Chicago Lifestyle Podcast & Video Blog
On a macro level the primary themes of Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler are morality and propriety. On an individual level we find manipulation and despair. Hedda Gabler is the self-absorbed, only daughter of a military officer who has an overblown grandiose sense of her own importance, …
A sparsely furnished motel room dominates the stage. Along the perimeter an empty swimming pool, an imposing neon MOTEL sign, a massive telephone pole and bits of scrub grass suggest this is essentially the bottom of the barrel in the middle of nowhere somewhere at …
What do you know about Richard Hunt and his Monument to Ida B. Wells? How about Madison Hemings the son of Thomas Jefferson? Do you know much about the practice of “redlining” and how it kept people segregated and denied Black Americans the ability to buy homes?
Go beyond the obvious and celebrate Black History Month by checking out or revisiting some of our previous posts that deal with the African American experience with a Chicago spin as it pertains to lesser known contributors in the fields of music, theater, film and history.
What do you know about Oscar Micheaux an early black filmmaker or the first Rainbow Coalition that was born in Uptown and unified the needs of poor whites with those of poor blacks.
Previous reviews of course speak of the performance but can also provide valuable and interesting insight into the subject matter as well. Take a few minutes to revisit some of these interesting subjects.
Film review of “The Light of Truth: Richard Hunt’s Monument to Ida B. Wells.”
Meet Vera Stark – Theater Review
Reclamation of Madison Hemings – Podcast Theater Review
Regina Harris Baiocchi at the Chicago Jazz Festival.
Video profile of Chicago Musician Stann Champion.
Recalling Chicago Blues Legends.
Connie Wilson talks with Linda Garz about her book “Redlined.”
“Passing” on the Red Carpet with Rebecca Hall.
Oscar Micheaux Documentary Film Review and Commentary.
Mayor Harold and Mayor Peter Documentary Film Reviews.
For the Left Hand Documentary Film Review.
The Road Up Documentary Film Review
Something About You Reggae Music Video.
Interview with Steve Bellinger Author of Sci-Fi novel “The Cronocar.”
“Mother Wit” Interview with Venice Johnson.
Mash-up of Opera and Hip-Hop music video.
“First Rainbow Coalition” Documentary Review.
“The Torch A Continuing Blues Legacy” Documentary Review featuring Buddy Guy.
Racial Tensions Explode on Chicago Beach.
“Famine” Chicago Reggae Music Video
Review of “Caroline or Change”
Review of August Wilson’s “Radio Golf”
“Dream Come True” Reggae Music Video
“Liberation” Music Video at The Wild Hare.
Also take a listen to this podcast from University of Chicago “Big Brains” podcast about Black Cinema.
In this hilarious musical riff on Romeo and Juliet by Mark Saltzman directed by Bernard Rice at the Skokie Theatre, Romeo has awakened from a 400-year slumber to find his beloved Juliet long turned to dust. Instead, he finds a teenaged American tourist Bernadette Penza …
What are you willing to sacrifice to be the light in someone else’s life? This story by Chicago-based playwright Reina Hardy is partly about getting in touch with our better nature, rejecting a poor self-image, overcoming your own self-doubts and negative inner dialog and indeed …
Holidays have a unique way of punctuating our lives. Through this activity we assess alliances, trade information, and mark the passage of time.
In The Long Christmas Dinner written by Thorton Wilder, presented by TUTA Theatre in Chicago we join an affluent Midwestern family, sometime in the not-too-distant past, at their Christmas table.
What is unusual is that, this is not just one dinner, it is a sequence of similar dinners seamlessly stitched together in a linear fashion, showing a progression of events that affect this family over multiple generations.
This production features an excellent ensemble, expertly directed by Jacqueline Stone.
The Long Christmas Dinner is presented by TUTA Theatre at the Bramble Arts Loft, 5545 N. Clark Street, Chicago through December 26, 2024. Running time is 75 minutes with no intermission. For tickets and information visit www.tutatheatre.org.
The relatively new Bramble Arts Loft in Andersonville is a refreshing light and airy facility with two performance spaces. This production takes place in the Beatrice Theatre configured as a half round (thrust) of about 100 stadium style seats with good sightlines for all. Located on the second floor with an elevator available.
Mike Royko was an outspoken Chicago journalist, who in the 1960s through 1990s railed against the political machine and championed the cause of the underdog with the same zeal he displayed toward his beloved Chicago Cubbies. Mitchell Bisschop’s roughly two-hour performance as Royko serves as …
Reno Lovison, Executive Producer comments on the documentary Time Passages by Chicago filmmaker Kyle Henry who tenderly reviews his relationship between himself and his mother, whose memory is slowly slipping away due to dementia. Looking at other people’s lives is always interesting. We can’t help but to …
An aspiring African American actress, Vera Stark (Ashayla Calvin) works as a personal maid to fading 1930s movie star Gloria Mitchell (Caitlin Jemison), once known as “America’s Little Sweetie-Pie.” The two have a close relationship and have a shared struggle to find success. However, due to race barriers and prejudices it is clearly more difficult for Stark than it is for Mitchell. Playing at the Den Theatre in Chicago through November 17, 2024. Review by Reno Lovison
Letter writing is more akin to internal dialogue and can have a kind of naked intimacy that is difficult to achieve in the flesh. This is a smart biographical drama providing us a glimpse into the lives and thoughts of two interesting, actual people, who …
Kicking off this popular Chicago ensemble theater company’s 49th season a rather incompetent troupe of actors are expertly portrayed by a considerably expert cast, in Steppenwolf’s revival of Michael Frayn’s classic comedy “Noises Off,” directed by Anna D. Shapiro. A co-production with Geffen Playhouse. Featuring ensemble …
The Goodman Theatre reminds us that the more things change the more they remain the same in this production of the classic courtroom drama, “Inherit the Wind.”
Small town school teacher Bertram Cates is on trial for breaking a state law that prohibits the teaching of evolution.
The prosecution is aided by the bombastic self-important fundamentalist bible thumping Matthew Harrison Brady while Cates is represented by famed Chicago lawyer Henry Drummond, a clever defense attorney known for taking on difficult and controversial cases.
The premise is a fictionalized version of the infamous 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial where three-time presidential candidate and former secretary of state William Jennings Bryan argued for the prosecution, while Clarence Darrow served as defense attorney for science teacher John T. Scopes.
Harry Lennix (Henry Drummond), Alexander Gemignani (Matthew Harrison Brady), Charín Álvarez (Mrs. Brady), Terry Bell (Sillers), Hamid Dehghani (Storekeeper), William Dick (Mayor), Meighan Gerachis (Elijah), Lawrence Grimm (Dunlap), Kevin Gudahl (Judge), Presley Rose Jones (Melinda), Christopher Kale Jones (Tom Davenport), Mi Kang (E.K. Hornbeck), Ryan Kitley (Reverend Jeremiah Brown), Tyler Meredith (Rachel Brown), Thomas Murphy Molony (Howard), Christopher Llewyn Ramirez (Bertram Cates), Robert Schleifer (Meeker), Eric Slater (Mr. Bannister) and Penelope Walker (Mrs. Krebs).