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• Intimate copies

  16-08-2024 14:00 via chicagoreader.com
  
  In “Bibliographical, nonsense #3: Paratextual Messages of the (UF)Os,” on view at Comfort Station until September 1, olivier continues to fine-tune an evolving practice of creative citational mining that opaquely but playfully considers the politics of classification and identification. Working somewhere between the hermetic conceptual world-making and systematizing of Stanley Brouwn and the unfolding language […]
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• Review: The Dog Stars

  04-09-2026 18:40 via chicagoreader.com
  
  The Dog Stars in wide release in theaters
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• Review: Coyote vs. Acme

  04-09-2026 18:40 via chicagoreader.com
  Coyote vs. Acme in wide release in theaters
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• Review: Buddy

  04-09-2026 18:40 via chicagoreader.com
  
  Buddy in wide release in theaters
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• From the block to the big screen

  04-09-2026 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  
  It’s easy to generalize what makes Chicago’s theater and film scenes unique: Steppenwolf-style ensemble mentality, City of Big Shoulders work ethic, midwestern authenticity over everything. It’s another thing to prove it, tucked away and toiling on a quiet block in Bowmanville, with an improbably self-funded and locally crewed indie rom-com.  After 25 years in theater, […]
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• Zamrock legends W.I.T.C.H. return to their roots on Sogolo

  04-09-2026 15:00 via chicagoreader.com
  W.I.T.C.H. Fri 10/2 at Sleeping Village
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• Joanna and Iliana: From ‘Insta girlies’ to IRL friends

  04-09-2026 14:00 via chicagoreader.com
  
  Despite the structural barriers to traveling between Chicago’s 77 community areas, many friends are willing to face the city’s geographic hurdles and sustain relationships that transcend race, gender, age, and class. In an effort to chronicle human connection and love in spite of these challenges, the Going the Distance series examines the enduring friendships between […]
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• Win Stracke dreamed of music as a path to peace

  03-09-2026 22:23 via chicagoreader.com
  If you love the Old Town School of Folk Music, you might have heard of Win Stracke. But among famous people from Chicago, he might paradoxically be the least known. “How many people have heard the name Win Stracke?” asked folk musician, historian, and teacher Mark Dvorak in a 2007 post on his website. “There […]
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• The art of producing

  03-09-2026 18:26 via chicagoreader.com
  
  Before any performer twirls a tassel, drops into a split, or picks up a mike, there’s a producer writing emails, organizing spreadsheets, calling venues, crunching numbers, creating posters, tracking ticket sales, wrangling tech information, hiring talent—you get the idea. I haven’t been producing that long, but from just the handful of shows I’ve put on, […]
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• Chicago has abundant water. Data center developers want a taste.

  03-09-2026 16:53 via chicagoreader.com
  Waterways in Chicago and northern Illinois have supported industrial activity for more than a century, and now those same bodies of water are drawing an influx of proposed data centers that would tap into the region’s plentiful resources.  These proposals have drawn considerable scrutiny, with experts and advocates concerned about the lack of transparency and […]
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• Sonic connections and thematic synergies

  03-09-2026 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  
  The Cinema Scrapbook places film screenings in conversation with other local creative happenings, illuminating Chicago’s rich cultural connectivity. September presents itself as a bittersweet mixed bag; summer fades, but the crisp air of the changing season breathes more life into Chicago’s creative communities. The Museum of Contemporary Art’s (MCA) tentpole exhibition “Dancing the Revolution: From […]
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• Pan de jamón y queso at Aromadipan

  03-09-2026 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  
  The ageless duo of ham and cheese is applied to no fewer than eight different kinds of pastries and breads at this Venezuelan bakery. It’s stuffed inside (or draped atop) empanadas, pastelitos, cachitos, hot dogs, burgers, pizza, and more.  In its most dramatic and visually arresting manifestation, it’s spiralized within a baguette-style loaf whose appearance […]
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• ASL interpreter Diego Diaz lives a life of joyful chaos

  03-09-2026 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  
  Where in the world is Diego Diaz? He isn’t answering my emails; he’s screening my calls.  I felt like I was trying to get ahold of a celebrity, not the local American Sign Language (ASL) interpreter I’d seen swinging his hips and grinning alongside Poet Laureate Mayda del Valle earlier this year. “This is my […]
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•  Planting the seeds

  03-09-2026 15:00 via chicagoreader.com
  
  Chicago’s independent arts scenes run on those who show up for each other, again and again, until something new exists. These artists and curators usually wear every hat—funder, mediator, writer, archivist—without the pay to match, often operating on sheer will. Our goal for September’s Fall Arts issue was to create a homage to the city’s […]
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• Art isn’t easy, but Kokandy frames it well with Sunday in the Park With George

