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Back in the Day captures the heyday of the underage house scene in Chicago
Rival dance crews find common ground in UrbanTheater's staging. When house music is recounted in books, television shows, and other media, three things are always mentioned: Chicago, the Warehouse...
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Comfortable Shoes stands and delivers
Ida Cuttler's solo show for the Neo-Futurists considers the stories women tell to save their lives. Toward the end of her rambunctious and profound one-woman show, Ida Cuttler spins back to a...
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Who Killed Joan Crawford? mixes camp and mystery
Delicious acerbic drag performances spice up this whodunit."I think the most important thing a woman can have—next to talent, of course—is her hairdresser," once said Joan Crawford, the ultimate diva...
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Despite some flaws, The Master Comic offers a compelling portrait of a predator
The grimy legacy of Bill Cosby haunts this world premiere at MPAACT. MPAACT's latest world premiere, The Master Comic, dives headfirst into controversial waters by following the downfall of a...
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Three Muslim women confront polygamy in Twice, Thrice, Frice
Silk Road Rising and International Voices Project collaborate on this world premiere comedy. Three women—one an MBA student in her early 30s, one a painter and real estate agent in her 40s, and the...
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If it all goes south, Joe Donut will be here for you
Tricked-out dunkers and savory breakfasts from the North Shore spell comfort on the cheap. Who's going to notice a breakfast biscuit next to a display case filled with Fruity Pebbles doughnuts,...
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J.S. Ondara creates Americana imbued with the heartache of the immigrant...
The first time Kenyan singer-songwriter J.S. Ondara heard the music of Bob Dylan, he was blown away. As a bow-tie-wearing, poetry-writing teenager, Ondara often felt out of place among his peers, but...
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Chelsea Wolfe connects womanhood to the natural world in Birth of Violence
Listening to Chelsea Wolfe is like watching a fog roll in and wondering if a storm will follow; her music provokes an uncanny feeling that combines mystifying beauty and deep anxiety. The...
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On their Sub Pop debut, Atlanta postpunks Omni make skeletal sounds feel full...
As Atlanta trio Omni have readied their Sub Pop debut and third LP overall, Networker, I’ve had as much fun parsing the lineage of their sparse, anxiously playful postpunk as I’ve had listening to...
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UFO celebrate 50 years of rock on their Last Orders tour
Sometimes an anniversary celebration can also be the perfect time to end a chapter. Such is the case with strident UK rock band UFO, who turned 50 this year and are on the road with what they’ve...
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Atlanta’s Young Thug remains a peerless force in modern hip-hop
Young Thug doesn’t need to prove himself to anyone anymore. In the early 2010s he emerged from the hotbed of Atlanta, the city that’s largely set hip-hop’s tone this decade, and his every...
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As DJ Roc, Clarence Johnson has helped make footwork a global phenomenon
As DJ Roc, Chicago producer Clarence Johnson helped mold footwork and provided the support it needed to become an international underground phenomenon. He started making juke tracks in the early...
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Sabaton celebrate 20 years with a tonally inconsistent but informative...
Sabaton are celebrating their 20th year of existence in style. The Swedish power-metal band kicked off 2019 with the launch of their own YouTube channel, which focuses on the history that fuels their...
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New Zealand singer-songwriter Jonathan Bree brings his discontented chamber...
When New Zealand singer-songwriter Jonathan Bree began his solo career in 2013, his creations were almost diametrically opposed to the poppy, upbeat material that he’d crafted in the Brunettes, his...
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Rhiannon Giddens honors the African and Arabic influences in American roots...
Classically trained vocalist and masterful banjo and fiddle player Rhiannon Giddens is celebrated as one of the leading proponents of what’s variously called Americana or roots music. Though her...
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Brutus’s atmospheric blend of postrock and posthardcore makes a singing...
There are few things less cool than a singing drummer. Drummers already have it bad enough; they’re typically pushed into the background, the last member of a band to get any attention or credit.…
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JPEGMafia offers an escape from single-genre monotony on the eclectic All My...
On his new third studio album, All My Heroes Are Cornballs, Brooklyn-born, Baltimore-based hip-hop artist Barrington Devaughn Hendricks, aka JPEGmafia (Peggy for short), offers an escape from the...
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Jane Eyre brings a feminist vision to the Joffrey—but only to a point
Cathy Marston's staging features brilliant duets, but her take on Charlotte Brontë's classic has some limitations. Among the great pleasures of 19th-century novels are their length, their breadth, the...
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Kentucky puts the "blue" in the Bluegrass State
Leah Nanako Winkler's raucous and poignant family drama gets a stellar local premiere with the Gift Theatre. The homecoming prompted by weddings and funerals is a staple of American family dramas. But...
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The Effect asks if passion is real in an age of pharmaceuticals
Strawdog's production leaves a mark in this Chicago premiere. In Nick Hornby's High Fidelity, Rob Fleming asks, "What came first—the music or the misery? Do all those records turn you into a...
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