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Ensemble dal Niente braid together several Chicago-grown approaches to...
Update: This show has been canceled to help slow the spread of COVID-19. Tickets will be refunded at point of purchase.…
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Black Pumas create the music of true soul mates
Update: To help slow the spread of COVID-19, these shows have been postponed until August 27 and 28. Tickets already purchased will be honored at that time.…
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In Whiteout Conditions, grief permeates the past and present
Tariq Shah brings poetry to his debut novel. Ant loves funerals. He doesn't have family left, so when he goes to funerals, he no longer fixates on the deceased.…
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Adjust your feminist lens with Hood Feminism
Mikki Kendall asks women who their feminism is really for. Hood feminism is unabashedly angry, a little asshole-like, proactive, and, sometimes, it's illegal—but in her latest release writer Mikki...
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Teddy Roosevelt: The Man in the Arena reminds us what a leader looks like
A solo show about the man behind Bull Moose stands alone. UPDATE Wednesday, March 18: this event has been canceled. Refunds available at point of purchase.…
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Five Encounters on a Site Called Craigslist is introspective and interactive
The Edinburgh Festival Fringe hit offers an illuminating look at casual hookups. A global pandemic isn’t the best time to be hooking up with random strangers, so if you’re looking for some vicarious...
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The Two Character Play gets the context it deserves.
Tennessee Williams's oft-revised story delivers to arresting effect with Theatre L'Acadie."Having the necessary arrogance to assume that a failed production of a play is not necessarily a failed play,...
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On Rebirth by Blasphemy, Cleveland metal miscreants Midnight show they still...
Midnight are pretty much the nightmare that heartland parents feared during the satanic panic of the 1980s, when metal bands’ imagined lyrical (and moral) transgressions meant they were considered...
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Lil Wayne tries to revisit his era of greatness with mixed results on Funeral
Remember the Lil Wayne of 2008 and 2009? He constantly boasted that he was the “greatest rapper alive,” and you know what?…
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D.C. progressive jazz duo Blacks’ Myths find the light in harsh noise
Long before drummer Warren G. “Trae” Crudup III and bassist Luke Stewart launched noisy free-jazz duo Blacks’ Myths in 2018, they backed celebrated saxophonist James Brandon Lewis as the rhythm...
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Teenage Dick livestreams Shakespeare by way of high school
Theater Wit's production about a disabled schemer carries on online. I spend more evenings than most people in the dark with other people, watching yet other people pretend to be . . . well, other...
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On the new Who Sent You? Irreversible Entanglements are more political and...
Irreversible Entanglements will leave you shaken. The group make tight, synergistic free jazz anchored by the dynamic spoken-word declarations of poet Moor Mother, aka Camae Ayewa.…
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Philadelphia indie rocker (Sandy) Alex G closes a prolific decade with the...
Philadelphia indie-rock alchemist Alexander Giannascoli understands better than most musicians who’ve emerged in the past decade how to convey the slipperiness and complexity of emotion in song. The...
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Lord Dying’s Mysterium Tremendum is a beautiful meditation on tragedy
This Portland-based progressive sludge-metal band returned from a lull last year with two new members, bassist-vocalist Alyssa Maucere (formerly of Eight Bells) and drummer Kevin Swartz (of Bottom and...
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Bill Nace uses his guitar to make unguitarlike sounds on Both
Until COVID-19 laid waste to his and everyone else’s touring schedule, Bill Nace was looking forward to a splendid spring. Not only would the Philadelphia-based guitarist have opened in Chicago for...
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Feel Good honestly explores bad times
Stand-up Mae Martin’s new series gets heavy, but there’s always a laugh waiting around the corner. Despite what the title suggests, Netflix and Channel 4's Feel Good might not be the comforting series...
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Methtacular! returns for an online-only engagement at 16th Street
Steven Strafford's solo remains honest and hilarious, even through a screen. Steven Strafford was supposed to be live onstage at Berwyn’s 16th Street Theater this month with a remount of Methtacular!,...
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Chicago postpunk trio Deeper tackle big questions about mental health on...
While Chicago postpunk four-piece Deeper was working on the follow-up to their 2018 self-titled debut, guitarist Michael Clawson quit the band. The remaining members—guitarist-vocalist Nic Gohl,...
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Chicago rapper Sterling Hayes travels down his own unusual path on Flirting...
Four years ago, Save Money rapper Sterling Hayes dropped his debut mixtape, Antidepressant, which foreshadowed the wave of Soundcloud rappers who’ve peppered their rhymes with intimate disclosures of...
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Drama’s new Dance Without Me is for sad-but-sexy folks everywhere
When the COVID-19 crisis subsides long enough for the concert circuit to start up again, you’ll want to see Chicago electro-R&B duo Drama live. But in the meantime, their new debut LP, Dance...
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