Fine Arts Building Archives

Unfinished Business, dance, and music tonight

by Kerry Reid and Salem Collo-Julin October 21, 2022October 21, 2022

Former Neo-Futurist Kurt Chiang and current long-distance Lucky Plush ensemble member Mindy Myers have been hoping to collaborate on an original performance piece for years. They finally got around to it (mostly over Zoom) during the pandemic shutdown, and the result, Unfinished Business, continues tonight and tomorrow at 7 PM at Links Hall (3111 N. […]

Vintage photograph of the audience at the Studebaker

Ghost Light

The Studebaker gets ready to roll

by Kerry Reid May 20, 2022May 25, 2022

Last August, I caught up with Jacob Harvey just as he was taking over as the new (and first-ever) managing artistic director of theaters for the Fine Arts Building. At the time, he noted that with the loss of the Royal George as a midsize rental house, the soon-to-be-remodeled Studebaker Theater in the Fine Arts […]

Ghost Light

The Fine Arts theater team makes no little plans

by Kerry Reid August 13, 2021August 18, 2021

Back in the Pleistocene era (that is, 1986), I spent a few months living downtown in the now-gone Herman Crown Center, a Roosevelt University residence hall that also sheltered students from Columbia College Chicago (where I was enrolled) and the School of the Art Institute. (The building was torn down to make room for Roosevelt’s […]

Music

DJ and producer Jordan Zawideh drops an homage to oddball old-school house

by J.R. Nelson and Leor Galil June 3, 2020August 18, 2021

DJ and producer Jordan Zawideh drops an homage to oddball old-school house, sheet-music institution Performers needs help to survive the pandemic, and more.

Music

Pianist Charles Joseph Smith celebrates companionship and solitude in a new video

by Salem Collo-Julin April 2, 2020August 18, 2021

Dr. Charles Joseph Smith collaborated on his new video with filmmakers from Mississippi Records and Raw Music International.

Blogs

Bruce Rauner: Congressional GOP tax plan ‘punishing’ for Illinois, and other Chicago news

by Kate Shepherd January 5, 2018August 18, 2021

Also, more than 600 complaints have come in about landlords breaking the city’s heat ordinance.

Blogs

Dial Bookshop opens for business in the Fine Arts Building

by Aimee Levitt December 4, 2017August 18, 2021

The owners of Pilsen Community Books now have a second store downtown.

Blogs

Mark Kirk drops Trump endorsement ‘after much consideration,’ and other Chicago news

by Kate Shepherd June 8, 2016August 18, 2021

Also, the police department hires an official to help implement reforms.

Music

Daniel Knox gives our derelicts the beautiful music they deserve

by Tal Rosenberg February 17, 2015August 18, 2021

He learned to play piano in hotel lobbies and likes to wander the city alone at night. Now he’s made one of the best singer-songwriter albums of the year.