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CPD’s chief LGBTQ+ liaison officer left the post amid internal turmoil
The Chicago Police Department’s citywide liaison to the queer community resigned his position out of frustration with leadership last month, and the office is in crisis, two sources with direct...
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How and why it’s important to talk about mental health
It’s undeniable, mental health is a key part of our overall health and wellness. According to mental health.gov, one in five American adults experience a mental health issue. Mental health is a result...
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You don’t need to “dip out” to get off
Q: Longtime reader here, first-time writer. I’m a bisexual woman. I’ve been married to a straight man for eight years. Our marriage and our sex life are amazing. We communicate well, and we have a lot...
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Jill Hopkins, new media and civic events producer for the Metro venues
Jill Hopkins is a Chicago broadcaster, DJ, writer, musician, and storyteller. After an eight-year stint at Vocalo Radio, Hopkins kicked off 2022 by joining the Metro family of venues (which also...
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Steep plans a big move—just down the street
In summer of 2020, Steep Theatre announced that they were losing their longtime Berwyn Avenue home (just next to the Red Line stop). The landlord was selling the building, which contained both the...
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Where to find print copies of the Chicago Reader every other week
To keep up with your demand, we have expanded our print run to 60,000. Many Reader boxes including downtown and transit line locations will be restocked on the Wednesday following each issue date. The...
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Fallout boys
Looking through the window of the control room at the stars, Leonid (CJ Lange-Embree) muses on how much he always wanted to be an astronaut. It’s too late for that. He’s been sipping vodka at the...
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Déjà vu all over again
What musical could possibly capture our collective pandemic ennui? Perhaps a story about reliving the same gray day without surcease, surrounded by the same irritating people, with all your best...
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We have met the tiger, and it is us
Nicole Wiesner directs Sławomir Mrożek’s loopy 1959 send-up of Eastern bloc life. All the put-upon Mr. Ohey—Dennis Bisto in a snarling standout turn—wants to do is read his newspaper. But an avalanche...
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Father and child reunion
Playwright John Guare once posited that every story can be boiled down to either Romeo and Juliet or David and Goliath. A third archetype, I would submit, is the Mom or Dad Issues Play (Goliath moms...
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Soul sisters
If you’re looking for respite from the slush-bound, gawdawful doldrums of February (and who isn’t?), Mercury Theater Chicago offers a scorching-good respite in Women of Soul. Rebooting the show they...
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Glitter and be gay
The stars in this play spend one act gleaming, another act fading away. For a brief window of time in the 1930s, Hollywood was a place of permissiveness toward the homosexuality of its leading men,...
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About the Chicago Independent Media Alliance (CIMA)
You can find our recent reports here: Statement in support of a pooled fund for journalism in Chicago (PDF)City of Chicago Marketing Report (PDF)Annual Report 2021 (PDF)CIMA Fundraiser Report 2021...
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It came from the south side
When do you cross the line from casual collector to full-on vintage reseller? For Michael W. Phillips Jr., a south side-based film programmer and copy editor, the moment happened in 2019 when he...
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Drive My Car
Drive My Car stands at a daunting three-hour runtime, exploring the intricacies of grief and intimacy through unassuming protagonists. Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s epic adaptation of Haruki Murakami’s short...
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Death on the Nile
The rich and glamorous Linnet Ridgeway (Gal Gadot) just married handsome himbo Simon Doyle (Armie Hammer). The couple honeymoons in Egypt, and on the surface, it’s all perfect: the attractive...
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The House
This British animated anthology film set in the same house in three different time periods pulled me in and didn’t let go till 90 minutes later, when the house literally floats away. Most of the time,...
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Moonfall
Many critics downrated Don’t Look Up because its satirical asteroid-as-climate-change metaphor was too bluntly political. Moonfall, with a similar premise, maneuvers around the agitprop . . . and that...
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I Want You Back
Against the odds as presented by a holiday made up to sell greeting cards and a genre that hasn’t had an original idea since The Two Gentlemen of Verona, I Want You Back will make you believe in the...
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A tribute to Syl and Jimmy Johnson
Chicago shaped Jimmy and Syl Johnson, and the brothers stayed grounded here even as they became global heroes. The singer-guitarists moved up from Mississippi after World War II and played blues and...
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