Christopher Chase Carter Archives

The cast of Mercury Theater Chicago's Priscilla Queen of the Desert stands in front of the prop tour bus. The three drag performers who are at the center of the show are in the center of the photograph wearing bright sleeveless jumpsuits and exaggerated wigs, striking poses. They are surrounded by "tourists" in shorts and camping shirts, taking their photographs.

Queens of the road

by Kerry Reid July 27, 2022July 27, 2022

In 1994, an Australian road comedy about three drag artists heading off in a beat-up tour bus across the Outback felt like a breath of fresh air in a cinematic landscape that tended to focus stories with “gay themes” on the tragedy of AIDS, and that still tended to view being trans as a punch […]

A group of people in 1970s clothing dance together in a group. A sign reading "Windy City Skates" is above their heads, in front of the band.

Theater Review

Just skating by

by Irene Hsiao June 8, 2022June 13, 2022

The year is 1994, and rock star Jacqueline Miller (Diana DeGarmo) is zigzagging the country on a tour. Her dishonest manager has absconded with her earnings, her deadbeat saxophonist boyfriend (Ace Young) is either cheating or has forgotten her birthday, and she’s going on Oprah tomorrow but just lost the cover of Rolling Stone to […]

Interior of Venus Cabaret, lit with soft purple lighting effects.

Performing Arts Feature

Welcome to Venus

by Catey Sullivan January 20, 2022January 20, 2022

Back in December, there was a shining sliver of time when it looked like we—as individuals, as artists, as arts institutions—were forging a clear, or at least clear-ish, path forward. Hundreds of people were back at work on live, in-person shows. A Christmas Carol burned bright at the Goodman. The Snow Queen got a shiny […]

Theater Review

The fly nuns

by Kerry Reid November 16, 2021November 16, 2021

In Howard Hawks’s 1941 screwball comedy Ball of Fire, chanteuse/mob moll Katherine “Sugarpuss” O’Shea (Barbara Stanwyck) hides out from the cops and her killer boyfriend by taking refuge in the house of seven dwar . . . er, academics who are absorbed in writing a new encyclopedia. Because opposites in Screwball World, as elsewhere, must […]