Winter Arts 2023 Archives - Chicago Reader

A person in dark clothing, their back to the camera, climbs a rope. The photo is filled with a purplish wash

Gray days, but vibrant stages

by Kerry Reid, Irene Hsiao and Deanna Isaacs January 30, 2023January 30, 2023

We’re finally getting a taste of the usual winter weather, but that’s no reason to stay housebound. (Unless you’re being extra COVID-cautious, for which we don’t blame you!) But if you’re up for some cultural adventures, there are some great possibilities on tap the next couple of months. Chicago Theatre Week, sponsored every year by […]

In this black and white photo, a young girl stands in front of a chalkboard, which is covered in scribbles. She looks at the camera with a bewildered expression, the chalk still in her hand.

Arts & Culture

The art of war

by Hannah Edgar January 30, 2023January 31, 2023

When he met Tereska Adwentowska in 1948, David “Chim” Seymour was photographing ghosts. Born Dawid Szymin in what would become Warsaw’s Jewish ghetto, the 36-year-old cofounder of the legendary Magnum Photos collective returned to find the streets of his youth reduced to rubble. His parents were gone, too, executed by the Nazis in a wooded […]

a smiling man with tattoos in a restaurant, with another person on either side

Food & Drink

Watch the Cambodian Bear forage Indian fruit pies this winter

by Mike Sula January 27, 2023January 27, 2023

There’s no restaurant opening in 2023 more desperately anticipated than Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto’s transformation of his brother’s venerable but grotty River North beef joint into a fine dining destina—uhhh, wait. No. I’m thinking of season two of The Bear, the fictionalized heart-attack-on-a-plate that might be the most harrowing depiction of life on the line ever […]

The author sits in a chair, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and looking at the camera. An empty chair sits beside him.

Arts & Culture

David Razowsky wants to set “yes, and” on fire

by Sheri Flanders January 27, 2023January 27, 2023

Improvisers from around the globe flock to Chicago to learn the “right” way to improvise, yet veteran actor (actor, not improviser) David Razowsky’s new book throws “yes, and” in the trash, sets it on fire, composts it, and plants a tree with it. He’s earned the right, after ten years on Second City Chicago’s mainstage […]

two Black women in red and pink sit against a leafy backdrop, surrounded by fruit and candles

Film

Paying homage to Black women in film

by Arionne Nettles January 26, 2023January 26, 2023

“What we wanted to emphasize with the programming is the real range of work and the impact and power of what these women were trying to do in telling Black women’s stories.”

a black and white photo of a Lyric theater marquee in the 80s

Film

The Lyric Theater is a family affair

by Yolanda Perdomo January 26, 2023January 26, 2023

When Janet Fischer was a Chicago teen, she never expected that she’d have the rare privilege of being able to point to the exact spot where a seed from her family tree was planted.

Reader editor in chief Enrique Limón takes a selfie outside of the Clark Adams building in downtown Chicago. he is wearing a winter hat and winter coat.

Staff notes

Resolute

by Enrique Limón January 26, 2023February 9, 2023

As January inches to a close, it’s a good time to take stock of what this year has been like thus far, and where we stand on those pesky New Year’s resolutions we promised we’d actually stick to this time around. Remember those? Well, smart indoor rowing machine, meet the storage unit; promise to drop […]

Six actors of various races and genders stand in a row against a white backdrop. Five of them are wearing light-colored clothing. Mi Kang, who plays protagonist Lucy Snowe, is dressed in a dark Victorian-like dress in the center.

Arts & Culture

Beyond Jane Eyre

by Emily McClanathan January 25, 2023January 25, 2023

Although Charlotte Brontë’s Villette has long been overshadowed by Jane Eyre—its “more popular younger sister,” in Sara Gmitter’s words—the 1853 novel takes the spotlight at Lookingglass Theatre next month in a world premiere adaptation written by Gmitter and directed by Tracy Walsh. Based on a period of bereavement, homesickness, and unrequited love in Brontë’s own […]

Ariella Granados, who uses they/she pronouns, sits right in a chair in front of a green screen. On the left is a green faceless figure dressed in a white shirt and black suit and tie, wearing a pink bobbed wig. An outsize woven boot bearing "tattoos" like a purple star and a heart with an arrow through it inscribed "Mom" is to the left of the green figure. The set is surrounded by various pieces of lighting equipment and tripods

Arts & Culture

‘Utopia is a place that accommodates every body’

by Irene Hsiao January 25, 2023January 25, 2023

Last October, the Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities (MOPD) and Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE) appointed multidisciplinary artist Ariella Granados as its first Central West Center artist in residence. Supported by the MOPD, the National Endowment for the Arts, and DCASE, the residency offers studio space and funding for Granados […]

Rob Lindley, an actor dressed to resemble Andy Warhol later in his life, wearing black clothing and a silver wig, holds a Polaroid camera in front of his face.

Arts & Culture

Warholian diptych

by Jack Helbig January 25, 2023February 9, 2023

Andy Warhol was an enigma wrapped in a mystery, a voyeur who wanted to be a superstar. Thirty-six years after his death we are still trying to suss him out. Which may be why this year we have not one but two plays about Andy Warhol being produced—one at the Buffalo Theatre Ensemble, the other […]

A group of performers stand onstage, mirrors behind them and metal lattices in front of them. Some of them are in lingerie. The performer on the right wears a dog nose.

Arts & Culture

Not your average camp

by JT Newman January 25, 2023February 22, 2023

It’s July 1990, and I am summoned to the corner of Newport and Sheffield over and over again by the lure of my friend Franz’s rooftop parties. But little do I know that just half a block away, Lower Links is beginning a summer of programming that solidifies that corner as a mini-epicenter of performance […]

Pictured are side-by-side headshots of two Black women, both leaders of theater companies in Chicago. On the left is Charlique Rolle of Congo Square. She is wearing black, and is seated with her hands clasped in her lap. She is smiling. On the right is Myesha-Tiara of Perceptions Theatre. She is wearing an orange top.

Arts & Culture

The strength of community

by Sheri Flanders January 25, 2023January 27, 2023

At the end of September 2020, I wrote a piece for the Reader titled “Black artistic leaders take charge at several Chicago theaters,” which framed the influx of new (and preexisting) Black leadership in Chicago theater against the backdrop of a historic disruption in the industry. That disruption was powered in part by COVID-19 leading […]

Arts & Culture

Super Sad Black Girl plumbs the highs and lows of life

by Atavia Reed January 25, 2023January 27, 2023

Under a south-side el station, in a space small enough to blink and miss, there’s a door to a world where Black girls can live the fullness of an impossible, earthly bliss. Suppose you listen close enough, past the sound of the ghost train speeding by. You might hear Black girls laughing, crunching down on […]

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