Chicago Lifestyle Podcast & Video Blog
The Winter’s Tale at Invictus Theatre is a story of reproach, remorse and reconciliation. This Shakespeare play directed by Charles Askenaizer has something for everyone. It is both tragedy and romantic comedy with sorrow, absurdity, mirth and fantasy. The adept Invictus Theatre Company demonstrates that …
Puccini’s popular opera La Bohème at Lyric Opera of Chicago is a story of youth, passion, love and loss where idealism comes face-to-face with life’s realities such as poverty, illness and death. Yes, this is the opera where the young lady with the bad cough …
I had an opportunity to “bond” with spy movie expert Tom Pizzato at the press opening for the new 007 Science: Inventing the World of James running through April 2025.
The museum has partnered with Eon Productions who own the rights to all things Bond in order to pull off this exhibit which focuses heavily on the science and industry aspect of the popular spy franchise. The inventive nature of the “cold war” spy world era anticipated many technological advances that we take for granted today, including car phones, personal communication devices, miniature cameras as well as a prototype jetpack and suction cup climbers.
Running into Tom Pizzato who is the co-founder of SpyMovieNavigator.com was lucky for me and for you too since Tom is a veritable expert on James Bond films. In this podcast Tom will share what he found to be interesting at this exhibit and give you some insight into what you can expect to see.
Whether you are a Bond fan, spy fan, movie fan or just haven’t been to the Museum of Science and Industry in a while consider a trip to Hyde Park to visit one of Chicago’s gems just steps away from the University of Chicago and in the shadow of the Obama Library scheduled to open in late 2025.
Chicago was a major influence during the silent film era producing movies with huge stars like Charlie Chaplin, Edna Mayo, and Max Linder, and the Uptown and Edgewater neighborhoods were the very epicenters. Essanay Studios was located at 1333-45 W. Argyle Street (just east of Clark Street) …
This film hits all the right notes. Physically debilitated due to a childhood injury inflicted by his mentally impaired father, an aspiring pianist is virtually paralyzed on one side of his body and unable to use his right hand. In spite of his challenges, Norman …
Music Theater Works’ 45th Season Begins with the Frank Loesser Classic, GUYS and DOLLS directed
by Sasha Gerritson, Choreographed by Clayton Cross and Music Directed by Linda Madonia
This season kicks off with what many believe is the “perfect musical” with every song in its score a part of the American musical canon.
Guys and Dolls whisks audiences from Manhattan to Havana and back again with career gambler Sky Masterson, “Save-A-Soul” missionary Sarah Brown, Adelaide, Nathan Detroit and others in this
exuberant, big, brassy musical.
The cast of Guys and Dolls includes, in alphabetical order:
Brandon Acosta Liver Lips/Ensemble/US Nathan Detroit/fight and intimacy captain); Jordan Beyeler (swing); Kristin Brintnall (Miss Adelaide); Caron Buinis (General Cartwright); Jeffrey Charles (Sky Masterson); Jenny Couch (ensemble); Emma Jean Eastlund (ensemble); Andrew Freeland (Big Jule/ensemble); David Geinosky (Benny Southstreet/ensemble/US Nicely Nicely); Joe Giovannetti (ensemble/US Sky Masterson); Isabella Gomez-Barrientos (Agatha/ensemble/US Sarah Brown); Ben Harmon (Angie The Ox/ensemble); Emily Holland (ensemble/US Miss Adelaide); Cecilia Iole (Sarah Brown); Dee Kimpel (Martha/ensemble/US General Cartwright); Kyle Kite (ensemble); Miguel Long (Rusty Charlie/ensemble); Cary Lovett (Nicely Nicely Johnson/US Arvide Abernathy); Matthew Millin (swing); Catherine Rodriguez O’Connor (ensemble); Adam Raso (Harry the Horse/ensemble/US Lt. Brannigan); Ian Reed (Lt.Brannigan); Callan Roberts (Nathan Detroit); Peter Ruger (Calvin/ensemble/US Big Jule); Bob Sanders (Arvide Abernathy) and Alex Villaseñor (ensemble/Non-Equity Deputy)
Guys and Dolls, in the North Theatre at the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts in Skokie, 9501 Skokie Blvd, Skokie, March 6 – 30, 2025.
For tickets and information contact Music Theater Works Box Office: (847) 673-6300 or visit their website MusicTheaterWorks.com
Be sure to listen to our podcast theater review.
March is National Reading Month and National Women’s History Month. Let’s investigate some Chicago Women who have left a mark on our local history and on the world stage. ChicagoBroadcastingNetwork.com encourages you to investigate the lives and works of many notable Chicago women especially a …
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 the end of the line. The massive sky in the background adds to the fact that this is a story of two people stuck in a small room focused on their problems while there is a whole big world outside, that like me, really doesn’t care.
New podcast subscriber Donna Codell wants to remind you to get more fruits and veggies into your diet in order to reach optimal health. You can learn more by visiting her website donnacodell.juiceplus.com
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“Fool for Love” is at Steppenwolf Theater, 1650 North Halsted Street, Chicago. Through March 23, 2025 Tickets are available at steppenwolf.org or by calling (312)335-1650
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 …
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 rejecting the opinions of others based on their view of us.
The four-person cast includes Mark Pracht, a Jeff Award winner playing The Beast. Kat Evans, plays an animated lamp called Only. Appearing as The Witch is Elaine Carlson, who has earned two Jeff Award nominations. Completing the cast as the independent Aiofe is Cailyn Murray, a new-to-Chicago actress who moved from Washington DC to Chicago in 2023.
GLASSHEART A CHICAGO PREMIERE written by Reina Hardy is Directed by Artistic Director Brian Pastor
through February 23, 2025 at City Lit Theater, 1020 W. Bryn Mawr, on the second floor (accessible via elevator) of the Edgewater Presbyterian Church.
Tickets available online at www.citylit.org or by phone at 773-293-3682.
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