Deanna Isaacs, author at Chicago Reader

A person in dark clothing, their back to the camera, climbs a rope. The photo is filled with a purplish wash

Gray days, but vibrant stages

by Kerry Reid, Irene Hsiao and Deanna Isaacs January 30, 2023January 30, 2023

We’re finally getting a taste of the usual winter weather, but that’s no reason to stay housebound. (Unless you’re being extra COVID-cautious, for which we don’t blame you!) But if you’re up for some cultural adventures, there are some great possibilities on tap the next couple of months. Chicago Theatre Week, sponsored every year by […]

Two women in children's play clothes daubed with blood stand on either side of a large mouth with bloody teeth. On the mouth's tongue is a cake with a door and a window.

Arts & Culture

Grimm and surreal

by Deanna Isaacs January 27, 2023January 27, 2023

This surrealistic production of Engelbert Humperdinck’s 1893 opera version of the Brothers Grimm fairy tale—seen twice before at Lyric—should probably be a Christmas show. But since Joffrey became Lyric’s roommate, we’re getting it now. Visually it’s nightmarish, claustrophobic, and monochromatic as a gray January day—but also striking: think fish-headed dream-scene maitre d’ overseeing a troop […]

At left is a photo of conductor Marin Also standing at the podium conducting. She is a white woman with short blonde hair, wearing a long white jacket with a dark blouse underneath. At right is a poster for the movie Tár depicting Cate Blanchett as the title character, caught from below. We don't see her face, but instead we see her torso and the underside of her chin. She is in a dark gray outfit and clutches a conductor's baton in her right hand.

On Culture

Who’s getting tarred?

by Deanna Isaacs January 25, 2023January 25, 2023

No industry has been more of a closed and creaky old white boys club than classical music. Things are grudgingly changing now that the Western canon appears to be on its deathbed, but, according to research by the League of American Orchestras, “Women conductors are still rare, especially in the high-status position of music director.” […]

A view of the Humboldt Park Stables and Receptory Building, home of the National Museum of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture. A low half-built gray wall of cinder blocks is one the left. A leafless tree is in the foreground

On Culture

No walk in the park

by Deanna Isaacs January 11, 2023January 12, 2023

Update: 01/12/2023In an email today seeking to “clarify misinformation posted on the museum’s website,” Chicago Park District Director of Communications Michele Lemons said this: “The Chicago Park District did not approve construction on a 5,000 square foot facility nor did the District approve a structure of any size.” Juanita Irizarry delivered a gut punch of […]

A middle-aged Black man (bald, wearing a gray suit) stands left. He is facing a middle-aged white man (blading, wearing a black T-shirt with yellow graphics depicting guns). They are standing in front of a high paneled wall. There is a conference table with laptops and office chairs visible behind them.

On Culture

Fusion and firearms

by Deanna Isaacs December 21, 2022December 21, 2022

The best we can say about 2022? It’s been transitional. If we’re lucky, the shift will be to something better. In the meantime, the war in Ukraine drags on. Predictably, unconscionably, we’ve become inured to it. Inflation rages at a pace new to most of us. The experts pushing and pulling the levers on the […]

On the left is a picture of author Peter Friederici, a middle-aged white man wearing glasses. He is clean shaven, and holding up a pine cone. On the right is the cover art for his book Beyond Climate Breakdown, which has two horizontal images separated by the title and author panel. The top image is of a green forest, and the bottom one is of the same forest, only in flames.

On Culture

Hey, it’s getting warm in here!

by Deanna Isaacs December 7, 2022October 10, 2023

Peter Friederici has a history in these pages. In 1987, the Chicago native—then a recent Northwestern University graduate with a bachelor’s degree in comparative literature and no clear path to a career—got hired as a Reader editorial assistant. He spent two years in that job, working under editors Michael Lenehan and Alison True. Now an […]

A bar graph showing the increase in budget deficits for theaters who responded to Theatre Communications Group's survey on Budgeting for Uncertainty

On Culture

Long COVID for the arts

by Deanna Isaacs November 23, 2022November 23, 2022

Theatre Communications Group, the national organization for nonprofit theater, is about to release its latest annual report on the fiscal health of the field, Theatre Facts 2021. (Yes, it’s almost 2023, but this stuff takes time to collect.) The news is not great. The report, which compares results over a five-year period, tracks the startling […]

A woman in a pink gown with a large feathered collar sits next to a vanity with a mirror. She has an angry expression on her face. One hand is balled into a fist and the other is pointing to the person next to her on the right, who is a man disguised as a nun, clutching a set of black rosary beads in his hands.

