop</i> demonstrates the boundlessness of his sound appeared first on Chicago Reader.
  
  Read more

• Gilda is dead; opera’s not

  18-09-2024 16:39 via chicagoreader.com
  
  Wow, who’d a thunk it? In spite of all the dire signs of opera’s impending demise (right along with its aging audiences), Chicago’s 2024 fall season got off to an impressively rousing start at Lyric last weekend. No mean feat, given that what they’ve got onstage is a remount of a traditional production of a […]
  The post Gilda is dead; opera’s not appeared first on Chicago Reader.
  
  Read more

• A sign of the times

  18-09-2024 13:00 via chicagoreader.com
  
  For decades, the Bridgeport Restaurant sat at the corner of 35th Street and Halsted, its bold red sign hugging the building, serving as an unofficial welcome to the neighborhood. Since the owners retired in 2022, the restaurant sat empty, but the sign persisted. Fitted with chrome accents and adorned with marquee lights, it featured “Bridgeport” […]
  The post A sign of the times appeared first on Chicago Reader.
  
  Read more

• Footballhead’s mammoth Before I Die should be an alt-rock hit

  13-09-2024 20:39 via chicagoreader.com
  
  I can’t listen to the Footballhead mini album Before I Die (Tiny Engines), which came out in August, without thinking of an interview I did with front man Ryan Nolen last September: we talked on the phone for nearly an hour because I was writing about the death of one of his best friends, Space […]
  The post Footballhead’s mammoth <i>Before I Die</i> should be an alt-rock hit appeared first on Chicago Reader.
  
  Read more

• Caterina Barbieri sails into the seas of a retro future

  13-09-2024 20:34 via chicagoreader.com
  
  The music of Italian composer and multi-instrumentalist Caterina Barbieri shimmers and pulses at the intersection of ambient, new age, minimalist electronics, and drone. She uses primarily modular synthesizers to build her tracks, creating canvases of sustained tones that spread flat like aural wallpaper and then splashing them with digital and analog color, including guitar, strings, […]
  The post Caterina Barbieri sails into the seas of a retro future appeared first on Chicago Reader.
  
  Read more

• Thievery Corporation bring their “outernationalist” electronic music to Outset

  13-09-2024 20:29 via chicagoreader.com
  
  Calling Thievery Corporation “eclectic” is an understatement—their sound’s been described as downtempo, but it can also light up a dance party. Cofounders Eric Hilton and Rob Garza would likely blanch at attempts to define their band within any category—though ambient, trip-hop, house, and global fusion all come to mind. They borrow from a variety of […]
  The post Thievery Corporation bring their “outernationalist” electronic music to Outset appea
  
  Read more

• Chicago rapper Femdot. celebrates his 2019 breakthrough album, 94 Camry Music

  13-09-2024 20:15 via chicagoreader.com
  
  Evanston-raised rapper Femdot., born Femi Adigun, upholds the broad-shouldered, self-assured poetry of homegrown hip-hop to rep Chicago with an artisan’s touch. His signature pencil-behind-the-ear aesthetic and million-dollar smile telegraph his dedication to writing impactful lyrics and doing what he can to strategically win at the game of life. Education is also a pillar of his […]
  The post Chicago rapper Femdot. celebrates his 2019 breakthrough album, <i>94 Camry Music<
  
  Read more

Follow @NewsIllinois_ on Twitter!