  02-09-2026 19:31 via chicagoreader.com
  
  Sunday in the Park With George, through 11/1, Kokandy Productions at Chopin Theatre
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• Joan Crawford Goes to Hell is devilishly fun

  02-09-2026 19:05 via chicagoreader.com
  Joan Crawford Goes to Hell, through 9/27, Hell in a Handbag Productions at the Clutch
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• Elephant in the Womb is an in utero clown show

  02-09-2026 18:39 via chicagoreader.com
  
  Elephant in the Womb, through 9/13, Black Cat Theatre at Theater Wit
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• The Missing Piece looks at the end of the world through the eyes of two clowns

  02-09-2026 18:08 via chicagoreader.com
  
  The Missing Piece, through 9/20, Silent Theatre Company at Visceral Adventure Lounge
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• Shane at City Lit centers the violence and beauty of the American west

  02-09-2026 17:46 via chicagoreader.com
  
  Shane, through 10/4 at City Lit Theater
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• J’Uncle lacks dramatic connections

  02-09-2026 17:29 via chicagoreader.com
  
  J'Uncle, through 9/13, Simple Theatre at Jarvis Square Theater
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• Record scratching breaks containment again

  02-09-2026 17:23 via chicagoreader.com
  
  In spring 2025, Henry Stoehr and Emily Massey of Chicago indie-rock band Slow Pulp started working on material for their next album. They’d spent much of the previous year and a half touring to support their breakout second full-length, Yard, released in September 2023 by big-name indie label Anti-. Slow Pulp formed in Madison in […]
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• Chicago Reader Volume 55, Number 20

  02-09-2026 17:13 via chicagoreader.com
  Chicago Reader Volume 55, No. 20. September 2026. The Fall Arts Issue.
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• For the love of the game

  02-09-2026 16:43 via chicagoreader.com
  
  How do art exhibitions get made? For major institutions like the Art Institute of Chicago, entire teams of people can spend months or years putting a show together. From the ideation phase to the time an exhibition opens, the work must be transported and installed, programming has to be planned, materials have to be written, […]
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• Seeding the Chicago theater field with new productions and companies

  02-09-2026 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  
  In July, Oskar Eustis, the celebrated longtime artistic director of New York’s Public Theater (the venue where both A Chorus Line and Hamilton were birthed), announced he would be leaving his position in two years. In an interview with Michael Paulson of the New York Times, Eustis, while declaring the state of the Public itself […]
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• Microcinemas and movie clubs are thriving in Chicago

  02-09-2026 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  
  Many movies are made to be seen on big silver screens; all movies are made to be seen sitting alongside others. Chicago has long been the midwestern movie mecca for audiences and filmmakers alike, and while there is no shortage of multiplex and independent theaters for folks to visit, many of which have lounges to […]
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• How comedians eat it before and after grabbing the mike

  02-09-2026 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  
  On performance days, Jordan Wilson likes to caffeine- and carb-load.  “Today I woke up and made my quad-shot oat latte, then for lunch I had a jerky stick and a plain bagel,” he says. “I really like raw-dogging bagels. Often I have two bagels for lunch just raw, or four slices of wheat toast to […]
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• Southeast Spotlight: Smoke’s Bistro

  02-09-2026 15:00 via chicagoreader.com
  Smoke’s Bistro1225 E. 87th St., Mon, Wed, Thu, and Fri, 4 PM–9PM, Sat 3 PM–9 PM, Sun 11 AM–6 PM, Closed Tuesdays (773) 708-1606, smokesbistro.com, Email [email protected], Instagram @smokes_bistro, Facebook @Smoke’s Bistro Some people find their calling. Avneel Williams, better known as Chef Smoke, built his from the ground up, one dish at a time. With […]
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• Inside Tuley Park’s community darkroom

  02-09-2026 15:00 via chicagoreader.com
  
  The Darkroom Chicago began with my belief that adults deserve more places to be curious. There are not many spaces where we can explore a new interest without enrolling in a class, paying for a membership, committing to a long-term program, or already knowing what we are doing. I wanted to create a different kind […]
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• Every month, every day, every hour

  02-09-2026 14:00 via chicagoreader.com
  
  Content note: This story discusses attempted suicide. Prison conditions emphasize power structures that exist in society, further harming the most vulnerable among us. After serving almost 20 years in prison, I am now observing a new generation of young people enter the carceral system and struggle to hold on to their existence. There are no […]
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• The Bridgeport Records crew launches a new shop in West Town

  02-09-2026 01:04 via chicagoreader.com
  
  Two weekends from now, Chicago will welcome its newest music store: Onion City Records. Bridgeport Records co-owners Vick Lavender and Jerry Morrison soft launched a new brick-and-mortar shop at 1812 W. Chicago during West Fest in mid-July. “We’ve been popping up on the weekends over there, just so we can get a sense of what […]
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