Anish Jethmalani Archives - Chicago Reader

Two Black men sit at a table. The man on the left holds a bottle of beer, and is in a black T-shirt. The man on the right is in a purple jacket, drinking a clear cocktail, and is gesturing toward the table, as if explaining something.

Farewell to Eclipse and Underscore

by Kerry Reid October 7, 2022October 9, 2022

Covering theater in Chicago is sometimes about writing valedictions for companies that have decided it’s time to fold up the tent. In the past couple of weeks, two such announcements came through. Underscore Theatre announced in late September that they were closing permanently. (During the pandemic, the company gave up their storefront rental space at […]

A white woman in a cloche hat and 1930s suit sits left at a round table covered with a white cloth. She is leaning in and talking to a white man in a gray suit who is seated left. His hat and two highball glasses sit on the table between them.

Theater Review

Screwball smear tactics

by Kerry Reid August 16, 2022August 26, 2022

Politics has always been a “smelly kitchen,” to borrow a phrase from Jean Anouilh’s version of Antigone. But in 1933, two new cooks entered that kitchen. And the recipes they came up with continue to befoul the air of American elections. Leone Baxter and Clem Whitaker (a widow and a married man who eventually became […]

Arts & Culture

Dreamgirls, Dead Man Walking, The Few, and ten more new theater reviews

by Chicago Reader April 20, 2016August 18, 2021

Porchlight’s Dreamgirls, Piven Theatre’s Dead Man Walking, and Steep Theatre’s The Few are among this week’s theater highlights.