A group of politically engaged Chicago north siders gets together for a casual Fourth of July barbeque in Rebecca Gilman’s 2007-set slice-of-life backyard debate drama. In the tradition of most dinner parties in plays, otherwise-civilized adults devolve over glasses of sangria and bottles of Oberon into sneering and shouting jackasses in the midst of multipronged existential crises related to getting older. In order to propel the conversation into dramatically juicy territory, Gilman unconvincingly gives everyone whiplash-inducing character turns wherein they utter truly jaw-dropping statements to one another, especially when it comes to the decision of whether or not to bear children....

Trivia time: what Golden Girls character still believes in Santa? You don’t need multiple-choice answers to know it’s gotta be sweet dumb Rose Nylund. In Hell in a Handbag’s latest installment in its long-running series, The Golden Girls: The Lost Episodes, Rose (Ed Jones, always right on the money) faces a crisis of belief, and also must confront her fearsome Aunt Inga (Steve Kimbrough), the Cheese Empress of St. Olaf. Meanwhile, Sophia (Ryan Oates) snipes, Dorothy (Hell in a Handbag’s artistic director David Cerda, who also wrote the show) delivers withering glances, and Blanche (Grant Drager) puts the moves on a jolly old elf or two—including a lascivious take on “Santa Baby” where she goes toe-to-toe (and other body parts) with her romantic rival....

It’s that glorious four days of the year when the international art world converges in Chicago for Expo and Chicagoans with exquisite eyeglasses and architectural wardrobes trek out to Navy Pier to join them. They also allow in reporters, which is why I got to go too, although I was clearly marked for consumption by overeager PR reps by my press pass, notebook, and ten-year-old trousers. (I was hoping they were old enough to be considered charmingly vintage, but I don’t think anyone was convinced....

Husband Material Last spring I was obsessing over the “Bite Me” cassingle from Toronto’s Marvelous Mark, the slacker-rock solo project of Mark Fosco, who played in the glammy power-pop band Marvelous Darlings alongside Ben Cook of Fucked Up and Young Guv. A few months ago, Burger Records released Fosco’s follow-up to “Bite Me,” the Husband Material EP, and it’s already one of my most-played releases of the year. It’s a four-song set that takes the poppy, yearning alt-rock of his first tape and amps it up with massive, radio-ready hooks and walls of fuzzy, grungy guitars; with its slamming drums and blown-out amps, it ends up like a poppier-sounding Nirvana....

The Chicago theater community got a pair of year-end jolts with December announcements about the demise of Oracle Productions and the near demise of the Hypocrites. But the two leaders who’d taken the company in this idealistic direction since 2010 were at a turning point. Oracle, with a 2015 operating budget of around $123,000, would be losing the services of executive director Brad Jayhan-Little and executive producer Ben Fuchsen. So their mid-December announcement—that, “due to an unforeseen and dramatic drop in box office sales and fundraising goals,” they would cancel the last two shows of this 20th anniversary season, lay off their six-person staff, and cease producing after a truncated run of Wit (now opening in January and closing February 19), while Graney figures out a new mission and model—was a shocker....

Girlhood, a French drama about poor black teens on the outskirts of Paris, opens with an electrifying sequence set to throbbing dance rock by composer Jean-Baptiste de Laubier. Football players burst onto a gridiron for a night game, their play rendered in slow motion, and in their helmets and shoulder pads they look like pretty tough dudes. A last-minute touchdown prompts wild celebration, but as the players yank off their helmets, the dudes turn out to be women, who separate into their respective teams and file past each other to exchange high fives....

In a Facebook post published Friday evening, Profiles Theatre artistic director Darrell W. Cox dismisses allegations of workplace abuse documented by the Reader during a yearlong investigation of the acclaimed storefront theater. Cox concludes the statement by saying he and Jahraus “welcome a meeting with Lori Myers and Laura Fisher of Not In Our House so we can resolve our perceived differences and work together to fight for this cause.” On June 8, 2016, the Chicago Reader published an article entitled “At Profiles Theatre the drama—and abuse—is real....

The glass on the doors leading to Second City’s Mainstage theater lists the names of cast members from its past revues. The company employees who gathered today outside the Old Town comedy mecca won’t see their names displayed prominently anywhere. They’re ticket takers, servers, bartenders, and they stood in the cold, on the afternoon of the first snowy day of the season, explaining why the union they’ve organized deserves a seat at the bargaining table with the management....

Ten Chicago suburbs and a downstate town are suing a dozen drug companies and a trio of delicensed doctors that the towns say ran an opioid pill mill—causing devastation in their own communities. It continues: “Defendants’ indifference has taken a dramatic toll on Plaintiffs’ communities. Drug abuse, addiction, overdose, and crime caused by Defendant’s illicit activities have imposed, and will continue to impose, tremendous social and economic costs on Plaintiffs....

