Free Street Theater joins up with Plant Chicago for a winter market and storytelling event at Plant Chicago’s building (4459 S. Marshfield). From 11 AM-3 PM, you can enjoy stories (1-2 PM), songs from Orcas Are Dolphins (playing 11:30 AM-1 PM), a clothing swap, and the chance to purchase wares from local vendors, including Zeitlin’s […]
Tag: improv
Posted inAgenda
Showmen’s Rest, Flava Flavor Flavour, and scary movies
If you’ve ever strolled through Woodlawn Cemetery in suburban Forest Park (which, given the season, might apply to some of you) you might have happened upon a section that features five elephant-shaped monuments. That 750 plot section of the cemetery is commonly known as Showmen’s Rest, a section of burial land originally purchased for use […]
Posted inAgenda
Gardens, free stuff, dancing, and laughs
Get some fresh air today by joining a free garden tour at the Lincoln Park Zoo (2001 N. Clark). Every second Saturday, a staff horticulturist leads groups through the zoo’s gardens, identifying what’s in bloom, noting fauna attractive to pollinators and animals, and answering questions about our natural environment. Summer tours are focused on prairie […]
Posted inPerforming Arts Feature
‘What happened in the community was almost like a brush fire’
What hit harder, the racism or the pandemic? When the world shut down, theater performances came to a halt. No one was laughing about anything. Improvisers couldn’t perform, and theaters across the city lost big money. Alongside COVID-19, the improv community had a great awakening regarding mistreatment of BIPOC talent. Major theaters retroactively diversified leadership […]
Posted inArts & Culture
From stage to page
I tell this story all the time, so forgive me if you’ve already heard it. But when I moved from Chicago in late 1993 to San Francisco (where I spent the next seven years), the first thing I did was pick up the alt-weeklies there: the SF Weekly and the San Francisco Bay Guardian, both […]
Posted inArts & Culture
iO past, present, and nonfuture
Remembering the comedy theater’s humble beginnings and reflecting on its dramatic end
Posted inMusic
Improvising trio Icepick renew jazz’s love affair with the El on their third LP, Hellraiser
Sun Ra may have told everyone he was from Saturn, but the Afrofuturistic avant-gardist spent the 1950s in Chicago. While he was here, he recorded “El Is a Sound of Joy,” jazz’s greatest tribute to the city’s public transport system. No one in improvising trio Icepick—bassist Ingebrigt Håker Flaten, trumpeter Nate Wooley, and drummer Chris […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Improvising at a distance
Instructors adapt to online comedy and improv courses.
Posted inArts & Culture
Remembering Michael McCarthy
Tributes from actors, comedians, and friends of the Chicago comedy legend.
Posted inArts & Culture
Live! From Chicago! It’s your favorite podcast
Part hangout, part celebration, part theater of the mind, live podcast recordings are a performance medium all their own.
Posted inArts & Culture
Shannon Noll uses comedy to defy expectations and define themself
Comedian Shannon Noll is using their new webseries and photo project to subvert expectations of gender and sexuality.
Posted inArts & Culture
Bob Odenkirk returns home to Second City
The Better Call Saul star discusses acting, improv, blood feuds, and the charms of Naperville.
Posted inFilm
Diagnosis: Boring uses surreal comedy to demonstrate the distortional logic of depression
The Chicago-made webseries takes a radically different view of mental illness.
Posted inArts & Culture
The Second City’s Algorithm Nation or, The Static Quo feels stuck in the system
The 107th mainstage revue features talented performers, but it’s strictly by the numbers.
Posted inColumns & Opinion
How to get your groove back after giving birth
A pelvic floor physical therapist comes to the rescue. Plus: Dan gives advice to a straight woman in love with a gay man.