THE CRADLE WILL ROCK Splinter Group Studio THE THREEPENNY OPERA Magellan Theatre at the Synergy Center In an atmosphere of new-right resurgence, it’s interesting to see young theater companies turning to the old left for inspiration. Perhaps ambivalence about present-day politics is stirring artists to reexamine uncompromising, politically charged musicals of the 1920s and ’30s. […]
Tag: Vol. 24 No. 4
Issue of Nov. 3 – 9, 1994
Posted inNews & Politics
A Write-in Writes In
Whenever you have censorship, whether by government or the media, democracy suffers. In his article “Running Against Rosty” [October 28], Adam Langer mentions only in passing that I am running as an Independent in this race. As a community psychiatrist and 4th-generation Chicagoan, I entered the race against Rostenkowski to fight crime on our streets […]
Posted inArts & Culture
A Book of Verse, a Cup of Joe, and Thou/Possible Profit Sharing/Passing the Hat
Change is brewing at Waterstone’s: manager Mary Beth Mitchell is putting in a coffee bar.
Posted inNews & Politics
Anwhere but This Place
To the editors: I wanted to set the record straight about my review of “Traveling,” the Felix Gonzalez-Torres exhibition at the Renaissance Society (October 21). Due to an editorial error, an untitled piece comprised of two stacks of posters bearing the phrases “Somewhere better than this place” and “Nowhere better than this place” was listed […]
Posted inNews & Politics
The Straight Dope
How is it, during the days of tight money when few people, particularly those born in this country, can secure loans to start businesses, that Korean-owned-and-operated deli/grocery stores continue to spring up like mushrooms on almost every block of most major U.S. cities? Where does this money come from? Second, how do these places justify […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Jack DeJohnette & the Chicago All-Stars
Powerhouse drummer Jack DeJohnette grew up in Chicago, and this homecoming finds him in charge of an extraordinary band that telescopes more than 30 years of local history. Von Freeman forged his unique tenor style during the swing-to-bop transition of the 40s; the hard-bop years tempered pianist Jodie Christian and trumpeter/saxist Ira Sullivan, and led […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Lyle Lovett
Lyle Lovett’s latest release, I Love Everybody, isn’t really a new album; it’s a time-marking collection of older songs he wrote but never recorded. While the songs contain his usual amalgam of soul, country, rock, folk, and gospel, they are easier to think about thematically; indeed, they’re helpfully ladled onto the album in three distinct […]
Posted inNews & Politics
The City File
You’ve heard of lost wetlands, but have you shed a tear for the midwestern beavers? Donald Hey and Nancy Philippi, in a recent publication of the Chicago-based Wetlands Initiative, estimate that the upper Mississippi and Missouri river basins have lost 26 million acres of water surface area since white settlement began–and perhaps 51 million acres […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Descent Into the Maelstrom: An Evening With Edgar Allen Poe
DESCENT INTO THE MAELSTROM: AN EVENING WITH EDGAR ALLAN POE, Metamorphosis Theatre, at Live Bait Theater. It would be any actor’s nightmare. On opening night of his one-man show, Page Hearn came on as Edgar Allan Poe–minus the crucial wig. With what dignity he could muster, Hearn turned backstage to don Poe’s raven locks, only […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Dinosaur Jr.
In the lean years of the 1980s there were two categories of artists being unjustifiably ignored: first those who were unquestionably major talents–R.E.M. say–who’d obviously connect with large numbers of people given the exposure, and second artists who were more idiosyncratic, less essential, but interesting nonetheless; their diversity and energy enlivened rock’s subcultures. Now, in […]
Posted inMusic
A Career in Punk
HUSKER DU The Living End (Warner Bros) BOB MOULD Poison Years (Virgin) SUGAR File Under: Easy Listening (Ryko) One day back in 1986, my friend Jeanne, the leader of a struggling punk band, asked me who I was writing about. When I told her Husker Du, she snapped back, “What could you possibly say about […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Field & Street
I leaned against the concrete wall of a downtown bank building, waiting for a friend to get off work. I used to work in the Loop too, in an office next to the bank. Then as now, the cement plaza in front of the building was lined with 24 locust trees planted in raised boxes […]