Tasya Menaker Photography/Courtesy of Smart Bar Joe Shanahan and Frankie Knuckles The late, legendary house DJ and producer Frankie Knuckles had an intimate connection to Smart Bar. He performed numerous times at the subterranean north-side club; of particular note were a standing Thanksgiving Eve gig and a performance in 1982 (when the club was located on the fourth floor of the Metro building) in which hip-hop pioneer Afrika Bambaataa performed downstairs on the main stage....

At 5 PM Saturday, March 21, Governor J.B. Pritzker’s COVID-19 Executive Order No. 8, aka the Stay at Home order, took effect. This was a daily-ish journal of how Reader staff, our friends, family—and our pets—were spending our time. Now that Chicago is set to “cautiously reopen” on June 3, this is our final installment (for now). Day 74: June 2 What we want you all to know: We appreciate you reading!...

Every person has at least one story to tell from dealing with the past year. Sky Cubacub has several—including one of resilience. Rebirth, like practically every other business, had to undergo transformations this past year. “At the beginning of the pandemic, I thought I’d have to close Rebirth, but I received the Disability Futures Fellowship and grants from the Ford Foundation, Andrew Mellon Foundation, and the United States Artists.” Cubacub also spoke of how those who are financially disabled can be invisible/isolated: “Even though people can go to more events than in the past, you can only do that if you have access to a computer with really good Internet....

Q: I have been seeing sex workers for 30 years, and I shudder to think how shitty my life would have been without them. Some have become friends, but I’ve appreciated all of them. Negative stereotypes about guys like me are not fair, but sex work does have its problems. Some clients (including females) are difficult—difficult clients aren’t typically violent; more often they’re inconsiderate and demanding. Clients need to understand that all people have limits and feelings, and money doesn’t change that....

Our long national nightmare isn’t over. It’s barely begun. That’s the dystopic message of Dan Giles’s play, now in a world premiere at First Floor Theater. As reflected in the mirrored walls of William Boles’s set, with Claire Chrzan’s lighting and Eric Backus’s sound creating a disco hellscape environment, we’re through the looking glass of Trumpian times. Do we throw down for resistance, or do we game the system for our own benefit?...

Few Chicago jazz musicians operate with the erudition and rigor of saxophonist Geof Bradfield, a scholar of the music’s history, a thoughtful composer, and an artist who never reverts to autopilot. When he was approached about making a live release by British Columbia-based jazz label Cellar Live, he didn’t merely trot out an assortment of past accomplishments but crafted new pieces with the attention to detail and holistic construction one might expect on a meticulously assembled studio effort....

Pitchfork Music Festival unveiled a number of the performers for its annual three-day bonanza this morning; the 13th iteration runs July 20-22, once again at Union Park. Raphael Saadiq it’s either @BIGBABYDRAM or Draco Malfoy #P4Kfest pic.twitter.com/wQqUIDY88V — Rachel Yang (@_rachelyang) February 27, 2018 saad that i spelled Saadiq wrong! buuut he’s confirmed and we’re on to the next one. 3 out of 12 have been done #P4Kfest https://t.co/vvQ1T5FIGx oooh she’s mixing up the order to keep us on our toes but dude next to me is guessing this is not this heat #P4Kfest https://t....

SpongeBob Squarepants braces for an epic food fight in Sponge Out of Water This past weekend Fifty Shades of Grey opened to whopping commercial success, enjoying the most profitable opening weekend ever for an R-rated movie. It came not long after American Sniper—another R-rated movie that audiences seem to enjoy debating more than actually watching—sat atop America’s box office chart for about a month. Clint Eastwood’s latest had been dethroned one weekend earlier, however, by another, more genial cultural phenomenon: SpongeBob SquarePants, whose second theatrical feature, The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water, drew in audiences to the tune of $50 million....

Courtesy of Noisy Ghost PR Via Tania Tania Bowers, the voice behind the long-running Via Tania, moved back to her native Australia four years ago after an 11-year run in Chicago. Before she split town she told Gossip Wolf that her project would continue “in some form,” but she hasn’t released anything since 2009, when she dropped Moon Sweet Moon. That silence ends tomorrow when Via Tania and the Tomorrow Music Orchestra (Narooma) finally sees release....

This Steppenwolf for Young Adults (SYA) production’s full title is worth sharing: We Are Proud to Present a Presentation About the Herero of Namibia, Formerly Known as South West Africa, From the German Südwestafrika, Between the Years 1884-1915. The act of shortening the title reinforces the idea of erasure that’s present throughout this play within a play, penned by Jackie Sibblies Drury and codirected by SYA artistic director Hallie Gordon and Gabrielle Randle....

I attended a Chicago Teachers Union rally and the local Trump and Bernie Sanders political rallies earlier this year, so I thought I knew what to expect when I stumbled upon a labor protest in Paris on Tuesday afternoon. I was wrong. I wondered how ugly this battle might get—or at least I did until a few minutes before 6 PM, when an officer aimed his cannon and fired a shot my direction....