Lauren Nichols Archives - Chicago Reader

Interior set of a cigar factory with "CIGARS" painted in big white letters on the rear wall. The lector, a man in a white suit, stands on a ladder rear left, holding a book. Another man stands next to him, slouching against the wall. In the center we can see the partial figure of a woman with her back turned toward us. Another woman sits working at a large wooden table in the center of the photo. A man sits on the right edge of the table, with a woman on his lap.

Summer and smoke

by Catey Sullivan February 23, 2023February 22, 2023

Nilo Cruz’s 2003 Pulitzer Prize-winning Anna in the Tropics is a lit-fuse kind of drama, beginning with a slow but unmistakable simmer that ultimately detonates with scorching, devastating impact. Directed by Laura Alcalá Baker for Remy Bumppo Theatre, this lavishly produced, powerfully cast production shows just how relevant—and compelling—Cruz’s words remain. Anna in the Tropics […]

Two people stand in red light. On the left is a Black person in contemporary male clothing, with long blonde braids and a wreath of flowers on their head. On the right is a Latino man in a black flowing shirt open deep at the neck and leather pants.

Theater Review

Artistic licentiousness

by Kerry Reid October 6, 2022October 6, 2022

Welcome to Florence, circa 1485, where the Medicis rule by fear and favors—and where their favorite bad-boy artist, Sandro Botticelli, is about to fuck around (literally) and find out. Canadian playwright/novelist Jordan Tannahill’s Botticelli in the Fire premiered in 2018, before COVID-19, but plague is one of the problems facing Lorenzo De Medici’s Renaissance fiefdom. […]

A young Chinese woman stands in the foreground. Behind her are four white people around a dining room table--an older man and woman, a middle-aged woman, and another young woman.

Theater Review

The big meal

by Kerry Reid April 13, 2022April 13, 2022

In a recent New Yorker profile of Natasha Lyonne, star and creator of the trippy Netflix series Russian Doll, Lyonne reflects on her heritage as the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, and how that trauma creates ripple effects through the generations. “I joke that there’s a straight line from Hitler to heroin,” she says. The Levi-Katz […]

Arts & Culture

Always . . . Patsy Cline is a honky-tonk treat with Firebrand

by Kerry Reid November 26, 2019August 18, 2021

Harmony France and Christina Hall trade off the two roles in this warmhearted story based on real events.