Kokandy’s Hair connects the 60s to the present
The immersive staging at the Chopin provides a high-energy take on the “tribal love-rock musical.”
PERFORMING ARTS
SALOMÉ dances with the dichotomies in Oscar Wilde’s tragedy
Seph Mozes’s staging features a hypnotic turn from Zoë Christine Rutherford in the title role.
Good People returns in a stellar revival with 4 Chairs Theatre
A South Boston woman faces economic crises and moral dilemmas in David Lindsay-Abaire’s drama.
Getting Wilde with SALOMÉ
Seph Mozes and Zoë Christine Rutherford on the new revival of Oscar Wilde’s symbolist tragedy
Latest Stories
Review: Her Private Hell
Her Private Hell is not an accessible crowd-pleaser, but fans of Nicolas Winding Refn and proponents of “style is substance” will find much to adore here.
Review: Everybody to Kenmure Street
Felipe Bustos Sierra’s Everybody to Kenmure Street documents a 2021 protest in Scotland, contextualizing a history of resistance and community.
Review: Manhunter: The Final Cut
Manhunter: The Final Cut punctures the airtight cool of the original.
Anne Helen Wells’s new album honors the intimacy and care in BDSM
Plus: Nervy punks Cel Ray celebrate their debut full-length, Album Runs hits the Pavement, and more.
Mike DFG plays the rap game as a team sport
The rising west-side star launched his breakout mixtape, Hei$man, with a tight crew of collaborators instead of a manager.
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News & Politics
Is southeast Chicago at the quantum crossroads?
A $9 billion quantum computing campus is set to rise where U.S. Steel South Works once stood. This Chicago Reader zine traces the implications of this megadevelopment for the people, land, and economy of Chicago’s southeast side.
South Shore and Washington Park community members’ fight against displacement near the Obama Center is ongoing
“We have a right to our community. We have a right to have comfort. We have a right to live somewhere that’s nice.”
Inside the Pritzkers’ ‘Quantum Prairie’
How Governor J.B. and Penny Pritzker worked with universities, tech companies, and powerful business groups to transform Chicago into a global hub for quantum, and the massive data center that comes with it.
Music
The power is in the people at the Chosen Few Picnic
Photos from the Woodstock of house music, where fans and artists support each other to build a joyous combination of concert and cookout
The Huns exemplify Chicago’s joyful 1960s garage-rock explosion
These grade-school friends, who released one sought-after single six decades ago, play their first headlining show in 57 years.
Max Subar grows into a sophisticated folk sound on his debut album
Plus: The weekend’s music festivals include some of the summer’s most interesting, including the Silver Room Block Party and Loose Leaf Fest.
As Chicago’s biggest music festival, shouldn’t Lollapalooza do more to serve the city’s people?
Thu 7/30 – Sun 8/2 at Grant Park
Film & TV
Review: The Odyssey
Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is completely immersive, with stripped-down language and brutal physicality.
Parts and sums
Manhunter (1986), Excalibur (1981), The Fly (1986), and more
Review: Our Hero, Balthazar
Our Hero, Balthazar is a funny and dangerous future cult classic.
Home movies tell the story of Chicago’s Polish diaspora
Film scholar Agata Zborowska’s “Not-So-Ordinary” project archives and restores amateur films from the city’s Polish immigrant community.
Theater, dance, comedy
Here comes a regular
Dive at Fritzy’s is a splendid first outing for Dark Room District.
The Best Musical Ever is a loving but sharp-elbowed parody fest
Corn Productions offers their own downscale take on Forbidden Broadway.
Newsies returns with Surging Films & Theatrics
Some solid performances center this uneven revival of the Disney musical.
It’s Wall Street vs. Main Street in Dry Powder
Gwydion Theatre Company stages the Chicago premiere of Sarah Burgess’s sardonic investment-firm dark comedy.
Visual Arts, books
Jiashun Zhou weaves an expansive world
An ambitious series of textile works depict an idyllic, trompe l’oeil landscape.
The transformative power of public housing
Nathaniel Mary Quinn recreates his Robert Taylor Homes living room from memory.
SAIC’s Palestine problem
The art school built its art therapy program around social justice, then claims of anti-Semitism devastated the department.
CITY LIFE
Disaster rehearsal
Bartering for scars and faking death at O’Hare’s triennial airplane crash simulation
Kate and Stacy see the legacy of their lifelong friendship extend to their preteen sons.
They are raising their sons with the same values of friendship and political consciousness that has sustained their connection for two decades.
Food & Drink
Palestinian olive oil importers struggle with drought, tariffs, and settler violence to bring their product to Chicago.
Purchasing West Bank oil enables Palestinian Americans to support friends and relatives, but also to maintain intangible connections to home.
At Galit the foie gras wars have reached a stalemate
Are the monthslong Lincoln Park protests anti-fatty duck liver? Or anti-Israel?
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