Arts & Culture

The Don and the Count

by Deanna Isaacs November 14, 2022November 16, 2022

Deeply committed Verdi fans ought to get themselves to Lyric Opera’s first ever production of Don Carlos, the four-hour, five-act, 1867 French language version of the shorter Verdi opera they already know as the Italian language Don Carlo. This love vs. duty tale of historical fiction, loosely drawn from the life of a 16th-century Spanish […]

City Life

The Chicagoans

by Enrique Limón, Matt Harvey, Ben Joravsky, Leor Galil, Kelly Garcia, Micco Caporale, Mike Sula, Jamie Ludwig, Deanna Isaacs, Philip Montoro, DMB (Debbie-Marie Brown), Salem Collo-Julin, Kat Sachs, Katie Prout and Kerry Reid November 10, 2022December 15, 2022

The People Issue’s class of 2022 showcases folks from many walks of life. As subjects, their common thread is an incessant need to create welcoming spaces for other individuals like them, enact change, further their craft, do good, and in one instance, amplify the representation of stoner lesbians in graphic novels. Read profiles of 21 people by and as told to 15 Chicago Reader writers.

A reproduction of an ancient skeleton in a display case. It is on its side with the leg bones curved underneath it.

On Culture

You will die. Then what?

by Deanna Isaacs October 26, 2022October 26, 2022

Is death life’s greatest mystery? Or would we just like it to be? (Therefore, ghosts, devils, heaven, hell, organized religion, and Halloween candy.) Those are not among the five major questions that serve as an organizing mechanism for the Field Museum’s expansive new exhibit, “Death: Life’s Greatest Mystery,” however much they hang in the air. […]

On Culture

From domestic terrorism to the voting booth

by Deanna Isaacs October 12, 2022October 12, 2022

When Michael Fanone, the former Trump supporter and D.C. cop who nearly died at the hands of the January 6 mob at the U.S. Capitol, comes to the Chicago Humanities Festival next week to join We Are Proud Boys: How a Right-Wing Street Gang Ushered in a New Era of American Extremism author Andy Campbell […]

A young white man in dark clothing with long dark hair stands holding a sign reading "Pro-Lifers SUCK!" Behind him is a display with an image of a fetus and a few other people on the sidewalk.

On Culture

Anti-abortion activists float a new argument: ageism

by Deanna Isaacs September 28, 2022September 28, 2022

Move over, Grandpa. You think ageism is your cause? Last week, Created Equal, an Ohio-based organization opposed to ending unwanted pregnancies came to town, making stops at the city’s largest college campuses. At Northwestern, they set up shop on Sheridan Road, displaying enlarged images of dismembered fetal parts and passing out leaflets announcing that “Abortion […]

Steven Skybell as Tevye, an older bearded white man in gray work clothes and cap, sits in front of a large wooden cabinet with the doors open. He is holding up a bottle in his right hand. On top of the cabinet, Drake Wunderlich, a young white boy with dark hair and a green hoodie, lays on top of the cabinet holding a violin and bow, looking down at Tevye.

Theater Review

Tradition with a twist

by Deanna Isaacs September 21, 2022September 21, 2022

Lyric Opera introduced Chicago audiences to director Barrie Kosky last year, when it brought his production of The Magic Flute—created for Komische Oper Berlin, where he’s been music director for a decade—to the Opera House on Wacker. Kosky staged the Mozart favorite as a silent film. So the announcement that Kosky’s production of Fiddler on […]

A line of Black dancers of all genders. The male-presenting dancers are shirtless and wear dark trousers. The female-presenting dancers are in cream-colored slip dances.

Arts & Culture

Some best bets for the fall harvest of performance

by Kerry Reid, Irene Hsiao and Deanna Isaacs September 16, 2022September 16, 2022

It’s impossible to summarize everything that’s happening onstage this season. (It’s also hard to tell you exactly what COVID-19 precautions are required at venues now; we suggest checking ahead and being prepared to show proof of vax, and wearing a mask as a courtesy to other patrons.) But here are ten offerings that promise to […]

A black-and-white photo showing a city street filled with rubble. In the foreground, three Jewish men in dark coats and hats stand facing a fourth man, a German police officer in a military-type uniform, on the right. He is looking at identification papers.

On Culture

The U.S. and the Holocaust

by Deanna Isaacs September 14, 2022September 14, 2022

Starting Sunday, for three consecutive nights, WTTW will air a new six-hour Ken Burns documentary series, The U.S. and the Holocaust. Burns and his filmmaking partners, Lynn Novick and Sarah Botstein, based the series on a United States Holocaust Memorial Museum exhibit curated by Chicago-area native and current Newberry Library president, Daniel Greene. From 2014 […]